National confidence: it all gets back to jobs.

Did anyone find it particularly surprising that bill Clinton defeated George Bush in the presidential election? Is anyone now astonished that President Clinton seems to be backing away from the views he expressed on many of the economic issues that he railed against during the campaign and from many of the stands that helped him get elected?

Not me. And you can take it to the bank that I'm not alone in my belief that many of us put too much credence in presidential politics or that the government is going to solve many problems and improve our way of life.

The fact of the matter is Bush was a pretty good president. While he may not have done everything right, he did a lot of the right things - though not enough in the eyes of the American public to give him his job back. Let's hope our new president does at least as well and hopefully even better.

But if a president's selection of his Cabinet portends what we might expect during his term, I'm afraid that many of the economic concerns confronting us today will be told again in four years. These are people who are supposed to be his closest advisers, those who will help set the policies that will give the country its direction for the foreseeable future.

The new president said he wanted his Cabinet to be representative of America. It would be a cross section of the way America looks today, which in this case, meant a balance of whites and minorities, of men and women. No problem there. It seems there are plenty of willing and capable people of all races and genders to fill the vital roles of advising the president.

But as the names of the Cabinet nominees emerged and their backgrounds documented, it became increasingly obvious that President Clinton's commitment to create a symmetry among his top advisers failed to address the basic concerns of Americans. The Cabinet may look like America, but there's a question of does it really know how America feels.

Despite all the talk about the economy and what it will take to get it back on track, the Cabinet appears far more capable and concerned with dealing with the social issues receiving so much attention today.

Boston Globe commentator David Warsh hit it squarely on the head in a January column that appeared in the Chicago Tribune. He wrote: "A glum feeling has developed while watching Clinton appoint his Cabinet. These are all nice people, every one of them interesting in her or his own right, a fascinating collection of well-educated lawyers and politicians.

"But among them is nobody who sells things, produces them, knows very much about technology or has much of a belief in |the market' in its broadest sense, meaning the responsiveness to incentives of individual behavior."

For example, what were the major issues confronting the new president in the weeks immediately following his inauguration? Gays in the military and family leave shared the headlines with stories about enormous employment cutbacks at some of the largest U.S. companies. But where was the president's attention? Gay rights and family leave are important concerns to a fair amount of people in this country, but how do they stack up with people losing their livelihoods. What good is family leave if you don't have a good job to return to?

During his campaign, Clinton hammered time and again on the subject of worker education and retraining. But retrained for what? Without the hope of finding a good job, what is the incentive for workers to seek out educational opportunities or for companies to offer training programs if they have no jobs to offer.

Solving the social issues confronting the country is a noble pursuit. But getting America back on a strong economic footing would provide the cornerstone for addressing social concerns. People who are working and who are confident they will keep their jobs tend to be far more open to listening to other arguments. A strong and growing economy allows for the allocation of time, energy and other resources to social programs.

On the surface, at least, it isn't clear that Clinton has equipped himself to tackle the difficult job of creating a climate that will lead to long-term economic growth. We shouldn't count on the president, his Cabinet or Congress to create jobs. The most we can hope for is that they don't throw up any more road-blocks for business and industry to overcome.

Given the right climate and incentives, American business and industry will do what it does best - create wealth for the country by providing good jobs for its people. After all is said and done, it all gets back to jobs.

But let's also give President Clinton and his administration a chance.