Obama gets high marks in S. Florida

BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI, Miami Herald

It's nearly 100 days into his presidency, and Barack Obama has yet to disappoint Jean Acevedo, a small-business owner who ardently cast her vote for the Democrat in November.

Acevedo praises Obama's juggling of big issues. In her estimation, the president has made all the right moves in redirecting environmental policy and revitalizing foreign relations, and in aggressively tackling the economic trouble he inherited -- although like many people she is wary of massive bailouts and ballooning federal deficits.

''I can't believe how much he is trying to handle and how well he is doing it,'' said Acevedo, 61, who lives in Delray Beach and describes herself as a fiscally conservative Democrat who also voted for Republican Gov. Charlie Crist.

The president's policies have yet to make a significant mark on South Florida. Economic stimulus money is just starting to wend its way here, and Obama has not tackled broad healthcare reform, a critical campaign promise for a region with one of the highest rates of uninsured people in the country.

And Obama's aggressive deployment of the government purse has solidified an apparently small but determined opposition across the region.

But Acevedo's faith in the president's ability to steer the best course remains firm -- a confidence shared by a solid majority of Floridians at this early but symbolically important juncture in Obama's presidency, surveys suggest.

''Obama has a team of smart, competent people that's allowing him to multitask, and he's shown the courage to try and do what he has,'' Acevedo said. ``No one would argue this man is very smart, whether you agree or disagree with his positions.''

The president's energized critics in South Florida might find that small comfort.

TAX DAY PROTESTS

Witness the noisy and impassioned protests that drew a couple of thousand people, most of them emphatically conservative, on Tax Day in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

Some protesters predict that their ranks will grow once the price of Obama's spending hits in the form of higher taxes -- maybe not right away, since Obama is reducing income taxes for most people, but inevitably as deficits escalate.

''The government is too big and getting bigger, and someone's going to have to pay for it,'' said Don Lovern, 83, a retired airline pilot who stood with his wife, Nancy, among some 800 people waving flags and homemade signs at motorists during the ''Tea Party'' protest in front of a Doral post office.

Lovern, a registered Democrat who voted for GOP presidential nominee John McCain, said Obama's bailouts are wasteful and increase the direct role of government in private enterprise to a risky degree.

''When the government gets into running private companies, we're treading on dangerous ground,'' Lovern said.

The anger on display at the protests and on conservative talk radio -- including some crude references to Obama and placards declaring him alternately a socialist and a fascist -- baffles Obama supporters. They say the bitter opposition is limited to those who never liked Obama in the first place.

''The only people being critical are people who were being critical even during campaign time,'' said Kevin Granville, a deputy with the Broward Sheriff's Office and a Miami resident. ``Everyone I've spoken with, if they were an Obama supporter from the beginning, they are still supporting him.''

Surveys bear Granville out. The latest, a Quinnipiac University poll released April 16, found opposition to Obama concentrated mainly among conservative Republicans. Obama's job approval in Florida has held mostly steady, about 60 percent, even as disapproval has risen sharply among Republicans, the poll found.

For some black supporters, like Granville, even the criticism of Obama is in some ways encouraging. Most Americans appear to be making up their minds about the country's first black president based on his decisions and performance, not on the basis of his race, he said.

''Absolutely, the symbolism is important, but I think he's a guy who came along who's qualified and he happens to be African American,'' Granville said.

One important area where Obama has directly touched South Floridians is Cuba policy. The president eased restrictions on remittances and travel to the island by Cuban Americans, a potentially controversial move that was well received by a majority of exiles, a survey released last week shows.

Many South Floridians will be watching the president closely on another front: policy toward Israel, the Middle East and Islamic countries. Obama has not yet clearly delineated a strategy for Israeli-Palestinian peace or containment of Iran's nuclear ambitions.

But many Jewish South Floridians were heartened by Obama's decision to withdraw from an anti-racism conference in Switzerland that administration officials said threatened to turn into an Israel-bashing session, as well as the president's hosting of the first Passover seder in the White House.

''There is a wait-and-see attitude, especially on Israel, but he's saying the right things,'' said Brian Siegal, executive director of the American Jewish Committee's Greater Miami and Broward chapter. ``He's going to meet with the new administration in Israel, and there seems to be an understanding of the urgency of addressing the threat a nuclear Iran poses.''

Muslims, too, have applauded speeches and interviews in which Obama, at times emphasizing his father's Islamic roots, has reached out to Muslims worldwide with an appeal for mutual respect.

