A 100-Day Uphill Struggle

Barack Obama’s health care reforms have had an awfully long run-up — more than three years in some cases — and now the attacks continue without any plausible defense from his side. The president of the United States has spent the first 100 days after his re-election struggling uphill.

When Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt took over the White House in 1933 in the midst of darkest depression, he promised to make quick decisions in just 100 days. Since then, that timetable has been used as a touchstone for presidents.

Obama passed that test with distinction — depending on where you stand politically, obviously — after the first 100 days of his first term in the White House in 2009, with measures to save the automotive industry and the financial markets as well as a push for increased equality in wages for women.

After that, even sympathizers feel that he became too involved in health care and neglected job growth. Nevertheless, the law strengthening the Social Security system for 30 million Americans the following year is on par with Lyndon B. Johnson’s social reforms in the 1960s and is considered Obama’s greatest achievement.

This January, Obama took the oath a second time; the 100-day stretch recently ended in acerbic comments from both sides. There were plenty of fresh quotations that inspired strong opinions, including Obama’s comment about how some confusion and bumps on the road are natural before health care reform comes into effect, and the Mark Twain inspired line about the rumor of his impending demise being exaggerated.

Fellow Democrat Bill Clinton found himself in much the same situation in 1995 and insisted, a bit petulantly, that he was still relevant. But Clinton was known as “the comeback kid” and later tamed the Republicans following a budget battle.

Obama differs from Roosevelt, Johnson and Clinton in personality as well as in his attitude toward practical politics and the exercise of power. He never heeded suggestions to cultivate contacts in Congress and has folded repeatedly, most recently when he conceded to raising the limit for increases in income taxes [for high-income households].

The most disastrous setback was the rejection of the list on tightening gun laws that he lined up with great determination a few weeks after the tragedy at the school in Newtown. Democrats point out that senators who voted against it have felt the consequences in the form of falling polling numbers, but it is a long way to the 2014 midterm elections, and support for background checks may have decreased by then.

Next on the list is immigration and the 11 million people who lack residence permits, “illegals” as they are called in America. Suddenly, things look darker; it remains to be seen whether Obama will support motions to give homosexuals the same right to visas for family members as heterosexuals.

Syria is high on the agenda as well. Last year, Obama drew a “red line” regarding the regime’s use of chemical weapons, but in this case the public will probably understand if he is reluctant to commit to another military escapade in the Arab world.

Obama possibly averted criticism about his Cabinet being too male and too white with his last-minute appointments last week: the black Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx and female Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker.