President Obama will speak to the country with a giant megaphone Sunday morning, hoping that it’s loud enough to echo through much of the week, when he will be out of the country.
Mr. Obama’s first extended trip abroad will be more than a test of his diplomatic verve, it also renders him unable to continue his near-exclusive focus on America’s economy, at a time of great anxiety and uncertainty. His appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation” - along with a slew of top administration officials on other shows who will virtually blanket the airwaves for most of the morning - is a down payment on the week ahead.
And the White House says it is committed to keeping Mr. Obama and his domestic-economy agenda in front of the American people while he is in Britain, France, the Czech Republic and Turkey for a total of eight days.
“Even though the president is six times zones away and separated by 5,000 miles of ocean, he’ll make it clear that he remains as focused as ever on getting the economy moving and easing the burden on the millions of American families affected by the economic crisis,” said White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest.
Much of the heavy lifting will be done by the president himself, who will aim to draw parallels between European domestic problems and challenges back home as often as he can, Mr. Earnest said. In addition, the focus of the G-20 summit in London will be the global economy, so it will be easier for Mr. Obama to paint his presence there as part of the solution to America’s ills.
And the White House has designed at least one event in France so that Mr. Obama can use it to pivot and talk about the situation back home. A town-hall meeting in Strasbourg on Friday will allow the president to interact with everyday French citizens whose economic challenges he’ll be able to connect to those of Americans.
Throughout the trip, Mr. Obama will be followed by a press contingent of about 200 reporters, and so every word he says will be pushed out onto the airwaves, the Internet and newspapers.
Fortunately for the White House, the stock markets are not the complicating factor that they would have been if they were on the same trajectory as earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen 1,229 points since March 9 to its close Friday of 7,776, regaining almost all the losses it had sustained since Mr. Obama’s inauguration.
And the Obama administration rebounded last week from one of its most difficult periods the week before, when a national furor over bonuses paid to executives at companies receiving taxpayer-funded bailouts put the White House on its heels.
“A week or two weeks ago, I’d say [this trip] was a risk,” said Tony Fratto, who handled economic issues for the White House communications office under President Bush.
“They’ve gotten a little bit lucky in that the markets have improved. They’ve gotten some economic data over the last week that has shown some glimmers of hope,” Mr. Fratto said. “So I think if there is a time that they could go, it’s probably now. … They kind of have the wind at their back.”
But recent good news does not change the fact that more than 4 million Americans have lost their jobs since December 2007, with almost 3 million coming in the last four months. And millions more are struggling to pay their mortgages and bills.
Part of the White House Sunday-show blitz is focused on the president’s newly announced Afghanistan strategy. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus and Richard Holbrooke, special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, will appear on TV to talk of the plan announced Friday.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who will join the president at the G-20 global financial summit in London, is also being thrust into the spotlight, appearing on both NBC’s “Meet the Press” and ABC’s “This Week.”
Mr. Geithner’s appearances carry with them the highest stakes because he has been gaffe-prone during his two months as Treasury secretary, including a remark last week about the possibility of a global currency that roiled markets and forced him to issue a clarifying statement expressing confidence in the dollar.
Despite that misstep, Mr. Geithner successfully carried off the rollout last week of a plan that would thaw credit markets, give the government power to seize non-bank institutions in distress and expand government power over financial markets through a systemic risk regulator.
The Sunday show blitz follows a week of targeted communications by the Obama White House, which Mr. Earnest said was intended to give Mr. Obama “a higher platform” on which to address everyday Americans. Appearances by the president on the “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” “60 Minutes,” a music show on the Spanish-language Univision, and at a prime-time news conference augmented a virtual town-hall event at the White House.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.