PRINCETON, New Jersey (CNN) -- When presidents enter the White House, they have approximately 100 days to show what they are made of. The notion of the first "hundred days" as a way to evaluate presidents
is an artificial creation that took hold after Franklin Roosevelt
became president in 1932 in the Great Depression. But it has become a
benchmark for evaluating the early success of a president. The
term is more than symbolic. Some presidents have been able to do a lot
with those hundred days. Not surprisingly, Roosevelt was the most
successful we have seen. His hundred days lasted from March 9 to June
16, 1933, and Congress passed 15 major bills. Roosevelt, in a
period of experimental genius, found support from Congress for a series
of programs to help stabilize an economy where 25 percent of the work
force was unemployed and banks were imploding as panicked citizens
pulled out their money. The humorist Will Rogers joked that
"Congress doesn't pass legislation any more, they just wave at the
bills as they go by," though in reality Democratic leaders were
instrumental in initiating many of the ideas that came from the White
House and making sure that they passed by sound margins. Roosevelt understood that he had a limited window of opportunity after
his election, and he moved fast. "I do not see how any living soul can
last physically going the pace that he is going," said Hiram Johnson,
"and mentally any one of us would be a psychopathic case if we
undertook to do what he is going."government. Programs were created to regulate Wall Street and
banking, support agriculture and labor, provide public works
employment, regulate production and more. Through the
legislation, as well as his historic fireside chats, Roosevelt restored
confidence in the government itself, as Americans sensed that
Washington could save American capitalism. He also used the first
months to overcome the many divisions that existed within the
Democratic Party. Lyndon Johnson
had a very different kind of hundred days when he took over after the
assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963. Johnson used his
hundred days to define his presidency in relation to his predecessor. Kennedy had encountered considerable trouble passing most of his
legislative agenda, including civil rights and tax cuts, because a
conservative coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans blocked
his proposals. Johnson believed that in the months after the
assassination, he needed to link himself to the deceased president, who
seemed to become more popular after his death, and he used that
connection to build political support for his bills. This is why
Johnson retained the services of many Cabinet officials from the
Kennedy administration. "I needed that White House staff,"
Johnson recalled, "Without them I would have lost my link to John
Kennedy, and without that I would have had absolutely no chance of
gaining the support of the media or the Easterners or the
intellectuals. And without that support I would have had absolutely no
chance of governing the country." During his first speech to
Congress after the assassination, Johnson invoked the memory of the
slain president by asking legislators to help him fulfill the
unfinished agenda. Calling Kennedy "the greatest leader of our
time," Johnson said to Congress, "Let us continue." The memory of
Kennedy helped him succeed in passing legislation on civil rights, tax
cuts and the War on Poverty. Yet another way to use 100 days is to undermine your partisan opposition in Congress. Ronald Reagan
did this masterfully when pushing for his across-the-board tax cut in
1981, a centerpiece of his domestic agenda. Reagan argued that tax cuts
would stimulate economic growth. The president used the bully
pulpit to overcome opposition among House Democrats, building support
for the cuts. He gave a speech on television, urging citizens to write
their legislators and tell them to support the cuts. House
Democrats, now the sole base for the party in Washington, joined in
once they saw the public pressure. In fact, they pushed for tax cuts of
their own, which were rolled into the bill. "It's like the arms
race between the United States and the Soviet Union," according to
Michigan Democrat William Brodhead, "for every move there's a
countermove; for every weapon, a counterweapon." By the end of the
bidding process, Reagan could claim victory on Capitol Hill and his key
legislation had drawn the support of his opposition. Sometimes presidents have stumbled in the hundred days, and the results are disastrous. Jimmy Carter
is one of the most striking examples. In his hundred days, Carter did
almost everything wrong. One of his biggest failures was how he handled
relations with Congress. Trying to strengthen his credentials as
a reformer, Carter took aim at pork barrel spending, opposing specific
items that President Ford had included in his final budget that funded
more than 300 water projects across the country. Carter dismissed the
proposal as a classic example of congressional pork. He sent a letter
to Congress stating that 19 of the projects would be cut. Congress was furious. They believed these funds were essential to their
constituents. Those affected by Carter's list included Sen. Russell
Long, the powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate
overturned Carter's decision. Bitter feelings remained and the rocky
relations continued to be a major problem for Carter. Barack
Obama can learn a lesson from all of these presidents about how to
break out of the gridlock that has bogged down Washington. They will
have to use their hundred days to build confidence in the government
and its ability to stabilize the economic system, taking advantage of
the narrow window they will have to get legislation through. Obama will have to define himself in relation to his predecessor, but
in this case by demonstrating clearly to the public what he will do
differently, rather than the same, as President Bush. And, finally, the
new president will need to find legislation that attracts some support
from the opposition to diminish the power of polarization on Capitol
Hill and establish the groundwork for future compromise. The one
thing that Obama must realize is that those hundred days will disappear
quickly. Once they are gone, as Bill Clinton learned after delaying his
push for health care reform, the political capital is hard to get back. SOURCE:CNN.COM
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