Obama Asks for Patience on Economy, Unemployment The president has said it will take a while for the economy to turn around By Kenneth T. Walsh

President Obama spent his first six months in office arguing that the government needed to move as fast as possible to save the economy. But now, while he still favors aggressive government action, he is increasingly emphasizing the politics of patience as he tries to maintain the support and trust of the American people.
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It's unclear whether this will work, because polls show mounting anxiety about Obama's policies. These include his $787 billion stimulus package, which has not had a huge impact so far, and, more broadly, the vast spending that has pushed the federal deficit to the unprecedented level of more than $1 trillion this year.

What seems most unsettling to voters is that unemployment keeps going up. It is now at 9.5 percent, the highest in more than 25 years, and the rate is expected to climb to 10 or 11 percent in the next few months. Obama advisers had predicted that his stimulus package would hold unemployment at or below 8 percent.

This week, Obama's pivot toward patience became more apparent than ever. While urging immediate congressional action on healthcare reform, he admitted there isn't a panacea. "This has been a more severe recession than we've seen since the Great Depression, so how unemployment numbers are going to respond is not yet clear," he told reporters in Washington. "My expectation is that we will probably continue to see unemployment tick up for several months. And the challenge for this administration is to make sure that even as we are stabilizing the financial system
, we understand that the most important thing in the economy is: Are people able to find good jobs that pay good wages?"

Speaking last week in Michigan, which is suffering from the nation's highest jobless rate of 15.2 percent, Obama said he inherited such a mess that it will take a long time before the overall economy shows much improvement. He billed himself as an activist and his Republicans critics as do-nothing complainers. "I love these folks who helped get us into this mess and then suddenly say, 'Well, this is Obama's economy,' " the president argued. "That's fine—give it to me. My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and carp and gripe."

What has Democrats worried is that the unemployment rate in some key states—including Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and Indiana—is already soaring well over 10 percent, and they fear this is an indication of things to come nationally. Republicans go further, arguing that these states show that Obama's prescriptions are not only failing but are making matters worse.

White House officials have been saying for months that the country is showing surprising patience about the economy. "Americans understand that it took us years to get into this mess, and it will take a while to get us out," says a senior Obama adviser.

But Republican strategists argue that Obama and his team are wrong about the politics of patience and that Americans are much more restless and anxious than Obama thinks. The latest CBS News poll bears this out. Sixty percent of Americans say Obama's stimulus package has made no difference in the economy, 21 percent say it has had a positive impact, and 15 percent say it has made the economy worse. Fifty-seven percent approve of Obama's job performance, down from 63 percent in June and 68 in April. Fifty-seven percent say the country is on the wrong track, up from 50 percent in June, suggesting an uptick in pessimism.

And his critics point out that Obama is also asking for more time to solve other urgent problems. He is urging patience in Afghanistan, where his surge of troops and more aggressive combat operations against terrorists are increasing casualties. He is urging patience in Iran, talking about carefully evaluating the new reform movement there before doing anything dramatic. He is urging patience in dealing with immigration, which he has put on the back burner in Congress because of deep divisions over the issue. He is urging patience in dealing with the tensions and hatreds between Israel and the Palestinians.

Many Republicans agree with Ed Gillespie, a prominent GOP strategist and former White House counselor to President George W. Bush, who says Obama "has got to stop overpromising and underperforming." The White House's fear is that more and more Americans are starting to notice the difference.