The quandary for Obama's team has been how to finesse a set of challenges not seen since 1932: a quickly deteriorating economy and a transition of power between two presidents with vastly different views on how to fix it.
"They recognize it's a careful balancing act, because you want to bring a whole new face to it when you're in office," said Leon Panetta, a White House chief of staff under President Clinton who has informally advised Obama's aides and has had recent conversations with them. "But at the same time, there's an underlying concern that things seem to be deteriorating rapidly" -- making the new president's job harder.
Panetta said the country is "caught between a president who doesn't have a lot of credibility even if he tries to do something and a new president who, if it looks like he's going to lay out things he's going to try to do, it looks like he's putting the cart before the horse. It's a tough place for the country to be in right now."
Aides are wary too of taking ownership of problems they do not yet have the formal power to address.
Still, with the financial markets and the public clearly looking for reassurance, Saturday's announcement -- and Monday's news conference -- signal that the transition has entered a phase in which the president-elect will become more visible and vocal.
Obama has yet to stake a firm position on the auto bailout being discussed on Capitol Hill, but he might inject himself into the debate as he takes questions Monday on the country's economic woes.
The balancing act was apparent last week as Obama worked behind the scenes to settle on a series of gravitas-heavy Cabinet appointments and looked for creative ways to signal policy changes.
He made no live public appearances. But he used a videotaped message to a bipartisan meeting of governors to promise quick action on limiting greenhouse gas emissions and enacting a controversial plan to charge companies for the right to emit gases that cause global warming.
Some opponents of a "cap and trade" program have said it could further hurt the economy by adding costs for companies. Obama's address suggested he viewed the plan as, rather, a tool to create jobs -- arguing that revenue from emissions charges would be invested in environmentally friendly industries.
