Obama Advised: Don't Overreach

From William A. Galston in The Times of London:
Will Obama turn out to be as successful in pushing his agenda as Reagan, or as unsuccessful as Carter?
The core issue is the clarity and self-discipline needed to maintain control of the agenda.
Consider the judgment of Erwin C Hargrove, a respected scholar of the presidency, rendered after Reagan’s first 100 days: “Reagan has demonstrated, in a way that Jimmy Carter never did, that he understands how to be president. He knows that a president can deal with only a relatively small number of issues at a time.”
Hargrove might have added that the same is true of Congress, a fact every president must keep firmly in mind.
Supporters of the current administration’s approach might retort that it’s 1933, not 1981, and the relevant model is FDR, not Reagan. The US is heading toward its grimmest year in generations, and so we need bold action on a broad front.
But consider how FDR governed. Although he assumed office with nearly unchecked power — in 1933, the Democrats held majorities of 313 in the House and 59 in the Senate — he was careful to focus his early domestic policy almost exclusively on the economic emergency. Believing that the banking crisis was at the heart of the crisis of confidence, he declared a banking holiday within two days of taking office. Four days later, on March 9, he introduced the Emergency Banking Act, which Congress enacted the same day.
By contrast, Roosevelt delayed most of the structural reforms that did not bear directly on the economic emergency. While he was more sensitive than previous presidents to the links between seemingly disparate issues, these interconnections in his view did not warrant trying to move on all fronts at once.
The people and Congress had to be brought along with an agenda they could understand. FDR never believed that his capacity to legislate would wane after his first year in office. On the contrary, he used early momentum to build popular support, yielding further congressional gains in 1934 and a massive landslide in 1936.