[ccebook.cn]The World in 2010

United States
Mr Obama's unpromising year
Nov 13th 2009
Americans will blame bad times on the president
When they voted to send a black man to the White House at the end of 2008, Americans performed one of
the most remarkable acts of rebranding in the history of their remarkable nation. The coming year, however,
will be a miserable one for Barack Obama. This is not only because of the iron law of waning novelty. His
second year as president will expose the underlying weakness of the political coalition that elected him, the
scale of the difficulties he inherited, the stubborn resistance of Americans to sudden change, and their
enduring attachment to the dream of small government and individual opportunity.
Note first that the novelty of Mr Obama’s colour and style did not last all that long even during his first year.
The approval ratings of 70% or thereabouts that he enjoyed at the beginning of 2009 fell by the end of the
summer to around 50%, pretty much the average (if anything a bit lower) for presidents after their first eight
months. That this happened so soon after he performed some decisive economic firefighting—the fiscal
stimulus, the restructuring of Detroit’s carmakers—suggests that voters in 2010 will not be inclined to thank
him for averting a depression that did not come.
They are more likely to blame him for the recession that did. And most Americans will not feel good about
their prospects. Jobs will continue to be scarce; taxes will rise in spite of Mr Obama’s rash promise not to
raise them for the middle classes; and the deficit will still be rocketing heavenwards on an unsustainable
trajectory.
By 2010, moreover, Mr Obama will no longer be able to fall back on the excuse that all of this was beyond his
control. Given the scale of the crisis he inherited, he could have decided to focus the whole of his first term
single-mindedly on economic recovery. Instead he made a bold—and some will say reckless—decision to reach
for more.
It is true that large constituencies supported Mr Obama’s call for comprehensive
health-care reform and legislation to tackle global warming. But in 2010 many of
these true believers, who wanted and expected audacious change, will be feeling let
down by the weak legislation that will squeak out of Capitol Hill. Others will say that
it was a mistake all along to embark on expensive reform at a time of acute
economic distress. Beyond this, an underlying problem for Mr Obama is that in 2010
most voters will be feeling the short-term costs of changes in health care and energy
and not yet any of the long-term benefits.
The politics of change
-19-
In 2010 most
Americans will
not feel good
about their
prospects