Honeymoon inflation
Posted on:: December 8th, 2008
I haven’t researched this — I’m in Paris for LeWeb and am too beat to actually look stuff up — but it seems to me that I haven’t read any of the “First 100 Days” speculation that usually fills the newspapers during the transition. I assume and hope that’s because the media — and we the people? — understand the magnitude of the problems. Why, 100 days is like a billion dollars these days … a drop in the bucket.
I googled “first 100 days bush” and the first several pages of results suggest to me that the the 100 days thing shows up much more commonly in retrospect (ie as a hook for late-April/early-May stories) than in advance.
And I suspect that there’s usually a fair bit of disappointment involved, and not just in Bush’s case, since FDR set the standard. In non-emergency settings it’s hard for a President to do much that’s substantive in 100 days. There might be a month’s worth of symbolic stuff to do at the beginning (if that), but then the hard work of passing legislation comes into play and May’s not likely to look a lot different from February.
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I googled “first 100 days bushâ€!
I agree with Ed, but I suspect it’s also based on how much the incoming elected official or party makes of the first 100 days. The Democrats took Congress they made a bunch of 100 days promises that they never carried out. Republicans for their worts did vote on all 10 points of their “Contract with America” but they set that as a goal.
I have more respect that Obama isn’t playing to such a ploy. It’s more realistic to not talk in such terms.
Nice post, keep up the good work!
I think Obama is going to try and see how much he can spend in the first 100 days.