Predictions for the early days of the Obama administration
1) Obama will go with a short speech, powerful, memorable, quotable speech which will be under 20 minutes long. JFK’s inaugural was 12 minutes long, and there is a connection. Ted Sorenson who wrote much of the Kennedy inaugural address, and who advises Obama, had help with his memoirs from a young man who is now one of Obama’s speech writers. And this year’s inaugural theme is centered on Lincoln, including using Lincoln’s Bible. Another historic analogy that will be quickly and often drawn is the comparison to Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address.
2) Obama wont rush dont ask dont tell. This will be pushed back out of the beginning of the agenda. While Obama might be catching some hell from the gay community about dont ask dont tell, he’s way to smart to let this derail his first 100 days the way it derailed Clintons. Too much political capital.
3) Stimulus will pass with broad bipartisan support, and many republicans will later regret their vote as they run low on popular ways to distinguish their record from Dems.
4) A few months stories will break about the ultimate policy pragmatist Rahm sparring with Congressional leaders about what to push when, he’ll be pushing to keep things centrist and post-partisan a while longer.
5) Michelle Obama will dazzle us all with her poise and grace. By the end of 2009, she will have a higher approval rating than even the Barackstar.
6) Neither Cuomo nor Kennedy will be the next Senator from NY.
7) Dow will be above 10,000 by July, but will dip below 7,900 again before April.
8) Jaybandit and I are having a weight loss contest, I will win.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 15 January 2009 at 9:04 am:
I agree with all except 4 and 7. I don’t think the economy’s gonna recover that quickly, and I think Rahm recognizes that the pragmatic thing to do right now is be bold – if he doesn’t, Obama does, and he’s the one calling the shots.
Unfortunately I think 2 is true, but I do think ENDA and hate crimes legislation will get passed fairly rapidly.
Comment by Gordon the Gnome on 15 January 2009 at 1:36 pm:
I agree with most of these, though not 6 or 7. I think we’ll see Caroline Kennedy get in, and the Dow won’t crack even 9,000 by July, let alone 10,000. Good call on 1 and 3, I hope you’re right on both!
Comment by Tom Trumpinski on 15 January 2009 at 10:30 pm:
The Dow should hit 10k in July of 2013, probably. By the time it reaches pre-crash levels it will be meaningless as a gauge of prosperity. Real unemployment plus undereremployment (no seasonal adjustment plus including those with exhausted unemployment insurance plus those with part-time who want full-time) should max out around 17.5 and 18% during the winter of 09-10, before the jobs program really takes off. At present, using those criteria, the un+under is about 12+% of the total worker numbers.
Expect the jobs program to be opposed by unions when they find that the government will not be able to pay union wages for infrastructure replacement.
Barney Frank won’t let Don’t ask sit for long, it’s already been in the news.
The stimulus will work much more slowly than expected because Baby Boomers simply will not spend money any more–they’ve boosted the economy for the last fifteen years and they’re going to save for retirement. In addition, white collar jobs will recover much more slowly than blue collar ones.
Comment by Evan on 18 January 2009 at 4:17 pm:
I think he will probably continue to backpedal on or completely abandon positions he took during his campaign or in the past. Some examples off the top of my head include: 1) “Washington insiders;” 2) Iraq; 3) Torture; 4) Taxes.
I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing in all cases, but it exposes him for the true politician he is. In my opinion, as time goes by, he appears less and less principled, and his term hasn’t even started yet.
I’m not necessarily talking about anyone on this site, but I don’t expect many of the naive Obama supporters on college campuses to even notice his backtracking.
He may end up being an effective president, but he’s a much less unique politician than for which he receives credit.
Comment by Brian Pierce on 19 January 2009 at 5:23 am:
Evan,
I think you’re certainly right that Obama is, whatever his good qualities, a politician and therefore will make political decisions and therefore will likely break some promises, but I am fascinated at which promises you think he will break. I don’t really know what you mean by “Washington insiders” except to suggest he’ll probably not use that rhetoric as much after a couple years, but for the others, it seems you’ve listed the areas he has made the strongest, most clear, and most firm commitments. Taxes I can imagine him waffling on a bit, though I would be pretty surprised if the Bush tax cuts didn’t get repealed one way or another. I simply cannot imagine him going back on torture or Iraq though, and if he did, I’m betting you would see a great number of Obama’s supporters becoming completely disillusioned with him.
Comment by Evan on 19 January 2009 at 9:21 am:
Brian,
He explicitly stated during the primary debates that “Washington insiders” like Biden and Clinton were a part of the problem. It was part of his “change” message. Having them as his VP and SoS pretty much undercuts his whole message.
He has already backtracked on torture:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090116/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_interrogations
He’s gone from numerous times explicitly stating, “America doesn’t torture” to now considering “loopholes” / “classified annexes” for the CIA. He’s now basically saying, “We don’t torture, except, um, well, when we really, really need to torture.” Undoubtedly, he’ll be an improvement over Bush on this topic, but to me, it’s pretty clear that he will soften his stance on this topic. In fairness, perhaps I shouldn’t judge him yet, as nothing has happened yet, but I think the signs indicate I will be right.
On Iraq, I guess we haven’t heard too much lately with the economic crisis, but he promised to have all troops out within 16 months. I definitely don’t get the feeling that that will happen or that it is a priority. In fairness to Obama, you *could* say he softened this stance *during* the election season, however initially taking this stance may have helped him get through the primaries.
He pretty much started backing down on his tax plan right after being elected. A good link I had saved that shows this is now broken, but since you at least somewhat agree, I’m not going to go searching for another one (also, I’m lazy :)).
