Evaluate President Obama's performance in office so far

Barack Obama assumed the Presidency of the United States of America on January 20th 2009, fifteen months ago to this day. Declaring any Presidency a success or failure at this stage would be entirely unwise, given the months and years left to serve. If successful (as currently expected) in 2012, Mr. Obama could still be the President in the first weeks of 2017 . Therefore, it would be entirely unwise to declare his Presidency a success or failure at this relatively early stage. However, enough time has passed for us to begin to analyse Obama the national leader, rather than as Illinois senator, US Senator, or Presidential candidate. What have his first fifteen months accomplished, and what might another President have done with such issues and opportunities? This essay will first explore the meaning of ‘performance’ in this context, followed by a thematic discussion considering the personal, economic, domestic and foreign policy aspects of his Presidency. 

What is the Presidency of the United States, and how might we assess performance within it? The Founding Fathers were fearful of both 'monarchy and masses’ , bequeathing a post with great potential but ultimately limited in important respects. Since then, Corwin argues that the 'history of the Presidency is a history of aggrandizement’ , as each President has attempted, and often succeeded, in broadening the scope and power of the position. Today, the modern Presidency is difficult to even define, with Thomas S. Langston calling it the 'democratic priest-king’ ; three main roles with often contradictory demands. Wilson described Lincoln, often considered one of the greatest Presidents, as 'a common man with genius’ , and this hints towards the inherent paradox of the position.  When polled, Americans generally value sound judgement and high ethical standards above all else. However, these do not seem to be the characteristics which most obviously connect the Presidents generally considered 'great’. This label is applied to Washington, Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt  by both public and academia. Schlesinger’s famous surveys of historians in 1948 and 1962  both placed these three in the top echelon, valuing strength and 'moral leadership’  above idealism or flexibility. To consider the three together, they all overturned the status quo of their age, generally preferring what they considered to be right for the nation over what was immediately popular . They overcame great challenges and crises, greatly expanded the remit of the position, and gave successful legislative backing to great visions of the American future.

There seem to be three main metrics by which a leader’s performance can be measured.. The value of outcomes over the long term, the strength of decisions over the short and medium term, and the success with which the leader makes his decisions reality. Clearly, in the case of President Obama, only history books many years from now will be able to answer the first metric. We can begin to answer the second, but analysis of such decisions often follows unavoidably ideological lines. I believe the greatest value is to be had in considering the third point, concerning the ability of a President to make his vision of tomorrow’s America, whatever it may be, a reality. To a degree, this runs the same risk as the 'theoretical paradigm’  of this field, Neustadt’s 'Presidential Power’ , to explain and analyse power without considering the ends to which it may be put. Therefore, it seems fair to assume that, with notable exceptions, each President follows what he believes to be the best course for the country. With that assumption in mind, we can analyse the Presidency along Neustadt’s lines, who argued that 'what is good for the country is good for the president, and vice-versa’ . If he can articulate a coherent vision for his Presidency, and execute it efficiently, then he should be considered successful. 

This essay will include references to a number of Presidents where relevant, to highlight similarities with and contrasts to President Obama. However, I have also chosen to focus on one President in particular, against which the 44th President can be measured. Among the leaders studied, Jimmy Carters gives the most obvious comparison: a Democrat who was elected President after an unpopular Republican, who had left serious economic problems to be addressed. Bill Clinton is another example, with a less similar story, but who shares more of Obama’s charisma and ability to persuade an audience. However, I agree with Corwin that the Presidency is constantly evolving, 'tempered by time’ , and believe that we can learn more through contrast than similarity. Therefore, I will compare the first fifteen months of the 44th President with the same period of the 43rd, held by George W. Bush. How successful was his early period in comparison, and what might his example have to teach the current President?

The 56th Presidential election held in Novemeber 2008 handed Barack Obama a solid victory, with 365 electoral college votes to John McCain’s 173. This was the strongest election showing for at least the past twenty years , and formed an impressive end to a strong campaign. By contrast, the 2000 election was the closest since 1876, giving the popular vote to Al Gore, and finally decided by a 5-4 vote in the Supreme Court. This effectively halved G.W. Bush’s transition period, even as many in the country considered him an illegitimate leader. At best, we could agree with Pfiffner and simply say that Bush was left with a 'bad mandate ’. However, a mandate has two parts: the endorsement of the public, and the course being endorsed. Bush was elected on fairly limited promises, with tax cuts being the only particularly distinctive policy. Indeed, beyond the cuts, Mann argues that everything about the Bush campaign 'looked rather small. ’ Obama, for better or worse, had made rather greater promises, stating that he would deliver 'change’ to the people of America. This was never precisely outlined, but we can characterise it as as a differentiation in numerous ways from the Bush Presidency. For example, Obama promised to end the detainment at Guantanamo Bay, remove the armed forces 'Don’t ask don’t tell’ policy, and push for the acceptance of gay marriage. Unfortunately progress on these issues has been slower than expected, and non-existent on others. In June 2008 he promised a 'windfall tax’  on oil and gas companies, but the policy has since been removed from campaign websites. This is reflected in 59% of a poll  agreeing that the President doesn’t keep his promises. Perhaps it would have been more sensible to only promise what the President could realistically achieve, to avoid disappointing eager supporters later on.

