Spring Break
Obama pivots from first 100 days to rest of agenda
Associated Press
Issue date: 4/30/09 Section: News
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"I'm pleased with the progress we've made, but I'm not satisfied," Obama said Wednesday in Arnold, Mo., the battleground state he chose to mark the milestone. By evening, he was to hold a news conference from the White House, the third of his presidency aired on prime-time television.
Obama's intensive schedule for the day demonstrated the degree to which the administration sees both possibility and peril in the symbolic 100-day marker.
Presidential aides have derided it as a media-created "Hallmark holiday" in which the White House participates reluctantly. But they also recognize it is a time frame by which all modern presidents are judged, at least initially, and which can produce negative narratives that dog administrations for years. So the White House has jumped into the celebration with both feet, making high-level Obama advisers available anywhere they were needed over the last week and crafting the president's day to maximum advantage.
The opening act of the Obama presidency has been head-turning, not only for the dire times in which he took office but his flurry of activity.
Determined to revive the dismal economy, his signature challenge, Obama has overseen a trillion-dollar infusion of federal spending and major interventions by Washington into the private sector, from directing executive pay to seizing huge governmental ownership shares in financial institutions and possibly General Motors.
He put the country on track to end the Iraq war, while escalating the one in Afghanistan and revamping the strategy there.
Nearly every day since Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration has brought a sweeping new promise to upend business as usual, veering from big issues to small and back.
The reward: strong public backing despite a still-staggering economy. An Associated Press-GfK poll shows that 48 percent of Americans believe the United States is headed in the right direction - the first time in years that more people than not expressed optimism for a brighter future.
But most of what Obama has done so far, as would be expected for little more than three months, amounts to no more than a down payment.
The president stressed this theme during his speech and short question-and-answer session in a St. Louis suburb.
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