Obama: pass or fail? When a president runs for a second term, the election is usually about the job he's done so far. What grade will voters give President Obama?

• Author: Sanger, David E.
• Position: Cover story

It seems hard to remember now that election night a little more than three years ago, when tens of thousands of people gathered in Chicago's Grant Park to hear President-elect Barack Obama declare that "change has come to America."

The excitement that the 2008 election would lead to a new era in which lawmakers would heed Obama's call for bipartisan compromise and tackle the country's biggest problems has largely evaporated. Today, the White House, Senate Democrats, and House Republicans seem more divided than ever, unable to agree on what should be done to revive the economy or to cut the country's huge debt. And President Obama's approval rating has fallen to 44 percent, which, history tells us, is in the danger zone for an incumbent seeking re-election.

That's not to say President Obama can't win a second term in November. So far, very little about the Obama presidency has followed the usual political rules. When he announced his candidacy in 2007, it seemed unlikely the United States was about to elect its first black president, much less a senator from Illinois with just two years in office.

But Obama's historic 2008 campaign captured the imagination of millions of Americans, and young people in particular, who turned out in record numbers and helped propel him to the White House. The conditions facing the country were equally historic when he took office in January 2009: The U.S. was reeling from the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression, not to mention fighting two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Expectations were so high; emotions were so high," says Lee Edwards, of the conservative Heritage Foundation, which has been among Obama's biggest critics. "Once the honeymoon was over and we got down to living together, that's proved to be a whole different thing."

Despite the widespread frustration, the president has actually chalked up a number of accomplishments. Obama took a huge gamble on trying to rescue the U.S. auto industry--loaning billions to General Motors and Chrysler--and it seems to have paid off. Thousands of jobs were saved, especially in states like Michigan and Ohio, and some automakers are hiring again. He eventually pushed health care reform through Congress, and his foreign policy record probably deserves an A-. It was on Obama's watch that American commandos found and killed Osama bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist, and he brought U.S. troops home from Iraq.

'It's the Economy, Stupid!'

But overshadowing all of these accomplishments is the president's...