Obama’s Actions May Pose Biggest Risk to Presidential Honeymoon
By Edwin Chen
Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Bill Clinton said his presidential honeymoon lasted 35 seconds. Dwight Eisenhower’s never really ended. Gerald Ford’s monthlong glow vanished overnight with his “full, free and absolute” pardon of Richard Nixon.
All new presidents enjoy that fickle grace period marked by relative harmony and low-decibel partisanship.
For Barack Obama, the question is how long his honeymoon will endure and how much of his ambitious agenda he can achieve before it ends, perhaps -- if history is a guide -- as a result of his own actions.
“New presidents abort their own honeymoons,” said political analyst Charlie Cook. “There’s a residual goodwill that comes into office with them, and it stays with them until they end it by making mistakes.”
Presidential honeymoons provide Americans a first in-depth look at their newly elected leader while granting him a chance to set a tone and style that is likely to carry long-term consequences for the country and his presidency.
“First impressions tend to be lasting ones,” said Thomas Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution, a research organization in Washington. “Mistakes made early can certainly weaken a president -- not necessarily destroy his presidency but slow him down.”
War, Economy
There are emerging hairline cracks that foreshadow turbulence. These include questions about back taxes owed by Treasury Secretary-designee Timothy Geithner and a rift between Obama and congressional Democrats over his economic stimulus package. The new president has already been forced to flip-flop over the status of Roland Burris, his Senate successor, whose appointment he initially opposed.
In addition, Obama, 47, inherits two wars and what is billed as the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. Still, he is poised to enjoy a sweeter honeymoon than most of his predecessors.
“Obama has the chance to have the biggest honeymoon we’ve seen in decades,” said David Gergen, a professor of government at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard University who worked for Presidents Nixon, Ford, Ronald Reagan and Clinton.
High Ratings
Post-election polls consistently show high approval ratings for Obama. In a survey released yesterday by the Washington- based Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 79 percent of Americans, including 59 percent of Republicans, said they have a favorable impression of the president-elect. Bush’s personal favorability just before he took office in 2001 was 60 percent, and Clinton’s was 69 percent shortly before he was inaugurated in 1993, said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center.
When a new president takes office, “Congress, at least the opposing party, is usually a bit reticent at first to take him on,” said George C. Edwards, a historian at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.
There also is “an afterglow from the election, so the public is generally likely to be more supportive.”
Thus, in the face of the twin challenges of war and fixing the economy, most Americans -- including the president he will replace -- are rooting for Obama to succeed.
“We wish the president-elect and his team all the best,” President George W. Bush told reporters at the end of his final Cabinet meeting Jan. 13. “It is our genuine wish that they do well.”
2 Phases
While every presidency is unique, the first year tends to have two phases, Gergen said.
The first is the traditional First 100 Days, set by Franklin Roosevelt. The other runs from the inauguration to the congressional summer vacation.
Many lawmakers return in the autumn ready to showcase their differences with the president, driven in part by their own re- election races a year later. After those midterm elections, a new presidential campaign season kicks into gear, making bipartisan cooperation on big issues more difficult still.
“August has been cruel to a great many presidents,” Gergen said.
The lesson is “strike early and focus on your high priorities,” Edwards said.
Presidents at times seem all-but obsessed with honeymoons - - or the lack thereof.
Within days of taking office in 1974, Ford told Congress: “I do not want a honeymoon with you. I want a good marriage.” His pardon of Nixon a month later prompted a 30-point drop in his public-approval rating.
Nixon Pardon
As a consequence, “Ford’s ability to get results plunged,” said Fred Greenstein, a historian at Princeton University in New Jersey.
Reagan joked shortly after his 1984 re-election, “If I’ve had a honeymoon with the Congress, romance has been dead in Washington for four years.”
Reagan’s 1981 honeymoon was already stalled by late February, but his popularity soared after surviving an assassination attempt in March.
“The shooting gave him an enormous boost,” said Gergen, who was a top Reagan aide. “It was a significant turning point in his presidency.”
‘Banana Peel’
Historians said Clinton had only himself to blame for his short-lived honeymoon, which was caused by such distractions as the uproar over his gays-in-the-military policy, a $200 haircut aboard Air Force One and snafus with top Cabinet appointments. Gergen, who later served Clinton as a counselor, said he slipped on “one banana peel after another.”
Clinton eventually recovered and went on to outwit the congressional Republicans in a budget dispute that led to a government shutdown.
Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson made the most of their honeymoons: FDR with the New Deal and LBJ with the Great Society.
“Roosevelt got a huge amount of legislation enacted and was overwhelmingly re-elected,” Greenstein said. “Then he brought it all to a crashing end when he made his Supreme Court- packing proposal.” This didn’t prevent him from being elected to four terms, however.
Johnson enjoyed two honeymoons. The first was in 1963, when as vice-president he ascended to the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The second was in 1964, when he won the election by a landslide. Public disenchantment with the Vietnam War eventually led Johnson to not seek re-election in 1968.
Eisenhower Record
Eisenhower enjoyed the longest honeymoon. “There was not single month in which more people disapproved of his conduct than approved,” Greenstein said.
For Obama, the political goodwill and high public expectations may be a double-edged sword.
“Sometimes, efforts to move quickly before the pieces are in place can end up doing more harm,” Mann said. “A more measured way can lead to some positive impressions and more modest victories that can actually increase one’s political capital.”
Lawrence Jacobs, director of the center for the study of politics and governance at the University of Minnesota, said he doubts Obama’s honeymoon will break any longevity records.
“The deep-seated differences between the parties -- and the philosophical differences within the Democratic Party -- remain,” he said. “And within a short period of time, the differences will be front and center again.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Edwin Chen in Washington at EChen32@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 16, 2009 00:01 EST |
