To begin at the beginning: Presidents' personal preferences are important, but they are only one of the factors in determining what a president does in any situation. Personal presidential preferences are constrained in lots of ways. First, there's the political context, including the strength of the parties in Congress. That, of course, almost completely explains the differences between legislative outcomes this year compared to 2009-2010. It's not that the president "tilted" right; it's just that the same exact president, with the same exact preferences, will get very different results when Congress shifts dramatically.

Second, the president is constrained by his party. As the political scientist Richard Skinner has argued, presidents over the last thirty years have become increasingly creatures of their parties. Presidents are very responsive to party preferences, in part because their administrations are generally filled with party actors, rather than (as was the case in earlier eras) people personally loyal to the president.