From the Atlantic: How Far Can Obama Get Without Congress?

Obama's approval rating is 52%, not very high historically, but Congress' is 15%. So what does this suggest he should do when it comes to dealing with Congress? Does he negotiate directly or does he go around them and take messages directly to the American people? His experiences working with Congress in his first term - even with Democrats - were not good, so the early indications are that he is taking his case to the public, but this is casing some hard feelings in Congress:

On Monday we saw two very different ideas for how President Obama should achieve his second-term policy goals — one in a campaign-style speech on gun control in Minneapolis and another in the recorded gripes of Democrats on Capitol Hill in Politico. Which one has the best chance of working?

In his speech, Obama took the side of the 85 percent of Americans who do not approve of the job Congress is doing, saying that while, "nothing is done until it's done" in Washington, the legislative branch needs "to do its part and to do it soon." In this case, Obama thinks its part is to pass gun control measures that have broad public support. Democrats, many of whom are on the President's side on the issue, think it would be more likely to happen if Obama quit campaigning and started talking to people in Congress. They feel "frustration and in some cases exasperation that a president who came from the Senate has no apparent appetite for cultivating relationships on Capitol Hill," Politico reports. A "senior Democratic official" says there's "a huge disconnect between their willingness to work with Senate Democrats and their need to work with Senate Democrats."

Even supporters of the President do not give him high marks for his ability to work with Congress.