''I think he's been making the right overtures to the Middle East, and to Arab and Jewish leaders as well,'' said Asad Ishoof, a founder of Nur Ul Islam, an organization that runs a mosque and a high school in Cooper City in Broward. ``As Americans, we view that as very positive.''

Ishoof, speaking as a Republican who voted for McCain, praised Obama's leadership, especially on the economy, but said both parties must find a way to work together. ''He has to be reasonable and provide leadership,'' Ishoof said. ``We as Republicans also need to bend a little bit.''

SPIRITED DEBATE

Given the urgency of national problems and Obama's ambitious remedies, there has certainly been plenty of daily kitchen-table and lunch-counter debate across South Florida over the efficacy of large presidential decisions -- the bailouts of banks, financial firms and automakers, combined with a massive increase in direct government spending -- and small ones.

Even the choice of a purebred puppy for his daughters has generated commentary.

At Miami's landmark S&S Diner, waitress Yolanda Quiñones launched into an impromptu lunchtime defense of Obama recently after a friendly exchange with two Cuban-American diners critical of the president's overtures to Cuba.

''I think he's done fantastic, but he can't win with some people,'' she said. ``Here he is trying to do something good for Cubans, and people criticize him. People even complain about the dog he got because he said he would get a mutt. But Senator Kennedy gave him this dog. Give the man a chance.''

Quiñones' attitude contains a common thread among supporters -- a willingness to let Obama's decisions play out, along with a recognition that the economic downturn has snared most of his attention.

Still, many who support Obama hope he will soon turn to other big issues he promised to address, including healthcare reform.

At a recent forum at Jackson Memorial Hospital sponsored by SEIU, the service-workers' union that is one of several liberal groups mounting a major push for broad healthcare reform, Fritz Pierre told about 80 hospital employees and guests that he is counting on Obama to deliver health insurance for his family.

Pierre, 59, and his wife are raising an 11-year-old granddaughter. But his low-wage job as a janitor at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport provides no health coverage, and he can't afford it on his own. His wife is a housekeeper at a downtown Miami hotel, but her job provides health coverage for only her.

''I'm really expecting the Obama health insurance could help me and low-income working people like me,'' Pierre said in an interview after his talk. ``He can do it. He's a new boy in town, so he has to prove himself. But I believe he has the capacity to overcome the political obstacles.''

The consensus among speakers at the forum and other supporters: Obama is willing to embrace broad reforms, but he must put political capital on the line, and he needs Congress to deliver.

''He has a lot on his plate,'' said Cynthia Barnett Hibnick, a Miami civil-trial attorney and Obama fan who has followed the healthcare issue closely. ``But I think if he doesn't make a move toward healthcare reform before the end of the year, the public, including myself, will be disappointed.''

The willingness to give Obama the benefit of the doubt extends to his economic strategy, even though many supporters confess that they sometimes find it hard to grasp the complex underpinnings of his measures.

''The deficit is a worry, and unemployment is still scary,'' said Betty Ward, 49, manager of a private medical office in Coral Springs, whose husband has been unemployed since August. ``I am not an economist. But it seems whatever Obama is doing, things are starting to show some positive results. I trust him 100 percent.''

Obama's critics say faith in this president is misplaced. They contend that he has embarked on a dangerous fiscal course that will prove both ineffective and ruinous, saddling a generation with oppressive debt.

Targets of their ire include the massive stimulus program, plans to raise taxes for the highest earners, and the seemingly unending series of bank and corporate bailouts.

''If they're going to fail, they should fail,'' said Don Calderale, 55. ``Bush started it, but Obama has taken it much farther.''

Calderale, among several supporters of Ron Paul -- the Libertarian-leaning Republican who ran for president -- at the Tea Party protest in Doral, held up a sign that read: ''Stop the Socialist Bailouts,'' with the ''o'' in ''socialist'' colored in with the Obama red, white and blue campaign logo. Around him, people chanted: ``No more taxes! No more taxes!''

''It's anger at government expenditures,'' Calderale said. ``Conservatives are nuts over that. People are outraged.''

Many Obama supporters dismiss the critics' cries as a backlash from conservatives in an unaccustomed position: out of tune with the majority.

After years in the political wilderness while the GOP dominated national politics, Barnett Hibnick, the Miami lawyer who describes herself as ''unabashedly liberal,'' sounds amazed to find that a president willing to undertake aggressive government action to correct social and economic problems has a majority of Americans behind him.

''I think he combines brilliance with pragmatism. He really is disarming the Republicans,'' Barnett Hibnick said, adding with a laugh: ``It's been quite a while since I've been in the mainstream.''