NEW YORK, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama may not have fully recognized the difficulty he faces in pressing his agenda of expensive priorities, two political observers said.
Since Election Day, Obama has talked about "setbacks and false starts," a shift from the broad promises he voiced during the campaign, a New York Times news analysis published Thursday said.
Both the substance of his first big legislative accomplishment -- the multibillion-dollar economic stimulus package -- and the way he achieved it underscored the depth of the challenges facing the United States and underscores the differences between a political climate of his first weeks in office compared with early stages of recent administrations, the analysis said.
"He has been very consistent ... that it took a long time to get into this and it will take a long time to get out of it," said William Galston, a domestic policy aide for former President Bill Clinton and now a senior fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution, "and there's some evidence that the American people are prepared to be patient."
But Galston said Obama may not yet have fully appreciated the difficulties he faces in pressing for initiatives on affordable healthcare, global warming, better funding for education and promoting alternative energy research.
"The president hasn't done as good a job of preparing the nation for the trade-offs necessary to reconcile the hope agenda with the fear agenda," Galston said.
Republican pollster David Winston voters mainly will focus on whether the economic measures sponsored by the new administration are effective in halting and reversing job losses.
"He's going to have to fit other issues into the larger narrative of the economy," Winston told the Times.