Has Obama lived up to or deviated from his election promises and themes?
I think any analysis of Obama’s presidency has to be situated within the context of the American political system, which is designed to frustrate change. In particular, the super-majority requirement in the Senate gives disproportionate voice to smaller, rural states, and disproportionate power to individual Senators who can be the swing votes on key bills (such as Joe Lieberman). In response, Obama’s approach, particularly on health care, has generally been to shoot for what can get sufficient votes to pass, without drawing many clear lines in the sand.
The resulting health care bill (the Senate version especially) is a compromise of a compromise of a compromise. Passing it would be a historical achievement in terms of increasing access and supporting the principle that everyone should be covered, but in my judgment would not do a great deal to contain costs or expand the choices most people have. In effect it is a federal subsidy to the health insurance industry to allow them to cover more people.
The question is whether there might have been some other strategic approach Obama could have taken that would have produced a more satisfying result, in terms of achieving the kinds of things Obama talked about the campaign. That is difficult to say. An alternative approach might have involved Obama taking a much more hands-on role in crafting legislation (on health care, but also on other key bills such as the stimulus package and climate legislation), and making it very clear that these bills needed to meet certain minimum requirements to get his approval. This would have been a riskier route to take. But Obama would be perceived as more of a fighter than a compromiser if he had gone this route. That probably would make him more popular with the liberal base, at the risk of increasing negatives with conservatives further.
Apart from this, the major crisis for Obama’s presidency in my estimation is the slow economic recovery and the unemployment rate. It’s inconceivable to me that any incumbent party could retain office with unemployment remaining at 10% for a prolonged period. If it stays at 10%, the Democrats almost certainly will have big losses in the midterm elections which would constrain Obama’s ability to achieve his legislative goals the rest of the first term. And if Obama himself wants to get re-elected, recovery has to be full-swing and the unemployment rate substantially lower by fall of 2011. (An interesting precedent in this regard is Reagan, who might have been beatable during the recession year of 1982 but by 1984 was a strong favorite for re-election because the economy had notably improved.)
The current unemployment rate is a national crisis, yet there seems to be no plan from Obama or the Democrats to accelerate job creation. Nor is there political will to pass another stimulus package of real substance. Here I worry Obama may pay the price for not taking a more hands-on approach to the design of the original stimulus package to ensure it maximized direct job creation, and for not being bolder in asking for a bigger stimulus at a time when he had enough political capital to do almost anything.
The war in Afghanistan is obviously another major issue. To the average person, the strategy that has been laid out does not seem very persuasive, and the case for why a large presence in Afghanistan directly affects our security is unclear. The American public cares more about airport security than what is going on in Afghanistan. At this point, the cost Obama has had to pay for pursuing a fairly unpopular war is not too high, but we know from histories that prolonged military engagements almost always get less popular with democratic publics as years go by. But for a non-military expert like myself, it looks like Obama is staking quite a lot on the hope that we can produce a dramatically better situation in Afghanistan in a short amount of time.