Obama's first press conference as president-elect
James Forsyth 8:32pm
Barack Obama’s first press conference as president-elect was, as with his victory speech, an exercise in expectations management. By laying out so starkly the bad economic news, he clearly hopes that he can avoid people thinking that he’ll be able to turn things round instantly. He did, though, stress that if no stimulus bill is passed before he is inaugurated he will make pushing for one his first priority as president.
Obama suggested that it will be some time before he names his key cabinet appointments. There does seem to be no consensus on who he will appoint to Treasury and State even if everyone is pretty sure that Jim Steinberg will be the natioanls security advisor..
There was a more relaxed Obama on display than we have seen on the trail in answering some of the non-economic questions. He bantered about the trade-offs in picking a dog and cracked jokes with the reporters. He did, though dodge a question about whether his kids would go to public (in the US sense) or private schools in DC.
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Colleen
November 7th, 2008 9:27pm Report this commentHe also dodged the question of whether he will raise tax rates for the top 5% of earners in the US and instead regurgitated his stump speech talking points about being a tax cutter. A dodgy bugger, he is. http://timetorevoltamerica.blogspot.com
Bocephus
November 7th, 2008 11:31pm Report this commentHis kids go to private school in Chicago so I don't know why he should be dodging the question.
El Sid
November 9th, 2008 10:09am Report this commentWe've already seen the first change as a result of Obama's election - a cut in investment in UK renewable energy. See Friday's Guardian for details of BP stopping all investment in renewable energy in this country in favour of the US "because the returns are higher". The Guardian neglects to mention that the reason for these higher returns is being able to offset such investment against Obama's windfall tax on oil companies. Obama's good at talk, but BP's chequebook represents action - and this seems to be the first thing to have changed as a result of his election.
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