To those of us who wondered if the American public's honeymoon with Barack Obama had already ended, the New York Times poll published on the day of his speech to Congress made it clear. The new US president is still very popular. Furthermore the calculated gamble made by Congressional Republicans, to stake their turf by opposing his ambitious stimulus plan, has so far backfired. Americans credit Obama with trying bipartisanship, and fault Republicans for not going along.

As testified by the rapturous reception he received in Congress, Americans still want to be in love with their new president. Polls also indicate that they accept the recovery from the country's recession will be slow and difficult, but that they trust him to lead them out of it.

Consultant-driven habits

Lest anyone think that Obama would quickly lapse into the poll-tested, consultant-driven habits of his predecessors, when time came for his first speech to Congress, he decided to make one for the ages. During his presidential campaign, Obama rolled out an ambitious agenda of education and health care reform, green energy, and a major reorientation of foreign policy.

Then, a global economic crisis of seismic proportions occurred. The new president would have been well within his rights to say he had to put all his grand ambitions aside for now, and concentrate on just getting America through this crisis. He didn't. He reiterated that a newly-revitalised country would be one which grasped the opportunities of history, using the crisis to transform and renew itself.

The result is a vision of the federal government's role in society which is as ambitious and positive as that articulated by Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson generations ago. The Clintonian declaration that the era of big government was over, which influenced Democratic policy for over a decade, was quietly left out by the kerbside. The Obama agenda is bold, hugely ambitious and a renewal of American liberalism.

In another respect, the speech may have represented a masterstroke. After weeks of sounding a relentless drumbeat of gloomy prognoses, Obama shifted gears on Tuesday night and turned visionary and optimistic. Tactically, this may have been a bit of genius: the litany of bad news prodded America into swallowing an increase in the scale of government, to levels with which they are not normally comfortable. But having achieved his goals, Obama summoned his compatriots to regard this newly expanded state as a harbinger of better times.

America, he declared, remains a market economy. But, he added, that market has always functioned best when government plays its part in facilitating entrepreneurship, training its workforce and spurring innovation (true enough, if one considers that so many of the technological innovations that have driven US progress emerged from the nation's military).

Republicans future

Despite their low popularity, Republicans have apparently judged that their best future hope lies not in watering down their free-marketeering, but in opposing Obama. In the short term, this strategy may deliver few dividends. But if an economic recovery fails to gain pace in the next year or so, if the deficit continues to balloon, if the rush of events overwhelm Obama's ambitious agenda, Republicans may end up looking prescient.

Besides, their biggest asset was arguably there, over Obama's left shoulder, in her olive-green suit. Obama may represent the future of American liberalism. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with her love of partisanship and patronage politics, represents a past many Americans want to put behind them. Considerably less popular than the president, she will offer Republicans with a useful foil as they oppose a popular administration.

John Rapley is president of the Caribbean Research Institute (CaPRI), an independent research think tank affiliated to the University of the West Indies, Mona. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.