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(11/19)  After the Inauguration, a president usually experiences a “honeymoon” with Congress and the American people – a time of renewed hope, relatively high approval ratings, and rapport with the media.  During his freshman year in office, President Barack Obama enjoyed a sustained honeymoon, helped by the fact that Democrats dominate both houses of Congress and 29 of the 50 governors’ offices.  (Recent gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey went Republican, so Democrats next year will have only 27 of the 50 governors’ offices.)

Polls show that the nation’s first African-American president remains well liked at home and abroad, but the numbers also reveal dramatically eroding support for his plan to overhaul the nation’s health care.  Ten months after the Inauguration, the honeymoon is over.

Take a battleground state like Ohio, where the numbers vividly illustrate the uphill battle the 44th president faces.  Obama carried Ohio by some 262,000 votes in last year’s presidential campaign – a 4.6 percent winning margin.  But this past July, when the president's job approval began falling nationally from the high 50s to the low 50s, Ohio was the first place his declining popularity showed up in the polls.  At the same time, support for his health-care overhaul slipped from 44 percent to 36 percent, and now 57 percent of Ohio voters disapprove of his handling of it.

Ohio is reflecting a trend that is evident in Michigan and throughout the nation.  When the stakes are high – and any proposal that seeks to overhaul a $2.5 trillion industry (one-sixth of the U.S. economy) meets the definition of “high stakes” – presidents have to do a gut check and remember not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all.
Presidential historian Robert Dallek has argued that a president’s ability to carry out extensive domestic reform becomes increasingly problematic if the nation is waging a major war.

It’s easy to see how wars derail domestic reform.  They are expensive and necessarily rearrange the nation’s political priorities.   At present, the U.S. is bogged down in Afghanistan, so Obama faces tough choices.  Does he devote more resources to the war, or to health care?  The skyrocketing national debt cannot be ignored, and there is only so much political capital he can afford to spend.
As he looks at the challenges his predecessors in the White House faced, he will see mixed lessons and unintended consequences.  Many times during the last one hundred years, a well-liked president has been able to parlay his popularity into programs – to a point.  Usually it is war that stops further domestic change... Continue