Wanted: Top-notch economist to sell Obama policies

US President Barack Obama will seek a high-caliber economist and skilled communicator to fill the top economic job being vacated by his longtime aide, Austan Goolsbee, but finding the right successor may be tough.

A raft of disappointing data on jobs, housing and manufacturing over the past few weeks has highlighted both the US economy's fragility and Obama's Achilles heel in his 2012 re-election bid.

The shaky state of the economic recovery could make it harder for the administration to attract suitable candidates to chair the Council of Economic Advisers. The post will become open this summer when Goolsbee returns to his teaching job at the University of Chicago.

"It looks increasingly like people are heading for the life boats and that's not a good sign," said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey. "Even the prestige of working at the White House may not be enough, particularly with an administration that is basically desperate to find some kind of solution to the unemployment problem."

Voter frustration with the economy is dragging down Obama's approval rating enough to put him in a dead heat with one of his Republican challengers, Mitt Romney, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released on Tuesday.

This raises the stakes in Obama's search for a successor to Goolsbee, whose hobby was amateur comedy and who had a talent for explaining complex economic principles in plain language.

"I think they need a combination of a good talker and good analysis," said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas, Austin.

The White House has not said who is in the running to replace Goolsbee, but whoever gets the job will have their work cut out for them.

"It's enormously difficult to come up with a knock-down, effective message when unemployment has just gone back above 9%," Buchanan said.

Goolsbee was seen by the White House as a strong messenger to explain its policies to the American public.

"Austan has an outlook that very much focuses on the impact of economic policy on middle-class people," said Neera Tanden, a former domestic policy adviser to Obama who is now with the Center for American Progress think tank.

Tanden said it was an important quality that the administration should seek in the next CEA chairman.

SLOW JOB GROWTH

In the meantime, the administration could rely more heavily on Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, to help communicate its economic message.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, now the sole surviving member of Obama's original economic team, is another visible spokesperson and takes the lead on communicating with Wall Street and with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Obama has been touring the country visiting factories and trying to sell his economic policies.

He has gotten limited traction in his efforts to persuade Americans that his policies - including a big economic stimulus package, rescues of the auto and financial sectors and a tax-cut deal reached last year - stabilized an economy in freefall and have put it on the path to recovery.

Obama's visit last week to a Chrysler plant in Ohio to tout the auto bailout was overshadowed by a fresh jobs report that showed the US unemployment rate crept up to 9.1% in May, while the economy created an anemic 54,000 jobs.

Goolsbee's departure is unlikely to change the contours of Obama's policies, in part because the centrist economist has already made an indelible mark on the president's views.

With Republicans now controlling the House of Representatives, Obama also has limited leeway to pass new initiatives and deficit reduction has been dominating the conversation in Washington lately.

Goolsbee, who succeeded Christina Romer as CEA chairman last September, is one of Obama's longest-serving advisers, having helped out on both his Senate run in 2004 and the successful 2008 White House bid. Goolsbee will remain influential as an adviser to Obama's re-election campaign.

The job Goolsbee is vacating is traditionally held by academic economists, which is one reason there tends to be a lot of turnover in it.

Goolsbee cited his need to preserve his tenure at the University of Chicago as the main reason for his departure. Months before his promotion to CEA chairman, he was telling associates he did not expect to stay for a long time.