In the modern era, the Treasury secretary and top economic advisors must be able to reach multiple audiences at once. Apart from reassurances that bolster the stock market, they must imbue Americans with enough confidence to sustain the economic engine of consumer demand.
Outside the Oval Office, the administration is still hunting for that voice.
Summers sounded off-key when he appeared on a Sunday talk show March 15 and talked about the AIG bonuses, calling them "outrageous," but also seeming to suggest he did not believe they could or should be rescinded.
"The nation cannot just abrogate contracts," he said.
Speaking the next day, Obama struck a different note. The president said he had ordered Geithner to exploit "every single legal avenue to block these bonuses."
Romer also appeared on a Sunday talk show March 15 and got a question about whether the economy is fundamentally sound.
That may seem like a softball question, but the phrase was politically charged.
During the presidential campaign, Republican nominee John McCain said at a rally in September that the "fundamentals of the economy are strong." Democrats depicted him as utterly out of touch for making such a claim amid a worsening economic crisis.
Yet Romer's answer seemed to echo McCain: "Well, of course the fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology."
Now the Obama team is reaching deeper into its bench to find a credible spokesman on the economy.
This week, the administration turned to vice presidential economics advisor Jared Bernstein, who made his first appearance on a Sunday morning talk show since the inauguration.
Bernstein's appearance may also have been aimed at assuaging Obama's liberal base.
As a Wall Street insider, Geithner has drawn criticism from progressives. Bernstein, for his part, is on leave from the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute. In his TV appearance, Bernstein stressed how Obama's agenda could help ordinary Americans.
"Let us not lose sight of the people who . . . haven't come into this conversation yet -- middle-class folks who are facing an 8% unemployment rate, African Americans facing a 13% unemployment rate, over 20 million people underemployed right now," Bernstein said.
Earlier this month, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke defended the bailout of the financial sector in an appearance on "60 Minutes" -- the first Fed chief to take part in a televised interview since 1987.
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peter.nicholas@latimes.com
peter.wallsten@latimes.com
