For Obama, high expectations and high hurdles

Agenda to take shape in time of great crisis

Barack Obama, shown leaving with his wife, Michelle, after his victory speech Tuesday in Chicago, will become president at a time of huge budget deficits, a deep recession, and two wars. (Gary Hershorn/Reuters)

WASHINGTON - When Barack Obama takes office in January, propelled by the greatest percentage of the popular vote by a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964, his party has high hopes that it has a mandate to push through the ambitious agenda Obama laid out in his campaign.

But while Democrats and Republicans agree there is a general mandate for change, Obama's ability to make those changes when he takes office in January is far from clear.

While 52 percent of voters backed Obama, only 17 percent of those surveyed before the election said they trusted the government most of the time, a historic low. Moreover, with Democrats failing to win enough seats to stop a Senate filibuster, the new president will need support from Republicans to enact his ideas.

"The American people are torn between their desire for government that will actually do something about the massive insecurity they are now feeling on so many fronts" and their lack of "confidence in the national government as an honest and effective agent," said William Galston, who was President Clinton's adviser on domestic issues.

Though Obama won handily, "You'd make a serious mistake if you think you have a blank check from the public to do anything you want to get done," Leon Panetta, former White House chief of staff under Clinton, said yesterday. Panetta is advising Obama's transition team.

To avoid mistakes of past presidents, Panetta said, Obama should put at the top of his agenda some early issues he is confident he can win, and delay other more controversial measures that are bound to fracture Congress. The new president must be also be willing to upset some supporters by delaying action on their priorities, including healthcare reform, until he has some successes in his effort to improve the economy, Panetta said.

Indeed, amid the euphoria expressed by Obama supporters after his victory came a note of caution from the US Chamber of Commerce.

Bruce Josten, the chamber's executive vice president, said yesterday that Obama's decisive defeat of John McCain is "hardly a strong mandate." He urged Obama not to squander precious political capital on hot-button issues that would alienate the business community, such as a proposal to make it easier for workers to form unions.

Obama "is going to have to deal with expectations from outside groups that are over the top," Josten said.

But the AFL-CIO, an influential labor organization that boasted its members played a crucial role in electing Obama, called on the president-elect to put the union proposal on his first-term to-do list. As a senator, Obama sponsored legislation that would accomplish that goal, but it remains to be seen whether he will make it a priority as president.

"I expect we'll be at the table talking about things that working people need, and they'll be listening," AFL-CIO spokesman Steve Smith said of the incoming administration.

With so many competing interests insisting that they be heard, Obama's transition team is studying how past presidents used their early days in office.

One particular point of study is the way Clinton won an electoral mandate, then fumbled part of it away by overreaching on a sweeping healthcare reform plan, which Congress rejected. That led to the 1994 Republican congressional revolution and the Democrats' demotion to minority status on Capitol Hill prompting Clinton to agree with the GOP that the era of big government was over.

Now, the financial crisis has helped resurrect an increase in government reach, and Obama moves into the White House at a time of massive budget deficits, a severe recession, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama's own agenda includes many proposals that could make government even bigger: more government regulation of Wall Street, rebuilding public education, and creating an accessible, affordable healthcare system.

Representative Barney Frank, the Newton Democrat who chairs the Financial Services Committee, said Obama does have a strong public mandate to enact measures that will boost the economy. Frank also cited a Democratic consensus to tighten regulations for banks and other financial institutions as well as strong support for unions.

But Frank warned that Obama should not try to take on potentially divisive issues right away, such as immigration reform and international trade issues, until Americans have more confidence in the economy. "A lot of Americans are angry at the erosion of their economic positions," Frank said. "Until you give the average American a better sense of fairness in the system, I think you have a very hard time doing trade and immigration."

Within hours of the declaration that Obama had won the presidency, a variety of interest groups that had supported his candidacy made clear they expected action on their issues. For example, competing groups were at odds over whether the election was a mandate on John McCain's mantra of "Drill, baby, drill," a reference to McCain's support for more drilling off the US coastline to ease American dependence on imported oil.

Sierra Club political director Cathy Duvall noted that Obama the candidate had focused his energy policy on an array of sources, particularly renewable energy. "He was very clear what he thinks, and that is moving America to a new clean energy economy," Duvall said, while acknowledging that Obama did not take offshore drilling completely off the table.

But John Felmy, chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute, noted that Obama said that offshore oil drilling should be considered as part of an overall energy policy - something Felmy interpreted as support for more drilling. "He said it was something he would certainly look into as part of a comprehensive policy," Felmy said. "We look forward to working with him."

Both sides in the debate are anxiously waiting to see who the president-elect appoints as secretary of the interior, which will probably provide clues to Obama's thinking.

Michael Kranish can be reached at kranish@globe.com