Monday, January 21, 2013

How Barack Obama Became A "Great President"

Image by Pool/Reuters

As President Barack Obama is sworn into his second term many are beginning to look back on his first term and looking forward to what his overall legacy will be.

I'll cut to the chase and answer the question you all must have right now: How did Barack Obama become a "great president"? The answer: he won a second term.

In 2009 when Barack Obama won his re-election against John McCain and was sworn is as P.O.T.U.S. # 44 there were high aspirations to what could be accomplished. Climate Change agenda, immigration reform, gay rights, minority rights, civil rights, healthcare, war and much more was all on the docket going into his first four years. Quickly after the election reality came crashing down like the tidal wave in The Abyss (seriously see that movie if you haven't before) and swept all of these hopes out. Faced with the worst recession since the Great Depression, a tanking stock market, auto manufacturers sprinting into bankruptcy, two wars and a growing poverty epidemic Obama had his hands full. Yes the "legacy" that most will remember about George W. Bush will be preceded by the legacy of the Obama first term. Obama was forced to address these issues in as precise and effective a way as possible. A recovery was built from the ground up. Figuratively Obama was the pilot in charge of a plane in free-fall.

At the end of his first term Obama was also forced to tackle something he very clearly felt he shouldn't have to: his record. Rather he was forced to defend it. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney launched an all out war on Barack Obama's first term policies. From the 2009 stimulus package to the auto bailout and then to healthcare reform the Romney campaign fired on all cylinders to convince the country that contrary to what liberals would have you believe Obama has been worse for the economy and thus the country. And so the task fell on the president to dust off his campaign clothing and make stump speech after stump speech in state after state to remind the public what he's done and in what ways it has helped. After nearly non stop campaigning the Obama camp was victorious. In what is statistically a landslide victory Obama's methods were affirmed by the greater public (53%) and shunned by a minority (47% ironically). The path was not easy for Barack Obama however. No longer could he count on "Hope" and "Change" to propel him to victory, instead he had to lay out a set of fundamental ideals that he stood for. In any re-election by a president it's been viewed as a vindication of his policies and ideas. In 2004 when George W. Bush was re-elected he famously stated "I have political capital and I intend to use it." His supporters declared it a referendum of Bush's ideas and thus used these terms to fight for their ideas in the country. With Obama there has been an equal amount of outcry from the left wing of the country that his policies and ideas have been approved and should be implemented. As the Republican party grips with the reality of a presidential loss they have began to accept this truth. Moving forward Obama will try and shape his legacy  by fighting for his principles he ran on in 2008 and in 2012.

Obama's supporters would make the case, regardless of any 2nd term, that he's among "The Greats" because of the symbolism of his race, the slaying of bin-laden, sweeping health care legislation, and avoiding the financial crisis. It's a good case. But so too is the counter: he cleaned up George W. Bush's messes but went too far, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was a overreach.

Now though we are entering Reagan's territory. Obama will join "The Greats" perhaps in some statue form. He will stand only among FDR and JFK and Teddy Roosevelt. Andrew Sullivan made the case earlier before the election that "If Obama wins, to put it bluntly, he will become the democrats' Reagan." Obama will emerge as a president who led the country through a recession and terrorized word, reshaping the economy at the same time. He passed Universal Health Care, cut the ranks of Al Qaeda, and presided over a civil rights revolution. Matthew Continetti, a republican, makes the point that Republicans must accept this.
"We ought to face the unpleasant fact that Obama will be remembered as a president of achievement and consequence," he wrote. "It does not matter if, like I do, you think those achievements are horrible and that their consequences will be worse. Obama's reversal of the Reagan revolution is here." 
"The generation of conservatives and Republicans who return one day to power will be forced to reckon with the consequences of the Obama revolution, just as a generation of defeated liberals were forced to confront and in some cases accept the revolution of Ronald Reagan." 
Every president that has won more than two terms has ultimately had something named after them. A library, an airport, a school. All of these are possibilities for Barack Obama going forward. And although he may not be accepted by the right wing of the country now, they will have to come to terms with the very real fact that Obama has changed the country, just as Reagan did in his time, and FDR before that, and Teddy Roosevelt before that. Barring any scandals that come in his second term, as oft plagues presidential administrations, Obama looks forward to being one of the big guys up in Washington. Democrats in future years will assure that. 

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