Obama's Opportunity
voices.washingtonpost.com
by Chris Cillizza
When Barack Obama is sworn in as the nation's 44th president tomorrow at noon, he will inherit a country in the midst of a financial crisis of seemingly limitless proportions, a nation seeking to come to grips with its proper role in the world, and a series of international conflicts from Iraq to Israel.
All told, it represents the greatest political opportunity any president has had to fundamentally reshape the county at home and abroad in modern history.
Why?
Great crisis -- and it's hard to argue America is in anything but such a situation these days -- calls for great action, sweeping, elemental changes that in times of less turmoil would never pass muster.
Obama clearly grasps this odd sort of mandate -- a message from the American people to do something, anything to change the direction of the country -- and sees himself in the mold of the most transformational presidents, most notably Abraham Lincoln.
"We have kicked this can down the road," Obama said in an interview with Post editors and reporters last week. "We are now at the end of the road."
That sense that urgent action is required commingles in Obama with a distinct confidence (his detractors describe it as arrogance) that he is the kind of person who can bend the political system -- and the history of partisan politics -- to his will in order to tackle massive problems ranging from the recent economic collapse to needed reforms in long-standing entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
"I set the tone," Obama said last week in response to a question about his Administration's ability to peacefully coexist despite a gaggle of oversized egos and a management structure that some have criticized as duplicative. "If the tone is set that we bring as much intellectual firepower to a problem...that we make decisions based on facts and evidence then people will adapt to that culture," the president-elect insisted.
Recent polling suggests Obama will have the opportunity and, perhaps more importantly, the time to do big things.
A Washington Post/ABC News survey found that not only were nearly three quarters (72 percent) confident that Obama's policies will help improve the economy but more than nine in ten (91 percent) said any real improvements would take more than a year.
That data, which is similar to trends in the latest New York Times/CBS News poll as well as the new NBC/Wall Street Journal survey, suggests that Obama has effectively conveyed to voters the depth of the problems and the fact that there is no quick fix.
Given all of those numbers, it clear that Obama will have some time in which he is given something of a pass by voters as he seeks to sort out the country's financial problems.
He and his team are already moving quickly to take advantage of that pass -- a rarity in American politics -- going big with an economic stimulus plan that could cost between $825 and $1 trillion before all is said and done.
The question that, as of today, is unanswerable is how long the American public will wait before they begin to sour on Obama in the event the economy doesn't turn around. While most Americans seem content to wait a year or more for large-scale economic change today, that may not be the case if unemployment rates continue to rise and more and more people find themselves out of work or fearful that they might soon be without a job.
Politics is a fickle game. To date, Obama has played it as well as any politician could. And, he is putting down a big bet that the public's desire for change will overcome its hesitancy about seismic changes in the way government works in daily life.
"I hope to model a way of interacting with people who are not like you and who don't agree with you that changes the temper of politics," said Obama.
That's a huge task. But, out of great crisis comes great opportunity. |
