President Barack Obama, as has been widely reported, will officially reach his 100th full day in office on Thursday, April 30th.
        To mark the historic milestone, the 44th president will hold a press conference Wednesday evening in prime time in which he’ll likely field a number of questions about what he has accomplished in the first few months in office and the mighty challenges that lies ahead.
        Most scholars and other keen observers of the U.S. presidency, however, don’t attach much importance to the first 100 days of a new administration on the reason that it is far too early to gauge whether a president will be successful or fail miserably in such a short time period.
        If the Obama presidency is to be judged on legislative accomplishments on equal footing as FDR or LBJ during tumultuous times, his achievements, so far, might not quite measure up. 
        After all, as  Forrest Maltzman, Professor from the Department of Political Science at George Washington University points out, ``most of which Obama has tried to accomplish is being done without going through Congress’’.      
        In fact, at times the way Obama is going directly to the people in such carefully orchestrated media events, such as when taking questions in a interactive town hall format on March 26h, celebrating Passover with Seder dinners at the White House on April 8th and 9th, making an unannounced trip to Iraq on April 7th, landing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno on March 20th-- it’s at times hard to distinguish Obama the candidate from Obama the commander-in-chief.
        But if the country was looking for quick change after eight gloomy years of the previous administration, Obama ceertainly didn’t disappoint.         
        On February 27th, the president announced that  America’s combat mission in Iraq would end on August 31, 2010, he submitted a $3.55 trillion budget to Congress on February 26th, vowed to close the the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and on February 17th signed the American Recovery and Investment Act, which outlined the creation of 3.5 million jobs over the next two years, with a portion of the money to be used for reviving the renewable energy industry, making college more affordable for an estimated seven million college students, and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure through a $150 billion investment for the nation’s roads, bridges, and mass transit systems, among other projects.
        But whether these reforms, however well intentioned, bears fruit in the coming months ahead, and whether Obama will be as celebrated as FDR or LBJ for ushering in a new activist form of government which strikes a harmonious cord with the American public is still an open question.
        Ted Brader, Associate Professor of Political Science at the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan doesn’t think Obama has  ``accomplished anything of the magnitude of early New Deal policies, or the combination civil rights and Great Society initiatives LBJ began getting through Congress.   Any new president, so inclined, could have passed a stimulus bill in the present situation.  And indeed the Congress would have passed one without him.  I'd think we'd need to see something like his major health care reform legislation, major tangible global warming regulations, or things of that sort to compare to the big 100-days record holders. ‘’   
        But considering the way Obama entered office with America’s public confidence at an all-time low, with the economy in shambles, unemployment at an all-time high, the auto and banking industries facing disaster, our standing with our European allies in disrepair after a drawn out, costly and unpopular war in Iraq-the Obama administration might not have turned around the battered economy, but he has day-by-day, slowly begun to restore American’s confidence both at home and abroad.
         A recent Washington Post-ABC News  poll, for example, reported 50 percent of respondents thought the country was headed in the right direction; quiet a contrast when you consider, that at the beginning of the year (January 13-16th), just days before Obama assumed the presidency, 78 percent of respondents thought the country was headed in the wrong direction.
         Rather than specific legislative accomplishments; if Obama’s first 100 days is measured by his success in restoring America’s confidence, the past few months tilts quite favorably to Obama’s corner, at least for the time being.
         To hear Donald Green, Director at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University tell it: ``time will tell whether the days ahead bring domestic legislation on par with the Voting Rights Act or Social Security.  Clearly, however, President Obama has been able to restore the sense that the country, although mired in problems, is on the right track.’’

  -Bill Lucey
  WPLucey@gmail.com

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 President Obama’s First 100 Day Legislative Accomplishments:

 January 29th: Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

∙February 4, 2009: Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act

∙February 11th: DTV Delay Act

∙February 17th: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

∙March 19th: Small Business Act Temporary Extension

∙March 30: Omnibus Public Lands Management Act

Source: White House

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 President Franklin Roosevelt’s First 100 Days During the 73rd Congress in 1933.

 ∙ March 9th- The Emergency Banking Act

 ∙ March 20th—The Economy Act

 ∙ March 31-Establishment of the Civilian Conservation Corps

 ∙ April 19th- Abolishing the gold standard

 ∙ May 12th-The Federal Emergency Relief Act

 ∙ May 12th-The Agricultural Adjustment Act, which instituted a national agricultural policy.

 ∙ May 12th-The Emergency Farm Mortgage Act, providing for the refinancing of farm mortgages.

∙ May 18th-The Tennessee Valley Authority Act provided for the development of the Tennessee Valley.

∙ May 27th-The Truth in Securities Act, which required full disclosure in the issue of new securities.

∙ June 5th- Abolishment of the gold clause in public and private contracts.

∙ June 13th-The Home Owner’s Loan Act, making it possible to refinance home mortgages.

∙ June 16th-The Glass-Steagall Banking Act, guaranteeing bank deposits

∙ June 16th-The Farm Credit Act

∙ June 16th-The Railroad Coordination Act, which established a federal Coordinator of Transportation.

Source: ``The Coming of the New Deal’’ By Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

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        After his inauguration in 1965, Lyndon Johnson’s legislative accomplishments was the greatest the country witnessed since 1933; though the bills passed in the 89th Congress (January 4th-October 23, 1965) was stretched out over an entire year instead of within a 100 day period.
        The most significant legislation passed, included:

∙ April 11th- Elementary and Secondary School Act.

∙ July 30th- Medicare

∙ August 6th-The Voting Rights Act

∙ August 10th-The Omnibus Housing Act

∙ September 9th-Creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development

∙ September 29th: The National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities

∙ October 2nd- The Water Quality Act of 1965

∙ October 3rd-The Immigration Act of 1965

∙ October 20th- The Higher Education Act

    Source: Donald A. Ritchie, Associate Historian, U.S. Senate Historical Office

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Websites to keep in mind:

America.Gov maintains a day by day notebook of President Obama’s publicized events over the last 100 days.

The American Presidency Project- Presidential Approval Ratings following the first 100 Days-From Dwight Eisenhower through Barack Obama

President Obama’s First 100 Days: A Debate between Katrina vanden Heuvel and Rich Lowry from Grand Rapids, Michigan