Nearby was former House Democratic Whip David Bonior, a fierce foe of any trade agreement, especially NAFTA, who could become Obama's secretary of Labor, handing the AFL-CIO just about everything it wants.
Still, in the pantheon of anti-trade desperadoes, Obama is second to none. He opposed trade agreements with South Korea and Colombia, voted "no" on the Dominican Republic-Central America Trade Agreement and sought to impose tariffs on goods from China if it didn't readjust its currency exchange rate.
But others on Obama's "team of economists can explain why these positions were wrong-headed. Economic nationalism is not in the national interest," writes Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, an adviser to Mitt Romney in the GOP primary campaign.
Indeed it isn't. Economic recovery will require having all our oars in the water, pulling in the same direction at once. It won't be fixed with a stimulus package that does not create any new jobs in the months to come, or that raising taxes on the engines of job growth: businesses, investors, venture capital and entrepreneurial risk-takers -- and certainly not by slamming the brakes on opening new trading markets for America's manufacturers.
But this is what Obama ran on doing and what he intends to do once he takes office. Back-peddling on NAFTA with our two best trading partners and killing additional trade agreements is not a recipe for growth.
The pivotal question in the president-elect's economic strategy is simply this: how can you stimulate a $14 trillion economy that is plunging into a recession when you've taken so many proven fast-growth initiatives off the table? You can't.
The White House has signaled that President Bush will not sign an infrastructure spending package with projects that are at best "very limited and very ... long range," taking years to complete, his spokesman says.
So this is where matters stand as financial markets here and abroad turn increasingly bearish about the future -- a sign of declining confidence that Obama understands what is needed to put the nation on a long-term growth path.