Experts say Obama will be a centrist

Experts say President Barack Obama will govern from the center and must cope with the most daunting set of problems since John F. Kennedy took office almost 50 years ago.

Analysts also say the new president must be more creative with his economic stimulus package than just pouring money into building bridges and roads.

“The country faces some serious challenges and he will need support from the moderate right as well as Democrats,’’ said Brian Balogh, a history professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs.

Obama is above all a political pragmatist, said Stephen Hess, a former adviser to presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and a senior fellow emeritus in governance studies at the Brookings Institution.

“He, after all, has a very substantial majority in Congress,’’ Hess said.

Obama realizes he will need Republicans on issues, Hess said. Obama showed his savvy by meeting with Republican leaders after being elected, Hess said.

“He’s a pragmatist not an ideologue,” Hess said

Cabinet appointments such as the retention of Defense Secretary Robert Gates show that Obama is willing to reach across the aisle politically.

“When you retain the Republican secretary of defense you are hardly sending a signal that you are throwing out the baby with the bath water,’’ Balogh said.

While attracting a consensus of Congress for his agenda might be possible, Obama has the twin crises of the economy and national security.

Balogh said Kennedy had to deal with the Cold War when he took office in 1961, but that problem did not match the twin challenges Obama must confront.

Hess said part of Obama’s job is to deal with the emotional stress the economy is putting on Americans.

“A lot of Americans are scared, frightened and angry. They have put a lot of hope in the president,’’ he said.

Pouring money into rebuilding U.S. roads and bridges should not be one of the major planks in an Obama economic stimulus package, said Matthew Spalding, the director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative group.

“Large, across-the-board spending for roads and infrastructure does not help the economy,’’ Spalding said. Tax cuts, particularly for business, could offer the best way to stimulate the economy, Spalding said.

If business owners are confident of lower taxes over a period of three to four years that will provide them the confidence to expand, Spalding said. Careful consideration of the stimulus package by Obama is important., Spalding said

Diplomacy under the Bush administration has been as a country of war. The Obama diplomacy will be different, according to Spalding.

“The Obama administration will have much more of an inclination to see diplomacy almost as an end,’’ he said.

And while Obama might want a larger place for diplomacy in his administration, the realities of governing might change that, he said.

Hess and Spalding say it may be years before the true impact of President George W. Bush’s presidency is known, particularly in foreign policy.

But Bush will have a tough domestic legacy. “The domestic legacy for the Bush administration is already written out there,’’ Spalding said.

Part of the focus will be on failed domestic accomplishments, Spalding said.

While the Iraq war may be assessed differently in 30 years, there is the toll of 4,000 dead soldiers, Spalding said.

Domestically, Hurricane Katrina was “badly handled,’’ Hess said.

“Some of the liabilities are greater than the assets,’’ Hess said of the Bush presidency scorecard.