* 25-30% of Americans are in the incredibly shrinking republican base. These are the people convinced bush was a resounding success, Obama wants death panels, etc. If obama walked on water, they say he was afraid to swim, that it was proof of his kenyan birth, and showed his sympathy for Nazi-style euthanasia. This chunk puts a cap on obama’s popularity. Considering he was at around 65% approval, he was basically near the maximum. Nowhere to go but down or at best holding steady.

* health care is a real test. Obama has had to wade into the muck. Is anyone surprised voters don’t like the stink?

* Obama is probably going to succeed. Regardless of the details, I think the finished product, rather than the process by which it was crafted, will prove to be popular, thus giving Obama a boost.

* comparing the approval ratings and progress health care, Obama is doing much better than Clinton at this point.

• If you lose your job, your health care is rationed.
• If you have a pre-existing condition, your health care is rationed.
• If your insurance company decides your care has cost too much, your health care is rationed.
• If you cannot afford insurance, your health care is rationed.

Under the Obama health care plan:

• We will stop health care rationing based on your employment status.
• We will stop health care rationing based on pre-existing conditions.
• We will stop health care rationing based on annual or lifetime caps on coverage.
• We will stop health care rationing based on the affordability of coverage.

As for substance, I’m very happy with everything so far, which isn’t surprising since most everything he has done was promised on the campaign trail — so, of course, it is nice to see the promises starting to be implemented. The more striking thing for me is the contrast in style between Bush, Clinton, and Obama. Obama seems to be hard working, engaged, disciplined, and dynamic. Clinton (obviously) lacked the discipline, whereas Bush seemed to lack Obama’s level of engagement and dynamism. For better or worse, Bush liked routine and order, and Clinton was freewheeling; maybe Obama strikes just the right balance between the two.

Other things I’m happy with — Hillary seems to be taking to her role as secretary of state, and keeping Gates at the Pentagon is looking like a good move. Hillary seems to be doing a lot of substantive work, and has also, on occasion, effectively used her political celebrity. (For example, the smack down of Dick Cheney the other day probably got a lot more mileage coming from Hillary than from a less well-known official). As for Gates, the pentagon budget is much more sensible this year than in the past. He, nevertheless, stirred up a hornets’ nest in Congress, but his bipartisan credibility should go a long way towards helping with that.

On Iraq, Afghanistan, detainee policy, and other foreign affairs, Obama is quickly instituting rather significant changes without them feeling rash or ill-considered.

All and all, I’d give Obama a solid “A”, with points having been taking off for some of the bank bailout/toxic asset stuff that I’m not really sold on yet.

One good thing about having a competent/Democratic administration, is that I have a lot more faith in the mid- and hight-level appointments. While I think it is doubtful Bush was very hands on in this decision, he appointed the guy that screwed it up. And when the CBO and GAO starting raising red flags, the Bush administration either missed the warnings or willfully ignored them.

Bush has so many huge screw ups that it is easy to miss these relatively small ones, but they are still important.

Let’s hope Obama is better at the actual work of governing, and when mistakes get made, let’s hope Obama fixes them and holds people accountable.

This is his first real test.  He can’t blink.  He has to show the weather prognosticators and terrorists that he won’t back down; that he has the toughness needed to confront a late winter snowstorm like a true Chicagoan.  So unless Obama personally trudges through a foot and a half of snow to drop his girls off at school and then ice skates down Pennsylvania Avenue to slam his budget through Congress, the War on Winter is lost and the economy will be doomed to slip into an even worse recessionary-deflationary-wintery spiral.

It’s 3AM.  Where are your snowshoes?!

So who can Obama appoint? First, he might have to appoint two people…one to manage the Department of Health and Human Services, and one to be the point person for health care reform. I’m not sure who else is out there that could do both. But if Obama goes with two people, he better line them up in tandem and be sure they are on the same page…you don’t want some recalcitrant bureaucrat railroading stuff from DHS, while Obama and his health care reform point person are trying to get shit through Congress.

(AND WILL THE NEW HHS PERSON HAVE CRAZY GLASSES?!?!?!?!?  OBAMA BETTER NOT LET US DOWN!!!!!)

