This is an LBJ moment where Obama's legislative skills will be tested. Just as Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law along with sweeping civil-rights legislation in the window that was open to him after the assassination of President Kennedy, Obama's standing in the country is high enough that he can still ride the wave of the election that swept him into office. The steadily increasing number of people without jobs and health insurance is scary and their cry for change will only grow louder. The true unemployment rate is probably twice what the government records as people get discouraged and fall from the statistics.

Still, Obama is making progress. If you close your eyes and listen to the cable-television ads, it sounds like the early '90s all over again with recycled attacks on socialized medicine and government-run health care. But this July is very different from the summer of Hillary Clinton's discontent. The interest groups are relatively quiet, and the bills are being written. At a comparable point during the Clinton administration, the legislation was almost dead, with Democrats heaping dirt on the corpse along with the Republicans. According to Congressional Quarterly, Obama is on pace to exceed Clinton and even LBJ in getting Congress to vote his way, in part by carefully picking his fights. Victory born of caution falls short of expectations but beats defeat any day.

© 2009