There have also been other instances where he has shown himself to be less than principled. Off the top of my head, I believe he was even roundly criticized by some of the Urbanagora liberals for his Telecom Immunity bill vote.
In remaining principled, I think one problem for him, for example with torture, is the political cost (among other obvious costs) to Obama of any other kind of terrorist attack in the U.S. Fairly or not, I suspect any attack will be fairly widely blamed on his “soft on terror” views and policies. I suspect that is the reason he seems to be hedging a bit on this topic.
I agree with you that some of Obama’s supporters might become disillusioned with him, but I doubt they will have too big of an impact on his overall approval rating.
Comment by the magic bullet on 19 January 2009 at 5:51 pm:
The vast majority of them won’t become disillusioned because they’re so eager to swallow the spin and gloss that his administration and the media will put on these issues. Over the weekend Axelrod gave a wishy-washy answer about whether Barack would keep his promise to be out of Iraq within 16 months.
The NYT (of all places) correctly reports “On his first full day in office, Mr. Obama will order American military leaders to plan the speedy withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq.”
CNN puts a little gloss on it, by declaring he will essentially be beginning to fulfill the promise: “And on Wednesday, Obama also will meet with top military commanders to discuss the war in Iraq and move to begin implementing his campaign promise of removing all combat troops within 16 months, according to aides.”
But ABC, which was apparently not watching their own broadcast, invents its own version of the story with the headline: “Obama to Order Iraq Withdrawal on Day One, Axelrod Says”
If you can’t tell the difference between these three descriptions, you’re probably a Barack Obama supporter.
Comment by "if Texas secedes I am becoming a Long Horn" alias Ragnar on 20 January 2009 at 1:29 pm:
The only one of you guys with a clue, besides of course me, is this Evan guy. We have just put in power the least experienced, most impractical, idealistic pack of dolts ever conceived. At some point, despite the media’s best efforts, reality must sink in. This is akin to “if a million monkeys typed for a million years would one of them come up with Hamlet.” Well we just put the monkeys on the computers and have all convinced ourselves that Hamlet is forthcoming. It is called Group Think – you dumbshits. My picks: Rahm gets thrown under the bus because he is implicated in the Blago mess. The stimulus package will be so jammed with pork and stupidity that it will have little impact on the economy. We will build exactly no new nuke plants, but we will give incentives to buy electric cars (think about it). We will build solar power station where the sun doesn’t shine and wind generators where the wind doesn’t blow. We will build roads to employ union workers but will drill no wells to feed the cars to drive on the roads (think about it). To appease the really stupid of the dumbocrat party Barry will cave to some far left agenda. Stuff like a token tax increase, an ineffective health care compromise, pointless gun control, and probably a pro-abortion bill. A buddy of mine predicts that one of the first things will be this Freedom of Choice act. Force the Catholic hospitals to close, (which they have vowed to do rather than perform abortion on demand), declare a medical crisis, and then try to jam through socialized medicine. Beyond that, we will get a lot of feel good stuff that does nothing to promote business, national defense, immigration control, or any other important issue. Little if any of his bs promises will get carried out or, and this is the kicker, actually work. We are in a war on two fronts, Iran continues to back Hamas and continues developing nuclear arms, Russia is openly laughing at us, our immigration control is broken, and you morons are worried about “don’t ask, don’t tell!” When we should be worried about one of our cities getting blown you “Progressives” are worried about which of our soldiers is! I find it incredible> I for one will be thrilled if at the end of the next four years we even have a sovereign nation left. I was willing to give hopeychangey the benefit of a doubt until he surrounded himself with all of the Clinton retreads. This is the change you sheep got conned into. Well guess what? All adult leadership has now left the building. We have Pelosi, Reid, Biden, and Obama at the helm. Combined IQ of 2. Hope Hope Hope Change Change Change equals SUCKERS!
Comment by Joshua on 20 January 2009 at 1:37 pm:
Ragnar, Did your lobotomy leave a scar?
Comment by kevin on 20 January 2009 at 3:43 pm:
What the hell was that?
Comment by Brandon on 20 January 2009 at 7:14 pm:
Someone sounds like he needs a nap.
Comment by chrism on 20 January 2009 at 11:37 pm:
Ragnar, this is America. If you don’t like it, feel free to leave.
Comment by it blends! on 21 January 2009 at 12:52 am:
Not sure why my previous comment is still awaiting moderation — perhaps a bias against high torque blenders that let you make everything from smoothies to bean dip?
In my last (so far unpublished) comment, I noted that media would spin issues so as to not disillusion the ignorant Barack followers. My previous evidence was strong. Today’s events provided another example: The Oath. Who muffed it? Within minutes the media was spinning it such that Roberts had misspoke and ruined everything. In reality, Barack jumped the gun, Roberts misspoke and corrected himself, and then Barack repeated the incorrect phrasing. If the difference between story-line and reality is nonexistent (or negligible) to you, you’re probably a Barack Obama supporter.
And by the way, why do the progressive editors of this blog feel the need to isolate for moderation and not approve a reasoned exhibition of media bias while loosely allowing incoherent stereotypical wingnut rhetoric? Don’t you feel the least bit hypocritical when making those “constitution through the paper shredder” jokes about Bush?
Comment by Ragnar on 21 January 2009 at 11:39 am:
Jeez I already said I was leaving when Texas secedes. An eventuality that I consider imminent by the way. The last vestige of our once great democracy and all that sort of thing. Or maybe Alaska. Their governor is HOT!
Comment by Todd on 28 January 2009 at 4:33 pm:
It blends,
Comments with several links automatically require moderation because they’re often spam. I just disabled that feature because the spam filter seems to be catching all of our spam already, but if we start getting spam, I guess it’ll have to be turned back on.