The first 100 days of President Barack Obama
Apr 29 2009 Agenda by Anthony Painter, Birmingham Post
voted last November regard themselves as conservatives according to exit polls. President Obama’s disapproval rating? Thirty one per cent per cent on average. The proximity of the two figures is not by chance. The people who disapprove of him are those who are ideologically opposed to him in the main.
Support for President Obama has cascaded into positive feelings about the direction of the nation. Last October, before the presidential election, only 17 per cent of Americans believed that their country was on the right track. That number has now risen to 48 per cent which is now greater than the 44 per cent of people who believe it is on the wrong track.
Perhaps this new wave of relative optimism will have an economic impact. If people feel optimistic about the future that could spill over into economic optimism which is just what the US needs right now. However, politics can not be just about popularity. It is, more importantly, about what you actually do. On this, President Obama has achieved probably more than any president since FDR. The list of actions completed or set in motion is mind-blowing. This is not an administration that lacks ambition.
The most significant measures include: a stimulus bill; a new regulatory system for Wall Street; a housing recovery plan; an ambitious budget which includes investment in renewable energy and energy saving measures, universal healthcare, and education; a toxic assets disposal plan; a rescue package for Detroit; a timetable for the withdrawal of non-combat troops from Iraq; a new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan including more troops; the closure of Guantanamo Bay; release of memos relating to torture sanctioned by the previous administration; a bi-lateral agreement with Russia to reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons and confront proliferation; an initial diplomatic message of goodwill sent to Iran on Nowruz; and an agreement with other G20 nations to re-regulate the world economy and beef up the ability of the IMF to intervene where countries are struggling.
The only major area of policy that is missing from that list is Israel and Palestine. With Israeli elections soon after his inauguration and given that Iranian elections are due in June, the administration hasn’t yet felt able to make a clear move on Middle Eastern peace. Expect a major initiative on that front before the summer.
What we don’t yet have is a clear idea of how President Obama will deal with an unforeseen crisis. The last president, George W Bush, was defined by the attacks on US on 9/11, almost eight months into his previously non-descript presidency.
In the case of President Obama, most of his initiatives have been designed to confront the inheritance from the last administration: economic crisis, two wars, and a series of highly questionable actions by the administration itself, military and security agencies. We won’t fully know this president until he is faced with a major unforeseen crisis. Unfortunately, the likelihood is that he will be at some point.
What we can observe from the early stages of this presidency is the leadership style of Barack Obama himself. At the G20 Summit he said, “We [the US] exercise our leadership best when we are listening; when we recognize that the world is a complicated place and that we are going to have to act in partnership with other countries.”
And that is his style: pragmatic but determined, contemplative but with a sense of direction, always looking for the deal but with particular objectives in mind. Those seem like good qualities but it remains to be seen how his patient approach will come across in a crisis. Rather well would be a best guess but we’ll see.
The ‘100 days’ construct is arbitrary and of questionable utility other than for historians. Nonetheless we can come to some tentative conclusions about this president. Other than for those who are ideologically opposed, the consensus seems to be that he has had a good start. There’s another three-and-a-half years or so before he has to fight for re-election.
Who knows what issues he will be fighting on? His leadership style and his early performance suggest that he could well have a strong case to make to historians and the electorate alike. But as a wise old British Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan, would have cautioned: events, dear boy, events.
* Rugby-based historian Anthony Painter is author of Barack Obama: The movement for change.
