President-elect Obama is walking a fine line. On one hand, he is warning us that the economy “is going to get worse before [it] gets better.” But still, it’s not the Great Depression, he concedes. You can practically see the wheels of political calculation clicking round and round.

As Rahm Emanuel said, the Obama administration isn’t about to allow a serious economic crisis go to waste. They will use it for all its worth — to expand government, enact nationalized health care, fill the ranks of the unions with new members, serve up plenty of public jobs programs, and re-regulate and direct the economy. So the economy has to be fairly bad.

Plus, the expectations game is tricky. Unless voters are convinced George W. Bush did quite a number on the economy, they might expect things to be better fairly soon. If employment, growth, and the stock market are not measurably improved in six months or a year, they might wonder why all the billions in bailouts are not delivering prosperity. So again, the economy has to be in the dumpster.

But then again  it can’t be too awful, or rather President Obama can’t say that it’s too awful. Because markets, investors, entrepreneurs, and others might take him seriously, further dampening recovery prospects and thereby making it less likely we will pull out of the tailspin in time for — what else? — the next election. So really, folks, just calm down. It’s not like people are selling apples on street corners.

It’s a precarious balance, not easily sustained as he tries to juggle multiple constituencies and political audiences. But in the end it really doesn’t matter what he says. It is what he does that will determine how we fare. Will he raise taxes and hew to protectionist policies? Or will he discover that a new Works Progress Administration  isn’t really the way to promote recovery? In the end, the voters will see for themselves whether things are better or worse — and will hold the party in power responsible, just as they did in 2008.