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The secret of his success

Fareed Zakaria
NO other American president has faced a learning curve as steep as the one Barack Obama has encountered. When he began his quest for the Democratic nomination three years ago, the Dow Jones industrial average was 14,000, and the world was in the midst of a great economic boom.
By the time he took office, America's economy was in its worst contraction since the Great Depression.
Yet, President Obama’s first 100 days have been successful. The economy remains weak, but he has put forward a series of initiatives to stabilise the capital, proposed longer-term programs to create sustained growth, adjusted America's military priorities, and begun a process of changing America's image.
These are only overtures, and naturally much will depend on how things turn out But so far, any president would be envious of Obama's accomplishments.
The real question is, why has Obama been so successfill? Many commentators have
focused on his calm leadership style, his deliberative methods and his tight teamwork. But there is a larger explanation for the success so far. Obama understands that America in 2009 is in a very different place now. Polls say the country is more liberal than it was two decadesago.
Conservative commentators have made much of a recent Pew survey showing that public reaction to Obama has been more polarised than to any previous president Democrats really like him, and Republicans really dislike him. But the s triking statistic was how few Americans now self-identify as Republicans. Previously it has hovered around 24%, the lowest in three decades.
It's not so much that the Republican base has shrunk, as Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz points out in a recent essay, the Democratic base has expanded. When Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, the Democratic base was 30% of the electorate; swing voters were 43% and Republicans 27%. Last year Democrats made up 41%; swing voters dropped to 32% and Republicans stayed put at 27%.
Because party loyalties tend not to shift
quickly, an 11 -point rise for the Democrats is astonishing. Abramowitz argues that since these changes are largely rooted in demography - particularly the growing nonwhite population - they are likely to persist for a while.
It's not only that Obama has inherited a more liberal country. He figured out how to utilise the moment. Rahm Emmanuel's aphorism, Never let a crisis go to waste, has proved a brilliant political strategy. By combining short-term stimulus spending with long-term progressive projects, Obama has confounded the opposition. Sen. Judd Gregg was on CNBC last week trying to explain that while he fully supported government spending for 2009 and 2010 to jump-start the economy, his concerns were about 2011 and 2012. That's a pretty complicated case to make to the electorate.
Obama has not overinterpreted the moment. He has steered a careful middle course on the bank bailouts. The most spirited critiques of his policies have come not from the right but from the leftin the clamor for nationalisation. He may or may not have the policy right, but he certainly has the politics right.
The country remains generally suspicious of big government and comfortable with free markets and private enterprise. The old Democratic hostility to big business doesn't resonate so strongly any more, since the new Democratic majority has fewer working-class whites and more college graduates.
Obama has handled the public's anger
well, giving voice to outrage but not enacting populist policies. He quietly announced last week that he will not reopen negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement to impose labour and enviroppi^gtaj standards.
On the torture memos, Obama has made clear that he does not want to criminalise a policy disagreement. On Iraq, he has hewed to a centrist course, but still one that draws down America's military presence there. On Cuba, Iran and Syria, his overtures have been modest and preliminary.
In almost every arena, he has pushed the envelope to change policy, not worrying about the inevitable opposition from the right, yet always in a sober and calculating manner.
Globalisation, immigration, more working women and college graduatesail these haw changed America over the past two decades. In a detailed study for the liberal think tank the Center for American Progress, Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin point out that 67 % of Americans now think favorably of the term "progressive," a25 point increase in five years.
This doesn’t make us a European country -- 67% also think favourably of the term "conservative" but it does suggest that things are changing. And Barack Obama’s success derives from his understanding of this shiftand his readiness to act on it
Fareed Zakaria is Editor of Newsweek International.
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