BulletProofBlog the blog on crisis communications

With the future of healthcare reform still uncertain, unemployment hovering around 10 percent, and terrorism concerns back on the front pages, there is a growing perception that the Obama Administration is making little progress on national priorities. But as is often the case in Washington D.C., perception and reality are not one and the same.

According to a study recently released by Congressional Quarterly, no President has had greater success on Capitol Hill than Barack Obama did during his first year in office. On issues where he made his preferences known, Congress backed him an historic 96.7 percent of the time in 2009.

With Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, this might not come as much of a surprise. But to put President Obama’s unprecedented winning streak in perspective, the only Presidents that have come even close since Congressional Quarterly began tracking this statistic more than 50 years ago are Lyndon Johnson in 1965 (shortly after President Kennedy’s assassination) and Dwight Eisenhower in 1953, who tallied Congressional wins 93 and 89 percent of the time, respectively.

What this means for business moving forward is that despite a few recent setbacks, landmark legislation concerning everything from energy and the environment to new regulations governing Wall Street are likely to not only pass, but bear striking resemblance to the vision President Obama has outlined.

Simply put, the industries that may be opposed to elements of the President’s plans can’t count on political defeats in Congress (for at least the next year). As such, now is the time to work with the administration to craft solutions that both the public and private sectors can live with – because if the current trend continues, the President is almost always going to get his way.