"Happy Anniversary Mr. President!"

It's time to Break It Down!

One year ago today, President Barack Obama was inaugurated. A day many thought would never arrive has not only come and gone, but has been augmented by a year’s worth of history. The media clamor made the First Hundred Days seem almost as ballyhooed at the election itself. In fact there was a surprising dose of heat and light accompanying the Second Hundred Days. However, as I prepared to compose this post, a quick Google search led me to only one source discussing the President’s Third Hundred Days. Perhaps that was because the focus had already shifted to his first year.

Reflecting upon the President’s first year in office, much of the discussion points to Election Day, 2008. But, while it is true, he was elected November 4th, metaphorically speaking, he did not close the deal, and get the keys to the (White) House until January 20, 2009. Hence, for the purposes of my record-keeping, though November 4th 2008 is indeed an historic day, and may even mark the advent of the Obama era, today, January 20th, marks the anniversary of Mr. Obama’s tenure as President.

In taking a look at the past year in the life and times of the Obama Presidency, what if anything stands out? The classic approach to such a question is simply to take a checklist and go down it to see whether promises forged during the campaign have been kept. Even reducing the evaluation of the President’s performance to such a simple and straight-forward platform format could be a huge undertaking, if done in an exhaustive manner. Since neither the medium, nor the subject is conducive to a longitudinal study, I will select a number of items that have attracted significant media scrutiny over the past year, and make an assessment regarding “How Did the President Do?”

Well, for starters, I wrote about the First One Hundred Days April 29, 2009. At that time, POTUS’ poll numbers were still relatively high. He orchestrated the successful, if controversial, rollout of the stimulus package, he shepherded a fair number of his appointments through the confirmation process, and right around the 100th day, Senator Arlen Specter, PA, switched his Party affiliation to Democrat. All in all, it was a robust First One Hundred Days.

Similarly, I wrote about President Obama’s Second Hundred Days August 5, 2009. The Second Hundred Days was where the zeal and precocious enthusiasm of candidate Obama came squarely face to face with the fractious issues and relentless opponents that President Obama encountered on a daily basis. The most interesting and I imagine frustrating; aspect of this reality was that his opponents were as likely to be Democrats as Republicans. I noted in August, that quite possibly, the biggest impediment to President Obama ushering the Change We Can Believe In is a fractured Democratic Party. Specifically, I framed it this way:

• “If there is any one matter that warrants consideration as the
pivotal game-changer in terms of things the President needs to
address and Change before he can have any Hope of salvaging his
political ideals, uniting the Democratic Party screams for
attention. Call it the uppermost challenge of the Third Hundred
Days. Absent this critical shift in intraparty dynamics, major
legislative victories, within clear reach, will be impossible to
achieve; merely lost opportunities continuing to increase in
number.”

So we enter today knowing that the Senate Seat held forty-seven by the late Senator Edward Kennedy changed Parties last night, as Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley in a Special Election. Mr. Brown’s victory spelled a double-jeopardy defeat for Democrats. Not only did it wrest a Senate seat away in a state where Democrats had not lost a Senate election since 1972, but it also served to deprive Democrats of the 60-seat Super Majority in the Senate. The latter ensures that what already boded as a challenging road for Health Care Reform just became even more tortuous.

In an odd sort of way, the December 24th Senate vote to pass the upper chamber’s version of Health Care legislation, a vote which gave the President a win on his top domestic agenda item, seems increasingly like a Pyrrhic victory; symbolic, and far too costly. By all accounts now, it appears to have elicited a feel good moment that is likely unsustainable as the Senate is set to move forward with 59 Democrats, and one Massachusetts’ Republican who ran the latter stages of his campaign proffering the slogan, “Make me the 41st Senator!” The meaning was ever so clear. Mr. Brown aspired to be the one who would break the Democrat’s already tenuous hold on a Senate Super Majority.

It has been an quite a year; one filled with economic distress at home, multiple wars, and threats of wars abroad, dizzying unemployment rates, shrinking numbers of jobs, spiraling foreclosures, numerous bank bailouts and failures, a collapsing domestic auto industry, exorbitant interest rates on credit cards, and alternately, enormous financial industry bonuses, and profits.

When such a litany of destabilizing forces occurs, literally all at once, is it any wonder many people feel President Obama is the “New President George W. Bush?” In reality, the elements that caused those forces were already in place; no one could have turned them around in a year.

Perhaps, but it is clear that candidate Obama was more polished and effective at marketing his ideas and ideals than President Obama has been at executing them. Clearly some of the reason for the delivery gap lies with the wholesale uber partisanship maintained by the opposition Party. But let us be perfectly clear, the fly in this President’s ointment is his inability to galvanize his own Party into a cohesive and collaborative unit. Admitting this may be akin to screaming the Emperor is wearing nothing at all, but it is still inescapably true; just as much so as it was in the Second Hundred Days.

Congratulations and “Happy Anniversary Mr. President!” I hope you leverage the experience you gained in 2009, and chart a course for a more robust 2010; a gift from which all Americans would benefit. I’m done; holla back!

Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: http://thesphinxofcharlotte.blogspot.com. A new post is published each Wednesday. For more detailed information on a variety of aspects relating to this post, consult the links below:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/obama-inauguration

http://wbztv.com/politics/obama.inauguration.threat.2.1405203.html

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=262052851561&ref=share

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/01/05/tea-party-activists-planning-strike-on-inauguration-anniversar/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/obama-one-year-later-the_b_343209.html

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2010/01/17/assessing_obama_one_year_later_227868.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-18-obama-one-year-later_N.htm

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/11/02/juan-williams-obama-year-smart-ass/

http://www.bvblackspin.com/2009/11/03/barack-obama-one-year-later-off-to-a-good-start/

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091116/oneyearlater_video

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/us/politics/04obama.html

http://politicalmavens.com/index.php/2010/01/04/obama-one-year-later/

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/11/obama_one_year_later_a_little.html

http://www.sphere.com/article/the-point-1-year-later-hows-obama-doing/19260468

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorialsopinion/2010806657_pitts17.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-10-27-obama-year_N.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/18/AR2010011803594.html

http://www.reappropriate.com/2009/11/04/obama-one-year-later/

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-obama_day_in_lifenov04,0,212895.story

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/one-year-later-grading-president-obama/

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2009/08/first-300-days-assessment-of-obamas.html

http://vimeo.com/8024818

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/19/massachusetts.senate/index.html?hpt=T1