At Neck of State, we do believe that the 100 day mark is valuable, particularly with a presidency that begins in an era as perilous as 2009. The mainstream media, however, is missing the the most important dimension of assessment. Obama should not be evaluated on his bipartisanship, his domestic policies, his international appeal, his public addresses, his presidential memos, his grassroots outreach, or even his Portuguese water dog.

Obama needs to be graded on, and held accountable for, his neckties and other neck accessories. This exactly parallels the mission of Neck of State.

Since taking office, Barack Obama has worn twenty-four different neckties in public, photographed appearances. Obama’s top seven neckties reveal a lot about the type of administration he is crafting:

This chart displays the appearance frequency for each of Obama’s seven favorite ties, as counted during his first 100 days in office.

President Obama knows exactly what he wants, and he goes after it with the gusto and drive worthy of our Commander In Chief. In the case of neck wear, this means wearing his favorite ties early and often. All of Obama’s “fav seven” are either red or blue, and this reflects his Rehnquistian commitment to balance and bipartisanship. While the President is dedicated to hearing voices on both sides of the aisle, he displays extreme bias in his choice of neckties. He wore each of his top seven ties within the first two weeks of his term. Ties outside of the top seven, however, haven’t been knotted up more than three times, and several only made it out of the closet once. (See the bottom of this post for a complete listing of Obama’s Presidential ties.)

Public opinion Obama’s job record continues to hover in the thermosphere.  Because the President and his valedictocracy are adept at correlating fashion sense with public opinion, we predict that the top seven neckties will continue to have a forceful showing for the remainder of the term.

Barack Obama’s Seven Favorite Neckties

Neckties that Obama Wore Three or Fewer Times

In his seventh weekly address to the nation, President Obama spent enormous efforts making clear distinctions between the past, present, and future of our national economy. From the video:

Yesterday, we learned that the economy lost another 651,000 jobs in the month of February, which brings the total number of jobs lost in this recession to 4.4 million. The unemployment rate has now surpassed 8 percent, the highest rate in a quarter century.
…
My administration inherited a $1.3 trillion budget deficit, the largest in history. And we’ve inherited a budgeting process as irresponsible as it is unsustainable. For years, as Wall Street used accounting tricks to conceal costs and avoid responsibility, Washington did, too.

These kinds of irresponsible budgets — and inexcusable practices — are now in the past. For the first time in many years, my administration has produced a budget that represents an honest reckoning of where we are and where we need to go.

Emphasis mine.

Obama chose to wear his dark-blue tie with white dots (”Starry Night”) for this address, which is in line with discussions about the flow of time and how it affects our national economy. Our view of the stars is based on cataclysmic events that occurred anywhere from years to centuries ago. By wearing “Starry Night” Obama implicitly reminds the audience that he is intervening in a crisis whose apparent effects were caused by events in the distant past.

Obama has worn “Starry Night” four times since taking office, and this was his second time wearing it for a weekly address to the nation. Current Neck of State projections place this tie as an executive favorite for the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency.

It’s barely Wednesday, and already this is a monumental week for Barack Obama’s neck.

Sunday, the president set the attitude for the week with a high-powered, high-class, and high-octane black bow tie.

Monday, the President suited up in a consistent favorite, “Starry Night”, as he began encouraging support for his upcoming budget bill. Tuesday morning, the President once again brought “Big Blue” back for his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, which speaks volumes to this administration’s commitment to building a stronger alliance with Japan.

Last night, Obama gave his first address to a joint session of congress. The speech was vigorous, entertaining, and comprehensible. He spoke directly to the American People about where we are, how we got here, and where we are going. Most viewers had high-expectations for the speech, and they were not disappointed.

The only unexpected turn of the night came when Obama changed ties into a new crimson cravat with white stripes for his address, a move that was certainly not calculated by his political opponents in the GOP. The President’s schedule is extremely regimented and busy, so for him to deliberately change ties is wholly significant. Moreover, donning a new neck tie despite recent tie reuse is a maneuver designed to show the nation that with the passage of the stimulus bill, America is not only turning the page and starting a new chapter, but also learning a new language and writing in a previously unexplored genre. Some analysts also claim that by wearing a wide, red neck tie Obama is renewing his pledge to reach out to Republicans in Washington, but Neck of State could not confirm these reports.