The economic advisory board is a decent cast of characters, but he probably wasn't being given too much differing advice.  There's been a unifying of the two wings of the Democratic Party's economic people over the last few years.  Whereas under Clinton, you had two camps --the Public Investors/Economic Activists (Reich, Krugman, Stiglitz) and the Budget Hawks (Summers, Rubin) -- you now have a group that largely agrees and fits more with the former category.  Summers has talked a great deal about fighting wage stagnation.  Rubin has 'fessed to Reich being right about public investment.

So, on the economic front, I'm optimistic.  I think there's plenty of agreement on the critical stuff.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin