Innovation is the driver of the economy?

"'Innovation has been essential to our prosperity in the past, and it will be essential to our prosperity in the future,' Obama said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address."
-from AP story

President Obama, whom I admire as a statesman as well as a messenger, has brought out the word innovation at a time when his poll numbers are down and when the economy may have bottomed out.
While the candidate and the President is a master of language, this effort may fall flat at a time when he can least afford it.
Research on public opinion has shown a lack of faith in American ingenuity. Americans know the French are using nuclear energy better than we are, the Chinese are better financiers than we are, and the northern Europeans are decades ahead of us in renewable energy. Americans want to chant and say "USA #1!" but at the moment, they're not buying it. Not that flag-waving hasn't worked for presidents in the past, but to tell Americans, "hey, we'll be fine. We're smarter than they are" may not impact consumers to buy American or financiers to fund American innovators.

As Americans, we have always risen to the challenge when we have needed to, and there's no better motivator than need. Obama may want to emphasize that "America needs to be number one" right now for it's own sake to see America pull itself up by its bootstraps.