WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama is grabbing the mantle of national leadership in unprecedented ways, creating what has emerged as a virtual parallel presidency just three weeks after his election.
Obama indicated this week that he felt he had no choice. During one of three nationally televised events on the economy in as many days, he said "extraordinary circumstances" had forced his hand.
His actions have drawn the attention of the public, the news media and financial markets, which appear to be responding at least as much to the decisions of the incoming administration as to the one still in power. Since Obama began to reveal the members of his economic team last week, the stock market has rallied by about 15 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up a fourth day in a row Wednesday for the first time since May.
Obama is attempting to reassure a country struggling with the worst economic downturn in decades that "we don't intend to stumble into the next administration," he said.
"People should understand that help is on the way," he said Wednesday in announcing the creation of an Economic Recovery Advisory Board to be led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker.
Since late last week, Obama's statements and public appearances have been designed to fill a leadership vacuum and generate public confidence in his abilities as a crisis manager. The moves represent an abrupt shift from a hands-off approach he had announced two weeks earlier.
"It's rather like George Bush has checked out, and if Obama doesn't take more drastic action than he originally promised, he gets blamed for whatever happens," said Paul Light, a New York University professor who specializes in presidential transitions.
New presidents "have tried to stay away from the outgoing administration's policies as much as possible," Light added. "They want to start with a clean slate, and Obama is clearly not starting with a clean slate."
Obama's early focus on the economy, the most difficult issue he is likely to face when he takes office, comes with an unusual twist.
His Treasury secretary-designate, Timothy Geithner, is also a high-level player in the Bush administration's financial-rescue deliberations, as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That gives the incoming administration a rare opportunity to participate directly in the current government's decisions.
