Hendrik Hertzberg

Illustration: Tom Bachtell

What the public does anticipate is not miracles but competence, and its confidence in Obama’s abilities has grown. In the most recent survey—a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released on December 24th—eighty-two per cent of those questioned said they approved of Obama’s performance during the transition.
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Obama’s ratings are unusually high—fifteen points higher than either of his two predecessors’ at the corresponding moment in their transitions, and arguably higher than anyone’s since the modern era of polling began. “Obama walks in with nearly twice the support on the economy that President-elect Clinton had in January, 1993, and he beats Ronald Reagan as well,” Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director, said.

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