How’s Obama doing? It’s complicated and depends

I go back and forth on how well President Barack Obama has done so far.  But, like with anything judgment of performance, it depends on the expectations going in.  While I had hoped for someone who would govern like FDR, that’s not what I expected from Obama.  He’s been pretty much got what was expected, someone who governs from the middle.  Which essentially means, someone who will, for me, move between success and disappointment, on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

And that’s the crux of the problem, for me and likely many others, is coming to terms with the fact that Obama is not a New Deal Democrat.  If Obama was for the kind of change that FDR brought about, not the exact changes FDR made, but fundamental change in the way government works for the people, he would be governing different.  He would have to be out there selling the changes on a regular basis – as FDR did with the fireside chats – and he isn’t.  He’s for common ground, in the middle, between  this era’s Democrats and Republicans and that’s not a place that brings about good results for working Americans.

To highlight this here are two recent takes on how Obama is doing.

First, here’s how Rachel Maddow summed up her segment on the accomplishments of the President Obama so far.

In each of these achievements and in the list of things he has yet to do – “Don`t Ask, Don`t Tell,” closing Guantanamo – in each of these things, there is room for liberal disappointment. I sing a bittersweet lullaby to the lost public option when I go to sleep at night.

But presidential legacies are complex. Not even the Reagan administration`s legacy is pure as the conservative-driven snow. But Taegan Goddard at “CQ Politics” was right today about nothing this big happening since FDR.

The list of legislative accomplishments of this president in half a term even before energy reform which he`s probably going to get to is, to quote the vice president, “a big freaking deal.” Love this administration or hate it, this president is getting a lot done.

The last time any president did this much in office, booze was illegal. If you believe in policy, if you believe in government that addresses problems, cheers to that. Good night.

And here’s what Bob Herbert had to say in his NYT column today, Wrong Track Distress.

The Obama administration feels it should get a great deal of credit for its economic stimulus efforts, its health care initiative, its financial reform legislation, its vastly increased aid to education and so forth. And maybe if we were grading papers, there would be a fair number of decent marks to be handed out.

But Americans struggling in a down economy are worried about the survival of their families. Destitution is beckoning for those whose unemployment benefits are running out, and that crowd of long-term jobless men and women is expanding rapidly.

There is a widespread feeling that only the rich and well-placed can count on Washington’s help, and that toxic sentiment is spreading like the oil stain in the gulf, with ominous implications for President Obama and his party. It’s in this atmosphere that support for the president and his agenda is sinking like a stone.

Employment is the No. 1 issue for most ordinary Americans. Their anxiety on this front only grows as they watch teachers, firefighters and police officers lining up to walk the unemployment plank as state and local governments wrestle with horrendous budget deficits.

And what do these worried Americans see the Obama administration doing? It’s doubling down on the war in Afghanistan, trying somehow to build a nation from scratch in the chaos of a combat zone.

By nearly 2 to 1, respondents to the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll believed the United States is on the wrong track. Despite the yelping and destructive machinations of the deficit hawks, employment and the economy are by far the public’s biggest concern. Mr. Obama is paying dearly for his tin ear on this topic. Fifty-four percent of respondents believed he does not have a clear plan for creating jobs. Only 45 percent approved of his overall handling of the economy, compared with 48 percent who disapproved.

It’s not too late for the president to turn things around, but there is no indication that he has any plan or strategy for doing it. And the political environment right now, with confidence in the administration waning and budgetary fears unnecessarily heightened by the deficit hawks, is not good.

It would take an extraordinary exercise in leadership to rally the country behind a full-bore jobs-creation campaign — nothing short of large-scale nation-building on the home front. Maybe that’s impossible in the current environment. But that’s what the country needs.

Maddow is right that it’s complicated. It’s also complicated to try and show voters and the American people how much you’ve gotten done, while not doing much of anything to address their number one concern – they need a job.  It should come as not surprise that getting a lot done that matters little in Americans daily lives isn’t getting noticed.