What a difference a year makes. On Election Day 2008, a wave of euphoria swept round the world over the news that America had elected not just its first black president but also a transformational figure who, despite “the enormity of the task that lies ahead,†assured us that “all things are possible.â€
Has Barack Obama lived up to the promise?
A look at the numbers suggests that the euphoria has begun to fade. In a recent Gallup survey of Obama’s third quarter in office, his average job approval rating was 53%, a sharp decline from a post-election high of 70%. A Pew Research Center poll found that the American public’s confidence in Obama to fix the economy dropped from 70% in April to 59% in October. And even “Saturday Night Live†has begun to lampoon him, boiling down his accomplishments so far in one episode to “jack†and “squat.â€
Great Expectations
Part of the problem, explains Larry Berman, a University of California-Davis political scientist, is that Obama won by raising voters’ expectations to extraordinarily high levels. But because there’s a big difference between running for president, when it’s easy to promise all sorts of things, and actually governing, Obama has had to be more pragmatic than the far left wing of his party would like, moving slowly on issues such as the conflict in Afghanistan and immigration reform.
Independent voters who voted for President George W. Bush in 2004 and then Obama in 2008 are responding negatively to what Berman and other analysts describe as his desire to create an interventionist, or activist, government, particularly on issues like the economy and healthcare.
“They have a lot of questions. There’s no doubt he believes that taking on the healthcare battle is well worth it, but the cost has been very significant and has fueled an opposition movement whose impact is [still uncertain],†says Berman.
Saying Yes to the ‘Party of No’
One clear–and almost immediate–impact has been the single voice with which Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill have spoken since January on just about every Democratic proposal from cap and trade to universal healthcare.
“Their unity is in many ways astonishing because the Republican caucus is much more splintered,†says Michael Franc vice president for government relations at the conservative Heritage Foundation. They are not the automatons they may seem, and they actually like Obama as person, Franc says, but the liberal policies being pushed by him and congressional Democratic leadership have made it easy for Republicans to just say no.
“The $787 billion [stimulus bill] in the first few weeks of Obama’s administration struck a lot of people as rolling the dice with our economy. That was followed by other big proposals such as cap and trade, the auto industry takeover, setting executive pay, which are seen by voters as a fundamental shift from what government used to do,†says Franc. “A template has been set for not just minor change but change that will remake America and that’s the core of his political difficulties todayâ€
It’s also beginning to set the stage for the 2010 election cycle, which Franc predicts will be more right line than the nation has seen in a long time, with little room for debate in the middle ground.
“A majority of Americans who wanted change are finding that the change they desired is more modest than
the change being put before us today,†says Franc. A final healthcare reform bill in particular, he adds, will be a serve as a litmus test for a lawmaker’s tolerance for the level of government activity and involvement and Democrats running in conservative districts need to be prepared to defend their vote.Calvin Mackenzie, chair of Colby College’s government department, says the economy will play a major role when Americans return to the polls next November.
“If there are positive signs that the market is up, the economy is growing again and unemployment doesn’t exceed ten percent, Democrats will be in good shape if they can sell what they have rather than what they inherited,†he says.
The Economic Dilemma
When talking about the economy, Obama almost always reminds his audience that he inherited the current economy from his predecessor, but Berman warns that argument has begun to wear thin.
“He can’t blame Bush anymore He owns it now and he won’t be able to avoid the consequences of that in 2010,†Berman says.
According to an October Pew Research Survey, 31% of Americans believe Obama’s economic policies
have made things better; 20% believe they’ve made things worse; and 46% say there’s been no effect so far. Opinion on his stimulus plan is evenly split, at 44%, down 11% for those who favored the stimulus plan in June.Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, says it’s too soon to judge Obama’s performance in improving the economy, and to do so is unfair.
“I think those policies will create a great many problems in the future, like inflation,†he adds. “They’ve thrown so much money into the economy that when it does pick up there will be enormous inflationary pressure and the debt piled on will be very difficult to deal with. Obama would argue that he’s set a stronger foundation for the future.â€
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