Posted: Sunday, January 31, 2010 7:10 am

President Obama spent much of last week letting the nation know “he gets it now” that the majority of people want to see our economic situation stablized and improving.

That that is the overwhelming priority for the majority of us was the political lesson experts tell us from a Republican’s victory for the long, long Democratic Senate seat of the late Edward Kennedy.

Many of those looking disfavorably toward health care reform or climate change legislation do so because those are at best secondary concerns against their worries for their fiscal futures.

Feeding the family or sending a kid to college will always supercede melting glaciers. Compassion for extending health care coverage to others fades into the background against worries of keeping existing coverage.

After two hard years America is ready to see better times return. While many signs point to that happening, other indicators, most notably unemployment, which always lags behind, carry more weight.

Even with irrefutable positive economic developments, people do not feel secure as long as they fear for their jobs.

Obviously, they want that to be the unchallenged national priority, and state leaders would do well to recognize its influence on their areas of responsibility.

Great leaders, even good leaders, are those who find ways to move us out of hard times.

American people have made it clear that’s what they want and need.