Self-assured Obama to 'leave it on the field' for gun control

President Barack Obama can look back on 2015 and take credit for landmark deals over Republican objections on climate, Iran and government spending. The year 2016 may be a tougher stretch, because he's promising action on another thorny issue: gun control.

The new gun rules - coming in weeks, White House Communications Director Jen Psaki told reporters on Friday -- open a final year in office for Obama in which he will employ his personal authority to win major policy changes and assert himself in the November elections, making him far more visible than his predecessors.

"Since taking this office, I have never been more optimistic about a year ahead than I am right now. And in 2016 I'm going to leave it out all on the field," Obama said today at a White House news conference before departing for Christmas vacation in Hawaii.

Obama's self-assurance at a point in the political cycle when presidents often are relegated to lame-ducks culminates a year in which he has made full use of the powers of the presidency to reach ground-breaking international agreements and drive a domestic agenda over the opposition of a hostile Congress.

He concluded the first global climate change agreement, closed a nuclear deal with Iran, negotiated an Asia-Pacific trade deal, ended the US isolation of Cuba and imposed new pollution controls on US power plants. About 90 minutes after his news conference, he signed a $1.1 trillion spending package that averted a government shutdown. He pointed to an improving economy as evidence his policies are helping ordinary Americans.

"As I look back on this year, the one thing I see is that so much of our steady persistent work over the years is paying off for the American people in big, tangible ways," Obama said. The Gallup Poll, based on surveys conducted December 7-13, showed his public approval rating at 45 per cent, up two percentage from a year earlier.

Gun control is first on the agenda for the coming year. Wading into the issue at the start of primary voting in the presidential campaign is sure to provoke vehement political and legal challenges, similar to his attempt last year to end the threat of deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants. That action remains mired in a court battle.

No major gun-control measure has emerged from Washington since the 1994 assault weapons ban, which expired ten years later and was not renewed. Obama's unsuccessful attempt to win congressional passage of new gun-control laws after the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, sapped political capital at the beginning of his term.

The White House doesn't plan a repeat of that fight. By choosing to move forward only with executive actions, Obama avoids being tied down in another protracted congressional battle he would likely lose. Democrats since former President Bill Clinton have tried without success to pass legislation expanding background checks by closing what critics call the gun-show loophole.

The trade-off is that the steps Obama takes won't be as far-reaching and may be more vulnerable to legal challenge.