The Hundred Day Mark

I can't help but participate in the media frenzy over Barack Obama's first 100 days in office. After all this is the first time in over 10 years that the candidate I voted for actually won the presidency, so I feel a special responsibility for his success or failure.

Looking back it's hard to image the very real fears some Americans felt about electing the first African-American president. In a series that NPR ran on voters in York, Pennsylvania, during the fall campaign, you could sense how uncomfortable some whites felt about him. As one woman put it, “"I don't want to sound racist, and I'm not racist. But I feel if we put Obama in the White House, there will be chaos. I feel a lot of black people are going to feel it's payback time,” ("York Voters Express Post-Election Hopes, Fears," NPR, October 24, 2008). Some white voters like this woman, sincerely thought there would be a racial backlash against whites as a result of this election, if not by Obama, than by voters of color who supported him.

Or course, this seems absurd now. President Obama acts neither like a black president, nor a white president; instead, he has presented himself above all as an American president, and projected an idea of America both here and abroad that is strongly welcoming of those who have felt left out of the political process: the middle class, recent immigrants, people of color, religious minorities, even atheists. Overseas, repressive governments may well feel that the greatest danger posed by Obama is not a resurgence of American imperialism but simply the outpouring of admiration and support among the young, particularly in the Middle East where most of the population is under the age of 30.

Here at home, the Republican Party watches in dismay as Obama woos voters away from their bases of support in the Midwest, West, and even the South. Demographics, both generationally and in growing minority populations, favor Obama's style of politics.

It is true that President Obama has had his own stumbles, particularly with candidates for cabinet and agency positions who turn out to be as beholden to special interests as Republicans nominees before them. For a while, it seemed that just about every nominee had a “tax problem” of some dimension, a few minor, a few serious enough to make it necessary for such candidates to take themselves out of consideration.

It is also true that President Obama finds himself constrained by the nation's overwhelming financial problems from addressing the many ethical questions left behind by the Bush Administration, including its perversion of the Constitution to justify torture, abrogate the right to habeas corpus, and spy on its own citizens in the name of fighting terrorism.

As a pragmatist, Obama has already made it clear he wants to delegate these constitutional and moral issues to the Justice Department so that he can cut the necessary deals with Republicans in both houses to make headway on his ambitious domestic agenda: expanding health care, pushing “green” industries, addressing climate change, and jump starting the economy, not to mention juggling two wars overseas and an ever-evolving series of foreign policy crises in North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, and the Middle East.

While it's too early to give Obama a “grade” for how he has performed domestically and internationally, he certainly deserves high praise for the work ethic he has demonstrated since he took office. No one is likely to compare his days spent on vacation with those of his predecessors, Reagan and Bush. His energy, ambition, and drive are literally breath-taking, yet so far, he exudes a cool-headness about his agenda rather than a sense of hubris.

But Obama's greatest accomplishment so far has been the change he has helped to effect in public confidence. Americans of all political persuasions give him high marks for character and personal integrity, something many thought had all but disappeared on the political stage. More importantly, an increasing number of Americans now believe that the country is on the right track. This month saw a surprisingly sharp uptick in consumer confidence,(1) which is a good indicator that Americans may start spending a little more freely, a necessity if economic activity is to expand again.

Anyone looking at the achievements of the President's first hundred days should also give credit to his wife, Michelle, for the tone she has helped set at home and abroad. Her warmth contrasts with his relative aloofness, and her down-to-earth intelligence combined with great personal charm has given rise to unexpected moments of connection, like the hug she shared with Queen Elizabeth that so shocked veterans of Buckingham Palace.

Obama's own memoir, The Audacity of Hope, seems like an appropriate label for his first hundred days. He has shown considerable audacity in what he has taken on, and he has given Americans hope that he can actually pull it off. That alone gets his Presidency off to a strong start.

(1) "The New York-based Conference Board said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index rose more than 12 points to 39.2, up from a revised 26.9 in March. The reading marks the highest level since November's 44.7 and well surpasses economists' expectations for 29.5," AP, April 29, 2009.