Immigration activists applaud President Obama's immigration plan, announced in November. Photo: AFP

Washington: In the six weeks since his party took a drubbing in the midterm elections, President Barack Obama has asserted the power of his office to check off the wish list from his 2008 campaign.

The spree began with the surprise announcement in Beijing last month that the US and China had concluded an accord committing both countries to capping carbon emissions. That was followed by his decision to unilaterally grant protection from deportation to as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants. On Wednesday, he announced he'll wipe away one of the most durable remnants of the Cold War, the half-century-long US estrangement from Cuba.

"He's using his executive power to the hilt," said William Galston, a former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "I can't think of a recent parallel."

A police officer on guard in Tiananmen Square as smog engulfs Beijing in October: an environmental disaster that may be alleviated by President Obama's US-China carbo-capping accord. Photo: Getty Images

Each of the actions furthers the promise of fundamental change Mr Obama made in his first presidential campaign. He also is looking ahead, toward securing the presidency for a Democratic successor in 2016. His initiatives place Republican lawmakers and potential 2016 presidential candidates in the position of defending party doctrine at odds with the views of the rising generation of voters and expanding population of minorities that helped propel Obama into office.

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Every Gallup poll since 1999 has shown a majority of Americans favour normal diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Mr Obama underscored the theme of a generational repudiation of outdated policies in his remarks announcing he would open a US embassy in Havana for the first time since 1961. He said the US effort to isolate Cuba was "a rigid policy that's rooted in events that took place before most of us were born."

President Barack Obama takes action on a number of fronts. Photo: AP

It's a truism of American politics that presidents focus on foreign policy in their second terms because it is an arena in which they can exercise greater authority without bringing along Congress. Mr Clinton in his final years in office also looked to his authority in domestic areas, such as by designating more land as protected wilderness areas.

Mr Obama "recognises time is fleeting. He only has two years left," said David Axelrod, Mr Obama's former top political adviser. "These are big, challenging generational issues that he spoke about when he ran for office, and I believe he doesn't want to leave office without addressing them."

Mr Obama has taken the second-term strategy to a new level. "The more typical model is that presidents in the last two years in office will do a bunch of little- to middle-sized things in the belief that those will add up to something big," Mr Galston said. "What's distinctive about Mr Obama is it's a big heap of big things, and they're highly controversial things."

Havana, seen this month, after President Obama announced a historic rapprochement between the US and Cuba. Photo: AFP

With his last presidential campaign in the past, Mr Obama no longer needs to consider the personal political consequences. That includes reaction in the Cuban-American exile community in Florida, a critical swing state in presidential elections. Among the younger generation of Cuban-Americans support for the embargo is waning.

The opening to Cuba harkens back to a pivotal moment early in Obama's first presidential campaign. Answering a question during a July 2007 debate, Mr Obama said he would be willing to meet without precondition with pariah foreign leaders to discuss differences. His Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, who later became his secretary of state and is a potential 2016 candidate, mocked his response as naive.

A year later, his Republican opponent, Senator John McCain of Arizona, attacked an Obama pledge to meet with Cuban President Raul Castro "at a time and place of my choosing". Mr Obama said during the campaign that he would take steps toward normalising relations with Cuba if the country made progress toward democracy.

An overhaul of immigration law to protect more undocumented workers from deportation was also a centrepiece of Mr Obama's 2008 campaign, as was action on climate change.

The administration abandoned its efforts to win congressional passage of a cap-and-trade regime limiting carbon emissions early in his administration because of opposition from energy-state senators. The China accord on carbon limits, which like the Cuba deal was negotiated behind the scenes and announced without any leaks that it was imminent, now comes on top of regulations issued earlier this year that will require coal power plants to reduce emissions.

Mr Obama also ordered the release this month of six prisoners from the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the largest transfer out of the offshore jail in five years. On December 16, he declared Alaska's Bristol Bay, a 400-kilometre stretch of coastline, indefinitely off limits for oil and gas exploration.

Administration officials signalled quickly after the November congressional elections that Mr Obama wouldn't back away from aggressive use of presidential authority even though Republicans gained control of the Senate and expanded their majority in the House.

"We're going to do what we think is best for the country," Mr Obama's senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer told reporters last month.   "If they have disagreements about the things we do, they have the capacity to legislate."

Bloomberg