Hope and Change a Year Later

So, where does President Obama stand a year after his inauguration? He has had some successes and some notable failures. Ideologically, his administration has been a mixed bag, giving ammunition to his many critics. He included people who are part of the 9/11 Truth movement and admirers of Chairman Mao, Wall Street insiders, and veterans of the Chicago political machine.

Progressives will hate me for pointing it out but Obama's biggest successes have been extensions of Bush policies. Iraq continues to improve and most of Obama's policies to stabilize the economy were continuations of Bush's. Bush was already shifting troops into Afghanistan before Obama ordered further buildups.

Obama's most spectacular failure was his promise to eliminate partisan politics. If anything, things have gotten worse. Bush never had more than 50 votes in the Senate but managed to establish a working majority. Obama needs 60 votes to pass anything. Part of this is because Obama is pushing a much more partisan agenda than Bush did and part is sheer arrogance. With clear majorities in both houses, Obama and the Democratic leadership felt that they didn't need the Republicans so there was no outreach to them as a group.

Obama invented the phrase "Wall Street and Main Street" but his administration is often seen as putting Wall Street ahead of Main Street. The various versions of health care reform have major concessions to Wall Street and the credit card reform gave banks several months to raise interest rates before it went into effect.

Probably Obama's biggest mistake was giving health care such priority. His first budget projections showed that the White House expected the recession to end in early Summer followed by a robust recovery. Accordingly, he and the Democrats passed a huge stimulus which was packed with pork. This energized the Tea Party movement. Obama expected the economy to have improved on its own by now, allowing him to claim credit. Instead the recovery started months later than expected and has been very weak. There is a very real chance that the economy will slip into a "double dip" recession. Unemployment figures only stabilized because of the huge number of people who have stopped looking for work. The real jobless rate has continued to climb and is at a post-WWII high.

Americans want to see the President focusing on their top priority - jobs. Instead, the only subject that Washington has concentrated on since July has been health care. This tone-deaf approach and the prospects of a new massive spending program has alienated independents and made the Tea Party stronger.

Overseas, Obama is popular with most of the world but has no standing with world leaders. He has strained relations with traditional allies like the UK and Turkey. His overtures to Russia and Iran have been rebuffed. Despite his promises about the effectiveness of "intensive diplomacy", Iran and North Korea have accelerated their nuclear weapons programs.

A recent poll showed that most of the country still approves of Obama personally but opposes his policies. He runs a real risk of becoming the next Jimmy Carter who was considered a nice guy who was in over his head.

Obama has expressed his desire to be the next Ronald Reagan - a president who changed the relationship between the country and its inhabitants. There are two lessons that he should learn from Reagan. First - Reagan had major Congressional losses in his mid-term elections. Obama can expect to lose most of his majorities in Congress and it is not out of the question for the Republicans to gain control of one or both houses. Second, Reagan was able to pass his agenda despite never controlling the House and losing control of the Senate in 1986. Like Reagan and Bill Clinton, Obama has to learn how to get along with the Republicans if he wants to salvage his presidency.