Barack Obama’s 100th Day

Today is President Barack Obama’s 100th day in office. Since his inauguration on January 20th he has made several key accomplishments while maintaining a high approval rating.

Gallup Poll results this week find the nation’s first black president has about 65% approval for job performance, and (except for political ideology) he has broad support across the different demographics.


Although everybody seems to know it’s a "Hallmark holiday" (because it doesn’t mean anything, but everyone observes it) the 100th day of the Obama Administration has served the purpose of letting his supporters tout the days leading up to this milestone as a "Foundation for Change".



BarackObama.com has more on his accomplishments so far.

Just after his inauguration, we did a post on what the first 100 Days would look like.

What did we all get right?

This stimulus bill passed like we said it would - being the most pressing issue at the time, the President was giving it almost full priority.

SCHIP expanded to provide health care coverage to 4 million uninsured children, and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed - giving women a fair chance to make sure they receive equal pay for equal work.

What did we all get wrong?

Well, we said the stimulus bill would be signed in early February - it did not even pass through Congress until February 15th, and was not signed until two days later.

We also said that the Employee Free Choice Act could be expected to pass without much difficulty soon, if not within the first 100 days. Since then it has become more and more evident that the card check bill will not have the necessary support in the Senate - at least not during the recession.

But as we said in that post, "In the end, the number of actions taken in the first 100 days does not typically define a Presidency - and it would not be prudent to judge Obama by his first 100 days at this point in history."

In fact, NBC Political Director Chuck Todd made an even more important observation in an article today. "Ultimately, the public judges a first term president, not in the first 100 days, but in the last 300 (in this case, January to November 2012)."

So despite the frenzy over these first hundred days, it really won’t mean anything when we look back on it in the near future.

But Happy Day 100 anyway.