As a backbencher was a solid conservative, and a reformer of the way the House did business, and he continued to fight for smaller government and conservative principles as he advanced in the leadership positions. He opposed President Obama's agenda, but in the face of a Democratically controlled Senate until 2015 and "the 60-vote rule" since the Republicans won the majority, it seemed to many that his fight was not as effective as it should have been, given that Mr. Boehner's party has its largest House majority since the 1920s.
Mr. Boehner's resignation was a surprise but not a shock, as there were a number of House members who were growing weary to see their majority rendered ineffective, and there is talk that the Senate may also be ripe for a similar step, with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the next to step down.
Some of the criticism of Speaker Boehner was unfair, for President Obama is not one to compromise - but Speaker Boehner gave the impression that he would not take steps to force the President to compromise, or to pass things that were veto-bait, or to force the President to come up with the votes to pass his agenda. Other Presidents, such as Reagan with a Democrat majority and Clinton with a Republican one, advanced their agenda through compromise with Congress. President Obama has been advancing his agenda, or at least protecting it from efforts to dismantle it, by different methods: such as circumventing Congress and disregarding the Constitutional details that generally were observed by previous presidents. Perhaps John Boehner would have been an effective Speaker if he had been dealing with a President who played by the same rules and obeyed the same constraints that other Presidents. It seemed as if the Republicans, with solid majorities in both houses of Congress, had to come up with super-majorities to defeat the President's agenda. Speaker Boehner's greatest flaw may have been a lack of imaginative ways to confront the President. Will his successor do any better?