President Lifts Tone, Reaches Out to Average Americans

Every day staffers bring President Barack Obama about 10 letters picked from the blizzard the White House regularly receives, so he can get a sampling of the economic grief average citizens are describing.

Tuesday night, in his first address to a joint session of Congress, Mr. Obama was talking more to those letter-writers beyond the Capitol than to the lawmakers arrayed before him.

Confronted with dire economic conditions, the president faced a choice between making his big speech a Bill Clinton-like policy manifesto or a Franklin Roosevelt-like fireside chat. He chose the latter.

His speech wasn't much designed to sell lawmakers on an economic-stimulus plan -- which, after all, they already have passed -- or to explain to them the details of a budget plan they have yet to see.

Instead, it was structured above all to convince average Americans that all the pieces of his recovery plan really do fit together. Thus, the president told the residents of Main Street why they should want Wall Street rescued, despite the anger they feel toward bankers and financiers. He sought to reassure the good people of America that bad people won't be rewarded with tax dollars for irresponsible behavior.

And -- belatedly, in the eyes of Mr. Obama's critics -- his remarks were designed to tell Americans it's OK to be optimistic. One of the great questions hanging over the speech beforehand was which Barack Obama would show up to deliver it: the lyrical maestro of hope from the presidential campaign, or the more recent grim prognosticator of tough times ahead.

Mr. Obama has been walking a fine line. On one hand, he has been bluntly warning people of tough times ahead so their expectations of success don't get inflated. On the other hand, he's tried to convince them he knows how to fix things. If anything, though, he has erred on the side of being too downbeat.

White House aides are acutely aware that he was, as a result, accused of scaring the citizenry and talking down the very economy he's tying to pull out of the ditch. So Tuesday night, while there still was plenty of what one aide called "sober, realistic talk," there also was an uplifting ending, complete with a Frank Capra-style call for fellow citizens to "confront without fear the challenges of our time and summon that enduring spirit of an America that does not quit."

A principal goal of the presentation was to husband the greatest asset the White House has right now, which is the willingness of the public to give the president a chance to make it all work. "People are rooting for him," one senior aide said simply before the speech began.

But that isn't a guaranteed or permanent condition. Obama aides know its continuation requires translating complicated economic debates into understandable terms, as well as channeling the anger and fear Americans feel to the president's benefit lest it be turned against him.

Nowhere was this effort to channel anger more clear than in the president's explanation of his efforts to stabilize the financial system. Mr. Obama tried, in effect, to beat up on Wall Street to improve his chances to save Wall Street.

White House officials know that economic success depends heavily on their ability to help turn the banking system's credit spigots back on. So a big chunk of Mr. Obama's speech was devoted to explaining to Americans why that effort is so important, and why they should support efforts to lubricate the very financial system many of them have come to despise.

The problem, one senior Obama aide notes, is that public anger at Wall Street and the banking world is "red hot" right now. Convincing taxpayers to support the financial system is a tough sell, particularly considering that the president noted in passing that he's likely going to need to ask for more than the $700 billion already allotted for the task.

Thus, the White House has calculated that it must first convince taxpayers that none of their money will end up rewarding bad behavior, that people who made bad decisions will pay a price, and that the system's excesses will be stopped. That explains the president's emphasis in his speech on ending an "era of irresponsibility." It's also why he went out of his way to bash financial executives' use of private jets and to declare: "I will not spend a single penny for the purpose of rewarding a single Wall Street executive."

Behind the scene Tuesday night lie enormous political stakes, which are well understood by all who were in the Capitol. The Republicans who almost universally opposed the Democrats' economic stimulus package calculate that public patience already is growing thin for spending on stimulus and the Democrats' overall approach to economic rescue.

The White House sees the opposite. It points to polls showing public support for President Obama, as well as for congressional Democrats and the very stimulus package Republicans opposed, holding up.

Obama aides acknowledge that Republicans have made some gains from their opposition to the stimulus plan, but maintain those mostly represent a consolidation of their own troops. Support for Mr. Obama actually has gone up among crucial independent voters in the middle, they say. Those are the kind of Americans, more than any representative or senator, who were the real audience Tuesday night.

Write to Gerald F. Seib at jerry.seib@wsj.com