NYU Wagner

April 24, 2009     

NYU Wagner Forum with Leading Public Officials Explores President Obama's First 100 Days

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter, and White House senior economic adviser Jason Furman were among leading public service officials, business leaders, journalists, and professors who took part in an original, lively, and thought-provoking NYU Wagner forum April 24 entitled "President Obama's First 100 Days: Implications for Urban America."

NYU Wagner Dean Ellen Schall welcomed 100 public service and business leaders and others to the Fifth Avenue Ballroom, where the daylong conference also featured the author/historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Wagner Professor Paul C. Light, and Robert M. Shrum, the noted political strategist and a Wagner senior fellow.

Contributing to the event's four panel conversations were New York Times chief national political correspondent Adam Nagourney, NBC News Washington bureau chief Mark Whitaker, Politico editor-in-chief John Harris, and New York 1 political reporter Dominic Carter.

The conversations and audience questions focused on the President's unparalleled attempts -- except for, perhaps, the first 100 days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency in the grip of the Great Depression -- to stabilize a reeling national  economy, his evolving leadership, the enormous public support his actions have elicited, and the immediate and long-range challenges facing cash-pressed cities and states.

"The most important thing that he has done," said Governor Corzine, referring to President Obama, "is he has restored repect and confidence in the office of the presidency."

Philadelphia's Mayor Nutter, in response to a question from Mark Whitaker, gave the new commander-in-chief a "B-plus/A-minus" -- ticking off a list of the President's accomplishments and the many initiatives in healthcare and alternative-energy investment that may come -- and he added that the President and his administration have been strikingly accessible and sensitive to the concerns of big-city mayors such as himself.

 "They know where cities are," Nutter said.

• A Conversation with Governor Jon Corzine and John Harris
• A Panel Discussion Featuring Mark Whitaker, Mayor Michael Nutter and Adam Nagourney
• A Panel Discussion Featuring Dominic Carter, Jason Furman and Paul Light
• A Conversation with Doris Kearns Goodwin and Robert Shrum

• The New York Times
  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/us/politics/25memo.html