In 1980 it seems that the American people chose Reagan as their next President in part because his personality was everything Carter’s wasn’t: 'strong, self-assured and visionary’ . This highlights the importance of personality in the US system. President Obama appears to be a cautious consensus-builder , who strongly believes in logical, careful thought . He proved to be an excellent orator on the campaign trail, but has a tendency to prefer oratory over explanation. As of early 2010 his personal approval rating (58%) remains fairly strong, even as other indicators slide. According to Pfiffner, Bush he 'prefers moral certainty and visceral reaction to strategic calculation and reflection’ , which seems entirely accurate. In his own words he is a 'gut player’ , placing great importance on his instincts as a guide. Condoleezza Rice said more recently that “it’s complex” was one of the President’s least favourite phrases , preferring to make strong decisions along relatively simple lines. When the administration began to lose direction in August 2001, his single-mindedness was listed as a significant downside, but that soon became a strength when faced with an enemy. 

In terms of vision, leaders are often characterised as hedgehogs, who attempt to relentlessly sell one aim, or foxes, who keep many aims at once.  Much like Carter before him, Obama appears to fit the profile of the fox, who has never really had a 'single narrative ’ to his presidency. 'Change’ explained him as a candidate, which soon changed to leader of the economy once in office, then morphed into champion of healthcare. He tends to focus on issues rather than values, hoping that providing sensible answers is the best way forward. The early Bush Presidency was a clear hedgehog, with tax cuts forming an obvious 'legislative centrepiece’ . His vision of 'compassionate conservatism’  encapsulated the economic changes, along with a few other matters such as education reform and faith provision. He made fairly limited promises to the American people, but Bush managed to package them in a coherent manner, which Obama has generally lacked. 

Despite having a greatly shortened transitional period due the to mentioned constitutional issues, George W. Bush is often praised for how he handled the changeover. Pfiffer states that he showed 'impressive leadership skills’  in the early period, especially with regard to his appointments.  Perhaps the most important was Dick Cheney as Vice President, who had previously been a Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford and was experienced within the Washington system.  It is argued that Bush produced the 'most functional White House since Eisenhower’ , with talented staff placed into useful positions quickly and efficiently. With the team together, the Bush White House could start controlling the media agenda on a rolling basis, with each priority policy being correctly 'seeded’ to attract the largest and most favourable air time.  Bush toured 29 states by May , becoming the most widely domestically travelled President in history. He used these trips to sell his plans in carefully prepared and managed events. By contrast, the Obama transition was less successful. Though a minor point, the verbal slip-up during the Inauguration burst the apparent bubble of Obama’s oratorical infallibility, and a number of problem appointments reinforced the doubts. 

In terms of early political capital, Obama has not been particularly successful. His Gallup polling, from an initial high, fell faster than any other President since Ford pardoned Nixon (down 15% to 53% by January 2010)  . This was despite no change (87%) in Democratic supports, and mainly down to a poor reaction from independents (49% and falling) . An interesting correlation is with the Reagan Presidency, whose first year polling correlates strongly (0.88 ) with Obama’s. In Reagan’s case, his approval brushed close to 40% before rebounding with the economy, which be a bitter-sweet lesson for Obama. Despite his limited mandate, Bush felt his father had wasted the political dividends of the Desert Storm campaign , and decided before entering the White House to govern as if he was hugely supported . His few priorities were aggressively pushed to a Democratic house, and by the time of the 2002 midterms, Bush took the unusual step of actively campaigning.  He visited fifteen states in the final five days of the election, and is considered to have helped with the Republican capture of the House. By contrast, Obama has been a limited party campaigner so far, with three attempts to his name and three losses. One of those was a Massachusetts Senate Seat, when capture by the Republicans threatened landmark healthcare legislation and raised questions about Obama’s value to the wider Democrat movement. 

It’s often said that the three priorities for a president are foreign policy, economic matters, and domestic affairs. I will examine them in the order of their topical importance, beginning with the economy. Clearly, Bush and Obama began their respective presidencies with markedly different economic conditions. Bush had watched America go through its most prosperous decade in the 90s, which left him with a $200bn surplus with which to deal with problems. Early issues included the December 2001 collapse of Enron , and the 2001 DotCom crash. American stocks slid from their highs for most of Bush’s first term , and his average yearly GDP increase of 2.5% was poor by post-war standards. Obama, far from inheriting a surplus, instead had a $1.3trn budget deficit and $10.5trn public debt to deal with, as well as expensive energy and credit , and the cost of two wars. 

