President Obama is finding it’s tougher to drive a message in the White House than advertised.

The economy is at the top of everyone’s agenda, so the President is clearly trying to foster the image that he’s focused on creating jobs. Yet more often than not in recent weeks, the White House news coverage is about President Obama working on international issues.

That’s not for a lacking of trying by the White House press office. For example, today the White House scheduled President Obama to deliver remarks on the so-called success of the stimulus bill, following up on Friday’s housing remarks at the White House. But just like Friday’s news was dominated by the President’s non-answer on the pirate crisis, today’s economic remarks were overshadowed by the President’s brief (and unavoidable) statement on the crisis’ successful resolution. Add to that a busy schedule of international travel, and it’s not surprising if the typical news consumer gets the impression that the President is more focused on foreign affairs than domestic issues.

The President’s is scheduled to do another economic message event tomorrow – a speech at Georgetown being billed as a “major address” – before foreign affairs again take over his schedule as he announces his Cuba policies before departing for the Summit of the Americas conference.

Tags: communications, economics, obama