The economic bust has reminded us, if we needed reminding, that our economies run on intangible emotions as well as on rational calculation. After the sugar-rush of the last ten years, we're suddenly feeling very low and somewhat fearful. This is where a president's symbolic power - his ability to restore the nation's self-belief - comes into play.
Newsweek's cover story this week is about President Obama's role as the nation's confidence booster. Its author argues that the current incumbent is made for this role. I agree. Obama is nothing if not self-assured, and, of course, he's a talented communicator. As he settles into the role of president, I believe he'll infect the nation with his confidence, presuming there's anything to feel confident about. In the short term at least, there's very little.
All of which reminds me of Bill Clinton's suggestion last week that Obama ought to be conveying a stronger sense of optimism about the nation's eventual recovery. I wonder what Obama made of it. I suspect that he might have shrugged and said, "There, that was Bill Clinton's problem all along - all the talents, except a sense of the long-term."
Obama is right not to sound too gung-ho about the nation's future. He ought to be hitting slightly sombre notes right now - because things are bad, and what's more, they may stay bad for at least another year. So, like a market-maker, he has to time his calling of the bottom just right. If he sounds too optimistic now, nobody will believe him in six months' time when he seizes on scraps of genuinely good news and tries to convince people that America is at a turning point.
By the way, I noticed this aside in the Newsweek piece:
Obama gets annoyed a little more than his staff would like to admit, especially when his sense of control is threatened by self-promoters or people talking out of school.
So just how much must Biden piss him off?
Yeah - I spotted that too. Mark Penn's got a comment piece in Politico at the moment making a similiar point. Always nice to have friends...
http://www.rowlandmanthorpe.com/blog/2009/02/should-obama-be-talking-the-talk/
Posted by: Rowland | February 23, 2009 at 04:30 PM
Of course, if the purpose is to prolong the depression, so as to increase the power, scope, size, and overbearing reach of government, it also behooves Pres. Obama to keep fear-mongering. And if his pork-u, er, stimulus program will do little in the short term, but guarantees big boondogles in the future, again pessimism seems truthful.
Soon the (ex-Big gov't?) Republicans will be pointing out how Bush's tax cuts, so hated by the power-greedy elites, actually DID lead to a rapid end of the dot.com bubble pop.
Big tax cuts will, eventually, be tried -- and when they do, they will work. How much damage, er, wasteful Dem requested gov't pork packages will be signed up for before that happens?
I actually do believe Obama is confident that gov't can solve the problem, eventually -- but I believe, like Reagan said, that gov't IS the problem. I suspect Obama has doubts about his own belief in gov't, but is certain that the free market won't work as well as he likes...
Posted by: Tom Grey | February 23, 2009 at 06:17 PM
@Tom Grey
The thing about the bubble pop of the early 00s is that it was basically limited to the tech industry. You didn't have the capital centers of the world cratering like you do now. To suggest that tax cuts had anything to do with the "saving" of the alleged near-miss with the tech collapse is to display a fundamental misunderstanding about what the problems with the tech industry financials at the turn of the millennium were.
Posted by: Kyle G | February 24, 2009 at 05:41 AM