In perusing the headlines this morning, a couple jumped out at me, as they really shouldn’t be surprising to anyone.
First, ABC News Notes: A Strong Start for Obama – But Hardly a Bipartisan One
Barack Obama’s month-old presidency is off to a strong start, marked by the largest lead over the opposition party in trust to handle the economy for a president in polls dating back nearly 20 years. But the post-partisanship he’s championed looks as elusive as ever.
First, given the unpopularity of the previous president, the very successful campaign and election of Obama, and the fact that not that much time has elapsed since his inauguration, it should hardly be surprising that his popularity is high at the moment:
He leads the Republicans in Congress by 61-26 percent in trust to handle the economy, the biggest such lead for a president in ABC News/Washington Post polls since late 1991.
Given that the Republican Party held the White House when the economy tanked and they had not yet done anything other than oppose the stimulus package, it is likewise hardly surprising that the President has the upper hand here. Further, Democrats historically out poll Republicans on this type of question.
The other headline that struck me was from Jonah Goldberg’s column in today’s LAT: Obama finds the Bush center which has the subtitle “So far as president, Obama is startlingly like his predecessor on a number of issues.” The column goes on to detail a number of policies wherein Obama has not deviated all that much from the previous administration, especially in terms of foreign and defense policy. I find the column amusing in the sense that during the campaign many in Goldberg’s camp of pundits (certainly many of his compatriots at The Corner, and perhaps Goldberg himself) were carrying on about how radical Obama was going to be if he was elected. However, as it usually the case, presidents from either party tend to govern in a relatively narrow policy space. Regardless of anything else, the notion that Obama was going to be some serious departure from previous presidents was always so much hyperbole (although someone should tell Alan Keyes).
Of course, in general, perhaps everyone needs to remember that the man has only been in office just over a month, so any and all evaluations should be held in abeyance until a tad more time has passed, yes?
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