For Obama, like many world leaders in 2009, the answer was an economic stimulus. Previous policy at the Federal Bank had left interest rates close to zero, so fiscal stimulus was the remaining option, in the form of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Economist predicts that the US economy will grow by 3% in 2010, compared to a 2.4% fall in 2009 , but the effect of the stimulus remains unclear. By August 2009 only 19% had been spent, and job creation estimates differ wildly. Obama also continued the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), expanded loans to the car industry, and started the Car Allowance Rebate System (Cash for Clunkers), but these are similarly difficult to analyse at this early stage.  Republicans in Congress were set against the bill, with Jim DeMint (SC) arguing that defeating Obama would be 'his Waterloo. It will break him’ . Fortunately for the President, the bill passed relatively easily, 244-188 and 61-37 with the support of three Senate Republicans. The most expensive provision of the bill, a major tax cut of $400 per worker and $800 per couple, should prove popular, as the TARP is helping the Dow-Jones rise 30% year-on-year. It seems that Obama may be able to take credit for saving the economy without the blame for its demise, with 67% blaming his predecessor for the economic mess, compared to only 37% for him . Ultimately, much like Reagan, much rests on the future of the economy.  

Bush similarly began his Presidency by pushing a major economic proposal, but his was less of a reaction to events. He asked, as he had throughout his campaign, for major tax cuts, possibly around $800bn. Such a focus on the supply-side, termed 'voodoo economics’  by his father, was controversial, with 450 economics and ten Nobel Laureates signing a letter against the plans. Once implemented in the Economics Growth and Tax Reconciliation Act, the cuts were mostly saved, which kept interest rates up as the government couldn’t pay down its debt while providing little boost for the economy.  Cuts planned for 2004 and 2006 further affected interest rates with no positive effect, as regular consumers almost never act on the basis of distant tax changes. The changes inevitably harmed the budget deficit, but also increased income inequality in America.  Despite campaigning on the bill’s benefits for lower and middle class workers, who were promised a saving of $1100  on average, the bill mainly benefited the very rich, with regular workers saving an average of $100. Despite resonating well with the electorate, Bush’s heavy campaigning failed to materially alter support for the bill, and he had to accept serious changes. The cuts were vastly reduced to 48% of their original size, deadlines were introduces, and many of the changes were to be phased in over the decade. However, the Bush administration had pleased its generally wealthy backers with a large tax cut (top rate from 39.6 to 35%), and achieved an early success. The bill made good the main promise Bush had made during the campaign, and signalled that the Republicans were in control after eight years of Clinton. Also, in the longer term the change hamstrung Democrats, even as they held the House, from pushing further social spending in tightened times. 

The second major priority of 2009/10 has been a domestic issue, that of healthcare. Reforming healthcare was clearly one of Obama’s main priorities during the campaign, and despite Americans considering the economy by far the most important issue, he has put more effort into healthcare than job creation. Healthcare in America consumed around 14.5% of GDP in 2009, which is around double the proportion of other comparable societies, while generally delivery equivalent or sometimes lesser outcomes. The last major attempt at reform was by the Clinton Administration in 1993/4, led by Hillary Clinton. Its failure became a model to avoid for Obama, with conventional wisdom holding that it failed because the White House put too much energy into writing the bill without Congressional input. For this reason, as with the stimulus package, Obama left the writing of the bill to Congress, but this may not have been sensible. It can be argued that 'Hillarycare’ failed because the bill was overly complex, and more importantly that Hillary Clinton was unwilling to compromise with moderate Republicans.  Indeed, the final 2010 bill bears a striking resemblance to what moderate Republicans would have helped pass in 1994.  

Instead, it appears that Obama’s more hands-off approach was not a particularly sensible course of action. He argued on the campaign trail for the public option, claiming that it was needed to 'keep insurance companies honest’. Despite being intensely popular with large sections of his party, Obama was largely quiet about the public option once in office, presumably because of an estimation that it wouldn’t make it through the Senate. This Realpolitik view was particularly held by the Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, who argued forcefully for whatever compromises would be necessary to get the bill passed. However, this created tension in the party when 60 Democrat Representatives demanded the public option be included before they could vote for it, whereas another 52 from the other side of the party argued that they couldn’t vote for it with the option included.  Very late on, in February 2010, Obama presented his own version of the bill, and started strongly campaigning for the cause of health reform. However, it seems that this conversion to public promotion came too late, with approval of the bill after passing standing at 41%. This is despite the inclusion of several extremely popular measures, such as barring the refusal of care to those with pre-existing conditions, allowing children to remain on parents’ plans till 26 years old, and expanding Medicaid eligibility. However, Obama could only manage to squeak the bill through the House 219-212, and needed a Senate reconciliation process to finish the job . Despite Bush using the same tactic on occasion, this use of powers infuriated the Republicans , with Senator McCain arguing that the President had 'poisoned the well’  on bipartisan co-operation. Of course, little to no co-operation was ever in the offing, but support for the bill did drop around ten points after the reconciliation method was used. As Jefferson said, 'great social innovation shouldn’t rest on slender majorities’. 

