The President-elect’s first press conference was remarkable for its caution.  It was as if the mantle of leadership had already descended on Obama’s shoulders and was weighing him down.  He spoke with the air of someone who was determined not to make any mistakes. 

Indeed, he only made two light-hearted comments.  The first was about reaching out to Presidents, but only the living ones, unlike Nancy Reagan who was briefly famous for her séances with dead ones, a comment that prompted an apology call to Mrs. Reagan later in the day.  The second was about the all-important White House dog, who will want to be both hypo-allergenic and a dog from the pound – a “mutt like me” as Obama said.  That was endearing and human, but hardly brimming over with self-confidence.  

Otherwise there wasn’t much fun.  Obama’s body language was tightly controlled, he spoke slowly and at times haltingly as he thought carefully before he talked, and he looked desperately serious about the problems facing America and the world.  There was a set to his jaw that worried me.  He isn’t even President yet!

I found myself thinking about President Franklin Roosevelt, who was famous for maintaining almost jaunty good cheer and confidence in the face of much worse problems during the Great Depression.  President-elect Obama needs to remember that the President has a ‘bully’ pulpit, as the other President Roosevelt noted.  Successful presidents use it to full advantage. 

“Bully” in this case is now out-of-date slang that means “wonderful, cool, great.”  What Roosevelt meant was that he had a splendid pulpit from which to preach to the world.  Obama needs a little of that ebullience now.   Economic downturns have a way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies if everyone cancels, postpones, and stops buying because they don’t want to appear to be consuming, or they’re afraid of consuming too much, or they don’t want to get too far ahead of the rest of the pack.  Part of Obama’s job is to give everyone permission to go back to work and not create a deep recession by anticipating it too much.  

More importantly, he needs to embody the change that he has promised us and that a majority of the American people – and the world – want so much.