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What did President Obama learn about governance in 2011? His detractors say "not enough." But his Democratic base thinks he's finally listening to them, and looking tougher as a result. It was a year in which the economy and Congress were both stalled, and Americans were roughly divided about the job the president was doing.

Obama began the year by talking up spending freezes, smaller deficits and "winning the future" for the American economy. He started out with a bow to Republican ideas: lower taxes for businesses, smarter regulations, a government that would do with less. He traveled the country touting infrastructure, high-tech manufacturing and innovation. The economic trends, he said, were slowly moving in the right direction.

But by the end of a year marked by Washington’s brinksmanship over the nation’s borrowing authority and possible default, Obama rhetorically rolled up the bridges to Republicans and hoisted a “fair share” flag for the middle class. There had been a time when “common ground” was the president’s favorite phrase. By year’s end, he’d become an anti-Washington warrior pointing fingers at the GOP for trafficking in gridlock, partisanship and policies that favored the wealthy.

Obama spent his summer traversing a swing-state map in a bus to call attention to his focus on everyday workers -- and the tens of millions of Americans still unemployed and underemployed. Along the way, as the president’s domestic legislative achievements thinned, he reveled in flexing his executive authority, especially on the international scene. On that terrain, his standing grew, although Americans have not shown an inclination to base their opinion of Obama on his performance abroad.

On the president’s orders, U.S. Special Forces killed Osama bin Laden, and unmanned drones obliterated suspected terrorists operating in Afghanistan. With U.S. encouragement, despots fell in Egypt and Libya, and world pressure ramped up against Iran and Syria. The United States turned Iraq’s governance over to Iraqis, and American troops shipped out. Obama stuck with tough positions in favor of U.S. border enforcement and against illegal immigration, and he compromised to get some long-stalled trade deals through the Senate.

It was, by all accounts, a choppy year for Obama, and 2012 promises to be the same heading toward November’s elections. To keep his job, historians and political scientists suggest, Obama will have to defy the odds of incumbent defeat set during previous periods of economic stress.

The president’s signature legislative achievements -- an $800 billion stimulus bill; health care reform; financial regulatory reform -- are controversial rather than popular. His GOP challengers insist his policies have hurt rather than helped the economy. Even the extension of a payroll tax reduction endorsed by both parties provoked a December showdown with House Republicans that spiraled into a messy eight-week reprieve until the battle resumes next year.

Obama’s domestic policy agenda is effectively on ice through the election. Prolonged deficit negotiations with congressional Republicans last summer that fell short of Obama’s avowed $4 trillion target made him appear weak among Democrats and independent voters, and his job approval took a beating. Even the president’s no-drama demeanor and eloquent speeches, once considered assets, came off as bloodless and disappointing to some struggling Americans, even to some who voted for him and wished him well.

Did this bitter year of divided government offer Obama some useful instruction for governance? At least one yardstick worth checking has been Obama’s own. After the 2010 midterm elections, Obama outlined four broad areas in which he said he’d learned lessons he would apply in 2011. He said he would improve his communications; govern from the center; maintain his focus on Americans’ biggest concerns; and work effectively with Republicans to achieve common goals. So how did he do?

Communicate

Obama has occasionally blamed some of his troubles on messaging rather than on policy or even partisan politics. “One of the things that I have learned in Washington is you have to repeat yourself a lot because, unfortunately, it doesn't penetrate,” he said.