For giddy Democrats and wary Republicans alike, the waiting is over: Barack Obama has officially arrived, shutting down streets in the nation's capital and sending the news media into a tizzy. Over the next couple of weeks, as the postelection honeymoon builds to its inaugural apex, the gossip rags and the news pages can all report the same story. Entertainment NewsHour will be able to compete for scoops.
Obama flew in Sunday afternoon from Chicago on a jumbo jet from the Air Force's presidential fleet. (He was choked up leaving his old house!) He moved into a hotel with his family. (The Hay-Adams, where Mark Twain drank!) His daughters were shuttled off to a new school. (Tuition is almost $30,000 a year - but the hot lunches are free!)
The President-elect has always understood how to maximize photo ops for political ends, and his first day in Washington was no exception. Obama's task was to look like a man in charge, reaching out to Republican and Democratic members of Congress, followed by photo ops and statements that could be read as closely as the oracles. Would the Republican House minority leader, John Boehner, thank Obama for making a courtesy call or praise their "productive discussions"? Would Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell demand for Republicans a bigger seat at the legislative drafting table or simply welcome the new President?
Obama knows that just beyond the flashbulbs, a darkening storm hangs over the nation. The national and global economies continue to deteriorate at a terrifying pace. The ISM Manufacturing Index, a key measurement of domestic production, hit a 28-year low in December. Payrolls fell an additional half million last month, leading economists to predict that the total job losses in 2008 were greater than at any point since the immediate aftermath of World War II. The housing-price free fall has yet to show any clear sign of stabilization.
And so, after a morning powwow with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi - she called meeting the President-elect in her office a "great honor and personal privilege" - Obama hit his day's talking points. "The reason we are here today is that the people's business can't wait," he said. "We have an extraordinary economic challenge ahead of us."
The immediate medicine for this ailment is widely agreed upon within Democratic, and many Republican, circles: a large stimulus package, perhaps as big as $ 750 billion or even $1 trillion over two years. The number is large by design. To have an effect on the economy, it has to be big, say economists. (The entire Vietnam War cost about $700 billion, in inflation-adjusted dollars. Military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere since Sept. 11, 2001, have already cost more than $860 billion, according to congressional bean counters.)