With Healthcare, Obama Scores His First Zogby A+

Pollster John Zogby updates our weekly Obama Report Card with a grade on the president's performance. Zogby uses his polling, expert analysis, and interaction with major players to come up with a grade and some comments that capture how he sees the president's week ending.

John Zogby on Week 62:

"The president won a huge victory with healthcare reform. He showed that he could steer his way through obstacles from the right and the left and deliver on one of the changes he promised. Make no mistake how big this is. Can you remember anyone who stood up and shouted down Social Security? Name someone who took to the House floor and argued against Medicare. Does Strom Thurmond have a statue in the Capitol for opposing the civil rights bill? That's just the point. Obama has done what no president has done before him—a gallery that includes two Roosevelts, Truman, and Clinton. Republicans are united against this and will run on their opposition in November—just as seniors will get their rebate to fill the doughnut on their prescription drugs and parents will see that their children cannot be prevented from coverage because of a pre-existing condition. There will be a classic ideological battle in 2010, and now the president has to sell what he has done. But he has done it, and it is one for the history books. The week belongs to him."

This week's grade: A+

Last week's: B+

John Zogby is president and CEO of Zogby International, a public opinion, research, and business solutions firm with experience working in more than 70 countries around the globe. Founded and led by Zogby since 1984, Zogby International specializes in telephone, Internet, and face-to-face survey research and analysis for corporate, political, nonprofit, and governmental clients. The firm is headquartered in Utica, N.Y. John Zogby is also the author of The Way We'll Be: The Zogby Report on the Transformation of the American Dream (Random House).

• See a gallery of political caricatures.
• See photos from the final week of the healthcare debate.

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