NEWS ANALYSIS


By PETER BAKER , WASHINGTON


PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA has been a font of cool confidence, never too hot, never too cold, seemingly undaunted by the magnitude of troubles awaiting him and unbothered by the few setbacks that have tripped him up.

He remains hard to read or label - centrist in his appointments and bipartisan in his style, yet also pushing the broadest expansion of government in generations.

He has reached across old boundaries to build the foundation of an administration that will be charged with hauling the United States out of crisis, but for all the outreach he has made it clear he is centralizing policy making in the White House.

He will eventually have to choose between competing advice and priorities, risking the disappointment or anger of constituencies that for the moment can still see in him what they hope to see.
What the world has seen of his leadership style so far evokes the discipline of George W. Bush and the curiosity of Bill Clinton.
Mr. Obama is not shy about making decisions and making them expeditiously - he assembled his team in record time - but he has also sought to tap into America’s intellectual dialogue at a time of great ferment.


He has set out ideas for governance even before taking office, but he has also adapted the details as conditions changed.
Mr. Obama has taken a place in society that extends beyond political leadership.

He is as much symbol as substance, an icon for the young and a sign of deliverance for an older generation that never believed a man with his skin color would ascend those steps to vow to preserve, protect and defend a Constitution that originally counted a black man as threefifths of a person.

“He sort of lives in a grudge-free zone,” said John D.
Podesta, a cochairman of his transition team.
“He’s capable of taking on board a lot of information and making good decisions. He knows he’s going to make mistakes.
But he also knows that you’ve got to do the best you can, make tough decisions and move on.”

Some of those mistakes may owe in part to that signature confidence.
Mr. Obama knew and liked Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, initially overlooking an investigation into state contracts that later sank his nomination for commerce secretary. Likewise, Mr.
Obama forged a personal connection with Timothy F. Geithner and picked him for Treasury secretary, choosing to disregard Mr.Geithner’s past failure to pay some of his taxes.

Aides described Mr. Obama’s decision making as crisp and efficient.
At meetings, they said, he starts by framing questions he wants answered, then gives each person a chance to talk, while also ngaging them. At the end, he typically sums up what he has learned and where he is leaning. A late-night person, he often follows up with calls to aides at 10 p.m. or later .

That contrasts with Mr. Clinton, who liked free-ranging discussion and took time making decisions. Mr. Podesta, Mr. Clinton’s last White House chief of staff, described the former president as rilliant at “thinking laterally” across subject areas. “One thing that seemed not to have taken on Bill Clinton is law school,”he said. He thinks of Mr. Obama “as approaching a problem in a more logical, more drill-down sort of way.”

Mr. Obama opted not to play it safe during the transition. He brought his Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, into the cabinet, and angered gay and liberal supporters by inviting the Reverend Rick Warren, an opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage, to give the inaugural invocation. Although Mr. Obama deferred foreign affairs with his “one president at a time” rule, that did not apply to domestic policy, where he lobbied Congress to release $350 billion in financial bailout money and set about negotiating roughly $800 billion in spending programs and tax breaks.

“He’s got the political courage to look at things and be bold,” said Governor Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, a supporter of Mrs.
Clinton’s who has spent time with Mr. Obama since the election.
Mr. Obama’s outreach to Republicans has paid dividends. He wooed enough Republican senators to release the bailout money.

Mr. Obama has built a broader base of public support than many incoming presidents. Representative Artur Davis, Democrat of Alabama, said 53 percent of white voters in his conservative state now had favorable views of Mr. Obama, compared with 17 percent before the election. “He has been pragmatic,” Mr. Davis said, “and even many voters who voted against him see him as prepared to govern in a pragmatic, nonideological way.”

Mr. Obama has been harder to label than that, and the next months should flesh out his governing philosophy.

“I don’t think it maps into traditional right-left, but nor is it Bill Clinton-like triangulation,” said Robert B. Reich, Mr. Clinton’s labor secretary and an economic adviser to Mr. Obama. “My sense is he genuinely believes that people can come to a rough consensus about big problems and work together effectively. I don’t really get a sense of ideological position. He’s obviously a man of strong convictions, but they don’t fall into the standard boxes.”