Obama's resolution? To limit dealings with Congress

The L.A. Times reports:

Heading into the new year, President Obama will insist that Congress renew the payroll tax cut through the end of 2012, but will otherwise limit his dealings with an unpopular Congress, and instead travel the country to deliver his reelection message directly to voters, a White House aide said.

"In terms of the president's relationship with Congress in 2012 — the state of the debate, if you will — the president is no longer tied to Washington, D.C.," spokesman Josh Earnest said in a news briefing in Honolulu.

The assertion is striking given that Obama, as president for nearly three years, is the symbol and personification of the federal government. It also offers a glimpse into an Obama reelection strategy that will target a "do-nothing'' Congress much in the style of Harry S. Truman's reelection campaign in 1948.

With most legislative cliffhangers behind him, Obama does not consider the rest of his policy agenda to be a "must-do" for lawmakers, Earnest said.

Obama sure likes the status quo spending levels in Washington.