It’s crunch time for Obama’s agenda

51 Political Science Professor Cal Jillson talks about how much importance should be assigned to the President achieving his agenda by Congress's August break.

By Linda Feldmann

It’s July 1, and the bell has rung for perhaps the most crucial month yet in Barack Obama’s presidency.

By the end of the month, it should be clear whether President Obama’s top legislative initiatives – healthcare reform and climate-change legislation – are on track. They don’t need to be signed and sealed, but both require significant progress in Congress during this next stretch before the August recess, analysts say. . .

Analysts warn against reading too much into the July sprint toward the August recess. “It’s true that in the next months, important things will happen, but it’s not make or break,” says Cal Jillson, a political scientist at 51 in Dallas.

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