WATCH: President-Elect Obama Press Conference [Video]

Watch President-Elect Barack Obama’s first press conference since his Tuesday, Nov. 4 Presidential campaign victory.  He opens with a discussion of economic priorities, surrounded by economic advisors, and then moves to a question and answer session with the press.  Here’s the complete transcript and another streaming video source.

Part 1

Part 2

Commentary

Obama managed to show a little bit of humor, referring to himself as a “mutt” when discussing what type of puppy they’d be getting.  He also noticed one of the journalists had recently hurt her arm, and asked her what happened.  The humor and the conscientiousness are core pieces of his personality, and I think we can expect to see those regularly.

As for the more substantive parts of the conference, it was a no-nonsense, bullet-pointed, dry, down-to-business discussion of his economic priorities.  No soaring rhetoric about hope…which is good.  Because I believe we the American people need to see more of his task-oriented “let’s prioritize and get important shit done” side of things for a while.  Not only is it an important part of any successful presidency, it also important in building trust between him and his skeptics, who have so often made the (mistaken) claim, “He’s got the rhetoric and the compassion, but no substance to back that up.”  We’ll be seeing the balance shift in the next few weeks.  Supporters who might still be looking for a lot of uplifting speech should keep this in mind — he’s not abandoning us.  It’s just time to button up, knuckle down and get to work.  For all of us.  And I think Obama (the President) knows it.  Do WE, the People?