So where does the healthcare reform leave us? It will cover 32m of the 49m Americans without cover by 2014, with the rest either undocumented aliens or healthy people who will choose to pay the penalties. Obama was always vague about how the bill would be paid for, with the cut to Medicare being especially unpopular with older voters, with whom Obama has always struggled.  When looking back over Obama’s campaign, it seems that his health priorities were to improve coverage and reduce costs. On the former he did fairly well, although future immigration changes will largely decide the full outcome. On the latter, however, little progress was made. Health insurance exchanges were established, but they will have little effect without a public option. One major proposal, to have the government negotiate down drugs prices, was negotiated away for $80bn from pharmaceutical companies, which appears entirely too low . The RAND Corporation has estimated that the bill will, despite dropping the cost of premiums because of more healthy people buying healthcare, actually increase the US’s health spend 2% by 2020 . The Congressional Budget Office’s projection of costs, at $940bn over 10 years , also includes a planned tax on so-called 'Cadillac’ healthcare plans, which seems highly unlikely to ever make it into reality. Of course, one could argue that the bill represents the best that the President could have hoped for in the circumstances. However, the difference between a good and great President is the ability to reshape the political landscape, to move the goalposts in favour of his own vision. In tacking so hard towards Realpolitik, compromising so early and often, and refusing to invest too much personal capital in each bill, President Obama appears to be risking the waste of his originally powerful mandate. 

The final area I will consider is that of foreign policy, given great prominence in Aaron Wildavsky’s  'two presidencies’ . While campaigning, Bush promised a 'humble’ foreign policy , with less of Clinton’s 'assertive humanitarianism’  while retaining the pro-trade leanings . His early time in office was largely marked by withdrawing from a number of international agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol (1997)  and Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972) . However, the events of September 11th 2001 changed everything. First used by Charles Krauthammer in 2001, the 'Bush Doctrine’ was developed in response to 9/11, but had earlier ideological underpinnings within the White House. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz had been members of the Project for the New American Century, who disagreed with Reagan’s 'peace dividend’ and believed in American military exceptionalism. Those with multilateralist leanings in the White House (particularly Colin Powell) , were crowded out by those who held a 'with us or against us’ attitude. The concept of pre-emption, a central part of the Bush Doctrine, was not as new as it seemed, having been considered against USSR throughout much of the Cold War , and practised as recently as 1989 in Panama . 

These changes, along with the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, formed a major part of Obama’s inheritance as President. He has argued against adopting a 'doctrinaire’ approach, but has outlined five pillars of foreign strategy: end the war in Iraq, finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban, secure nuclear materials, achieve energy security, and rebuild international alliances. The June 2009 speech at Cairo University was a turning point, which called for a 'new era’ of American relations with the Middle East, desiring democratic reforms to come from within countries rather than be imposed by the West. Another example is the abandoning the missile system in Eastern Europe, in the hope that Russia would be more receptive to sanctions for Iran. Unfortunately, with Iran purchasing long-range anti-air missiles from Russia, and continuing towards a nuclear bomb, these efforts to 'unclench the fist’ appear to be less than totally successful. White House policy on Israel/Palestine seems particularly muddled, with a demand put out for Israel to stop expanding its settlements when there was clearly no inclination to enforce compliance . The strategy is currently losing the respect of Israel, without making particular gains within the fissiparous world of Palestinian politics. President Obama appears to be attempting a degree of pragmatism within each foreign arena, but this may simply leave his policies appearing disjointed and lacking direction. When he said that Obama’s foreign policy was 'naïve and appeasing’, John Bolton may well have been wrong on the latter but largely correct on the former. 

Ultimately, my conclusion is that Obama, despite the severe ideological differences, has much to learn from the Presidency of George W. Bush. While many would argue that Obama has largely been making the right decisions in office, he has not been particularly successful at selling his policies to the electorate, especially considering his extraordinary electoral mandate. At least in terms of successfully implementing one’s aims, Obama was bettered over his first fifteen months by his immediate predecessor.