Top 10 Obama White House surprises

Think back to December 2008. Barack Obama had just won a sweeping electoral victory, and the press was speculating about the ways in which Obama had changed America: high-tech campaigns, the post-racial future, even bipartisanship.

But Barack Obama’s first year as president wasn’t always exactly what Americans expected.

The very first thing that surprised us about Obama was just how quickly he let go of the animosity of the Democratic presidential primary against Hillary Clinton — offering the job as secretary of state just weeks after being elected president. Since then, the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency has been one of near-constant surprises, as the nation learned even more about its new commander in chief, who after all, had been a largely unknown figure just a few years before.

Here are the 10 biggest surprises of 2009:

It’s possible to say “no” to Barack Obama

In the heady post-election days, Obama looked unstoppable after beating John McCain. More than a million giddy Americans would head to the National Mall for his swearing-in ceremony.

Obama used that superheated mojo to get people to do what he wanted. Soon, he was pushing through a massive $787 billion stimulus package over the futile objections of congressional Republicans and firing Rick Waggoner, the CEO of General Motors. It seemed as though he could do almost anything he wanted.

But almost as quickly as it came, the aura of invincibility faded. It began gradually — in May, the Senate voted to block funding for the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, rejecting a core Obama campaign promise. Then his poll numbers started to come down to earth, declining from 67 percent approval in May to 52 percent today, according to Gallup.

And in October, perhaps the first direct “no” the president had heard: The International Olympic Committee rejected Obama’s personal entreaties to award the 2016 Olympics to his hometown of Chicago. And just like that, it had become possible to say no to Barack Obama.

Then in December, Obama summoned the nation’s top bankers to the White House to urge them to stop their lobbyists from blocking financial regulatory reform on Capitol Hill. But in the days that followed, it became clear that the bankers had no intention at all of changing their lobbying tactics on the bill.

He’s more like George W. Bush that you thought

Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration time and time again on the campaign trail in 2008. But in 2009, he suddenly found a surprising number of ways to agree with his predecessor.