WASHINGTON — When Herbert Hoover said on the eve of the Great Depression that “prosperity is around the corner,” he was ridiculed as blindly optimistic, and shantytowns were mockingly named “Hoovervilles.” When Jimmy Carter said a national “malaise” was behind U.S. economic woes in the 1970s, he was panned for being grim and demoralizing.
Tuesday, President Barack Obama tried to navigate shoals that have challenged other presidents during times of economic crisis: How to balance warnings of dire circumstances against the need to inspire confidence.
Obama was elected president as an agent of hope. But he has spent his first month promoting a fearsome message: The recession will be long and deep.
His first speech before a joint session of Congress gave Obama an opportunity to counter critics who said he has been too downbeat. Even former President Bill Clinton has been telling Obama to lighten up to boost the nation’s morale.
In his speech, he brought in more of the optimism that was his campaign trademark. “We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before,” he said.
But he did not downplay the peril faced by a nation where the banking system is in shambles, the stock market is on the ropes and workers have lost their jobs or believe they soon might.
“It’s the worry you wake up with and the source of sleepless nights,” he said.
His address was aimed at two crucial audiences: consumers and Wall Street.
Obama has managed to keep the public on board: A New York Times/CBS poll this week found that 77 percent of people were optimistic about the next four years under Obama, even if they were skeptical that his economic recovery plan will be enough.
Despite a market rally Tuesday, Obama has been far less successful in reassuring Wall Street. The two big economic milestones of his new administration — congressional approval of the $787 billion economic stimulus bill and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s speech on stabilizing the financial sector — both sent the stock market tumbling.
Mark Zandi, an economist with Moody’s , said consumers were the most important audience.
“Consumer confidence has been completely shattered,” Zandi said. “His policies won’t be effective unless confidence is restored. It’s hard to know what the markets want. They don’t know what they want.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his first inaugural address, acknowledged the gravity of the Great Depression but offered one of history’s best-known exhortations to optimism: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Roosevelt went on to preside over a depression that lasted a decade — and still was re-elected three times. A key question now is whether voters will be as patient with Obama.
Roosevelt was president at a time when the pace of politics was not measured in 2 4/7 news cycles, and expectations of federal government intervention were not high.
“Now, people look to the president as chief problem solver,” said Michael Genovese, director of the Institute for Leadership Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. “The question is, how patient will the American public be? If it takes five years to turn the economy around, he might not be in for the fifth year.”
