The economy might seem to be melting before your very eyes, America, but before you burn down the homes of any AIG executives, listen to the soothing words tonight from our ubiquitous president.
The president's third prime-time address/press conference tonight was basically a call to chill: the president said solving the economic crisis will "take patience," that "we're all in this together" and that we can't afford to "demonize every investor or entrepreneur who seeks to make a profit."
Also, he's only been in office 60 days, and the country is "moving in the right direction."
Obama calmly answered about a dozen questions, including his second high-profile quetion from a website, Politico.com. He avoided any 60-Minutes style laughter.
Obama's PR strategy, with which this press conference fits perfectly, has been to be almost ubiquitous on television; Ad Age summarized it (to paraphrase) as basically "there's no such thing as overexposure, because everyone watches different channels now and/or is apathetic."
This is why Obama was the first president to go on the Tonight Show and, within a month, also did 60 Minutes and SportsCenter.
Tonight was his third presidential press conference in just over two months in office; the networks are already annoyed at how frequent these have been.
If the intended effect of the blitz is to calm everyone down, as it seems to be, a nice side benefit of the exposure is refreshing Obama's political capital. With a bailout, budget and health-care plan to get through Congress, the president will need it.
Comments
Post a Comment