The state of Obama is strong

By Jonathan Capehart

The President Obama you see tonight will be different from the one you saw on Nov. 3. That Obama was a little glum and introduced into our political lexicon the now-worn-out gerund "shellacking" to describe the beat-down he and the Democrats suffered at the polls in the midterm elections. No, the Obama you will see tonight will be strong. Really strong.

Folks were pronouncing Obama's presidency pretty much dead for the next two years on Nov. 3. Heck, I even worried the president might not be able to get it together before the 2012 sweepstakes got underway in less than a year. But as John Heilemann reports in a fascinating must-read New York magazine piece, Obama recognized he and his administration were in trouble and started shoring things up before the actual reality struck in November. And the string of accomplishments in the lame-duck session are testament to a more focused, hands-on and assertive chief executive. You know you're doing something right when your arch-nemesis, Charles Krauthammer, spends two columns complimenting you, including dubbing you "The new comeback kid."Yeah, the compliments were all backhanded. But they were compliments all the same.

And now Obama has the surging job approval ratings to back up his strength and Krauthammer's grudging admiration.

Washington Post/ABC News poll: 54 percent

NBC News/Wall Street Journal: 53 percent

CNN: 55 percent

Gallup: 50 percent

New York Times/CBS News: 49 percent

Bruce Drake of AOL Poll Watch attributes Obama's poll vaulting to independents swinging back his way. I also agree with him that folks just like to see stuff getting done in Washington and are giving the president credit for it. But Drake also highlights a danger zone for Obama: his handling of the deficit. In that CNN poll, 60 percent of Americans don't like what he's doing. If the president doesn't use his new-found strength to start making progress on this front he might not recover from the falling poll numbers that will ensue.

By Jonathan Capehart  | January 25, 2011; 11:33 AM ET