I thought his speech was very good — maybe not his best, but nonetheless eloquent, powerful, and most importantly, it set the tone and the agenda for his incoming administration.

It was less soaring rhetoric than his 2004 keynote address or his “Yes, we can” New Hampshire speech, but it wasn’t as workman-like as his nomination acceptance speech in Denver, either.

Over at Politico’s Arena, the reviews are nearly universally positive.

I wonder which, if any, lines will become famous like “ask not what your country can do for you…”. Nothing really jumped out at me as being quite at that level, but I here are what I thought were some of the highlights of the speech:

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them—that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.

This echo’s his 2004 DNC speech, and also nicely frames his pragmatic approach to governing.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.

This line will surely please many people, especially liberals, as it rejects some of the worst policies of the Bush administration, but also offers a new way to move forward the debate on security vs. civil liberties.

We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

Firm resolve instead of blustering, tough talk.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West—know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

Nicely matches with the foreign policy “smart power” outlined by Hillary at her confirmation hearing.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

A catchy line to capture his call for service and responsibility. Not quite “Ask not what your country…”, but still pretty good.

Maybe it all seems so shocking after 8 years of reflexively cringing whenever the president spoke that tomorrow the long national nightmare will be over.  In T-minus 17 hours, Bush will be gone and Obama in as president.  Awesome.

Hopefully Obama will do something with the rest of the bailout money to actually affect home foreclosures, which is what is behind the capitalization problems at banks and the problem with mortgage-backed and other credit-related securities.  And if Obama succeeds in reducing foreclosures and stabilizing the banking sector, home prices should start to rebound, and the rest of the economy along with them hopefully.  If this chain of events happens, it will be another judgement on Bush (as if history or his legacy need any more damning judgements on Bush) that he wasted months dilly-dallying with a bailout that doubled the size of the annual deficit without actually acheiving any results.

I’m hopeful that Obama can do this and that the rest of the bailout money will be  managed better and more productively.  The crash in home prices has had a huge impact on the economy, as well as on the psyche of the population.  Yes, housing prices were overvalued and unrealistic (in some markets more than others), but the market needs to find a pricing floor, so people can accept their losses and move on.  People shouldn’t have to worry that their primary investment (or if thinking about buying a home, future investment) is going to be losing them money or is basically worthless (if you have a mortgage that is underwater).  Keeping foreclosures from flooding the market is an important step for stabilizing housing prices and stimulating the economy as a whole.

People care what I think, Dubya!

This rep from Iowa is a jerk. Rep. Steve King thinks it’s “bizarre” for Obama to be sworn in using his middle name. Maybe he’d prefer him to be sworn in as Barry O’bama?

When I taught a chemistry lab at UT in spring 2002, I took role on the first day of class and there was a kid name Osama. When I called his name, he said that he would prefer to be called “Sam”. I felt really bad for him because he seemed to be really embarrassed that I had called out his name in front of the class. Hopefully having Barack Hussein Obama take the oath of office will make things a little better for people out there like “Sam”. If there is karma in the universe, one can only hope that Rep. Steve King will be subjected to an unending stream of obnoxious jokes reminding him that his name sounds like Stephen King’s. “Iowa? I though you were from Maine…roflcopter!”, “Rep. Steve King (R – Haunted Indian Burial Ground)”, etc.

Other inaugaration thoughts…

How nice will it be to have a president that is relevant? I have never liked what Bush had to say, and I always thought his style of governing was ineffective. However, because he was the president, he could get my attention. For example, back in the day, I’d read about Bush’s tax cuts, and maybe I’d write a blog post about how they sucked. But sometime in 2006 or so, I just stopped listening to Bush. After his social security plan floppped, it was clear he couldn’t move major legislation. On Iraq, I tuned Bush out because I was more interested in hearing about a crazy little thing called reality. When Bush said he had complete confidence in Alberto Gonzalez, it shredded whatever remained of his already tattered credibility.

The financial crisis gave Bush a suprising amount of relevance at the end of his term, but even then I never regained any confidence in him. It didn’t seem like a question of “if” the bailouts would be mismanaged, but rather a question of “How exactly will Bush fuck this up.”

Wow, imagine having a president where the default assumption isn’t “gross incompetence”…amazing!