by Joe Owens

Created on: November 14, 2008   Last Updated: March 23, 2009

Barack Obama defines the ultimate in a man who rode a perfect storm into the White House. An unpopular war, a deepening financial crisis, a disillusioned and disenfranchised electorate all combined to make the heretofore unlikely election of a man of color to the highest office in the land our new reality. Of course this is a positive in all circles, as every person can not put forward the dream of doing the impossible. After all, if a one term senator can make the humongous jump to the residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there is hope for us all.

Throughout his campaign, Barack Obama used a barrage of sincere messages to tap into the wants and needs of all the people thirsty for a "common" man's approach to their every day problems. There were so many things wrong that you could hardly fail to hit hot button topics anywhere Mr. Obama spoke. True to the democratic style, he harped on the miscues of the preceding administration, promising to "fix the problems" when and if he got the chance.

The future for Mr. Obama is now. He has at least one thousand four hundred sixty days to accomplish all he promised. Can he do it? I expect the history books my grandchildren read will answer this question. But within this article, let's consider the actions he must cover within the first 100 of these sun cycles.

Ask the man on the street, and he will tell you his job security is the number one priority Mr. Obama must address. Yes the stock market, bank and credit issues are huge, but without a job to provide the security of a steady income, there is no need for the other three topics in the last sentence. Hearing that hundreds of thousands jobs are removed from the economy each week is frightening across the board to families, retailers and members of the business community. A plan to stem this mounting tsunami is imperative.

Toxic mortgages, high risk loans, sub prime loans, they all spell trouble for lenders and those unlucky enough to now see themselves in the "underwater" position. This task will most likely be the hardest for Mr. Obama to remedy. But, the thing that he must remember is that he promised to make this problem go away as well.

All in all, I would say the hardest of the litany of issues Mr. Obama will face will be the transition from the image of the newfound savior of the world to the status of the 44th man to enter the highest elected office in our land with optimism oozing from every orifice only to learn the machine that is our government is not so simply adjusted to match the unrealistic expectations of his faithful. It will be interesting to see just how understanding this phalanx of rabid supporters are when the supposedly friendly congress continues trying to exact their "pound of flesh" from the tax money pool as they attach pork to the various intitiatives crafted by the Obama policy wonks.

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