Clift: Could Obama Become the Next Reagan?

Enough with the Lincoln analogies; Reagan is the president that Barack Obama is most closely modeling himself after. Ronald Reagan inherited stagflation, a defeat abroad and a nation at its nadir in morale. Through the sheer force of his personality as much as his policies, four years later, it was "Morning in America," the theme of his 1984 re-election campaign when he won 49 states. Obama isn't president yet, but his determined calm and orderly transition pace appear to be soothing the financial markets, producing the first sustained gain in stocks since the mid-September meltdown.

On Jan. 20, Obama will take the oath of office, join a private luncheon in Statuary Hall, then meet with congressional leaders and, if all goes according to plan, sign into law a massive stimulus plan before he proceeds up Pennsylvania Avenue to the viewing stand outside the White House for the Inaugural Parade. Reagan initiated the tradition of the Inaugural Day meeting with the legislative barons, a gesture that signals respect and sets a tone for the 100-day dash when a president can be most productive.

This will be the first time since 1960 that two senators have gone directly from Capitol Hill to the White House. The people they're bringing with them, together with the relationships they have, constitute an unparalleled early warning system. Unlike Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, who quickly ran afoul of their Democratic majorities, Obama will be better wired on Capitol Hill than anybody in either party since Lyndon Johnson. Rahm Emanuel has a boatload of IOUs he can call in as chief of staff along with a high sensitivity to what it takes to preserve and build an enduring majority. Phil Schilero, tapped as Obama's liaison to Capitol Hill, has deep roots in Congress both as a top aide to former Senate leader Tom Daschle and as ace House investigator Henry Waxman's longtime sidekick. With Waxman displacing old bull John Dingell as chairman of the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee, the prospects for meaningful action on a host of legislation, notably climate change, improve dramatically. Dingell is known as "Tailpipe John" for his fierce defense of Michigan's auto industry against government regulation.

After Clinton won in 1992, congressional leaders took a highly publicized trek to Little Rock to take their measure of the man, and when they returned, they set the agenda. Clinton was the first Democrat to win in 16 years but he wasn't in a strong position. With third-party candidate Ross Perot in the race, Clinton had failed to achieve 50 percent of the popular vote, meaning that Democrats elected to Congress performed better than he did, so why should they kowtow to him? In raw numbers, Obama is in a much stronger position, plus he has extra political capital because of his charisma and communication skills. "It's unlikely he's going to be led about by congressional leaders, it'll be the other way around," says a top Senate Democratic aide, who doesn't want to be quoted by name seeming to disparage his end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Carter's first 100 days turned contentious when key committee chairmen rebelled at his proposal to cancel several water projects he regarded as wasteful. The hometown loyalists Carter surrounded himself with had no idea of what a sacred cow they had taken on, and Carter was forced to back down.

Obama has large majorities in the Senate and House, and he won't be able to use Congress as an excuse for not getting things done. He has something else too, and that is an enormous wellspring of good will. It's not happenstance that Obama won, says Vernon Jordan, managing director of Lazard Freres and a senior counsel at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld, one of the premiere law firms based in Washington. Jordan is better known today as Bill Clinton's friend and golfing partner but he has a long and proud history as a civil-rights leader and activist. He recounted in a recent talk to promote his new book, "Make It Plain," the legal battles fought in the 1940s to outlaw Georgia's whites-only primary, one of the many steps along the way to elect a black president. Watching the returns on election night, alone in his New York apartment, Jordan said his eyes flooded with tears just as they did when Nelson Mandela walked out of jail and Tiger Woods went from the 18th tee to the 19th green at Augusta. Jordan recalls how he counseled Obama in November '06 that this wasn't his time, and how wrong he was.

His book, a collection of his speeches, includes a blockbuster he delivered as president of the National Urban League in July 1977, six months into Carter's presidency, in which he rebukes the new president, a friend from Georgia he had helped elect, for disappointing the large black majorities who voted for him by failing to introduce an urban revitalization policy and to address the grinding problems of poverty and discrimination. This is another era, ushered in by decades of disappointment. It will take more than six months for Obama to deliver on the hope and change he promised. But by 2012, if we can say it's morning in America again, Obama will have succeeded. He might even win 49 states.