"After his first 100 days -- an arbitrary landmark set by Franklin D. Roosevelt -- President Obama has overturned decades of Republican ideology in Washington. One Republican even managed to sweeten the date for Obama by defecting to the Democrats. But the president still has to be wary.

Barack Obama had everything perfectly choreographed for Wednesday, his 100th day in office. First he would travel to St. Louis for a town hall meeting, where he could be fairly sure of a glowing reception; then he would return to Washington for a televised press conference. His team had provided the media with insider anecdotes and graced a few correspondents with private background interviews.


Nevertheless, an unplanned announcement sideswiped the administration from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue: Senator Arlen Specter said on Tuesday that he was switching parties. The moderate Republican will become a Democrat, ostensibly because he thinks the 2010 mid-term election is his to lose if he remains in the Republican Party. (Polls suggest a Republican can't win his Senate seat in Pennsylvania; and he would also face a challenge from inside the Republican Party.) Obama said he was "thrilled," and his spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said the president knew nothing in advance about the defection.

Specter's move is important. It will make him the 59th Democrat in the Senate and bring the Democrats one vote closer to a filibuster-proof majority. With 60 senators -- a number the Democrats will probably achieve when Al Franken of Minnesota officially takes his seat -- the Democrats will have the power to override any Republican efforts to block legislation by "filibustering," or giving long speeches on the Senate floor.

These days, the US media likes to report on an "Obama revolution," a long-term political shift comparable to the "Reagan revolution" of the early 1980s. A more pleasant set of headlines for the president's 100th day would be hard to imagine.

Most Popular President in Decades

In spite of know-it-alls on the right, and in spite all the problems he faces, Obama seems to enjoy more support from the US public than any president in generations. The latest polls from the Washington Post and ABC News show an approval rating of 69 percent, which no US leader since Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 has enjoyed during his first 100 days.

Polls also show a majority of US citizens for the first time since 2004 claiming the nation is on the right path. "Obama has used his first 100 days to raise the mood of the people and raise hopes of a brighter future," one pollster said to the Associated Press, which arrived at similar statistics. ..."

Der Spiegel, Germany