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The conventional wisdom says the next president will have to spend his first few months or longer struggling with a sick economy. Maybe so, but it’s possible that the timing will be better than that for President-elect Barack Obama.

True, last week brought dismal news from the auto industry and manufacturing in general – but we also saw evidence that the efforts to get credit flowing again are working. The London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor, dropped to 2.71 percent on Monday, its lowest point since June 9, according to CNN.Money. The lower the Libor, the easier it is for banks to make overnight loans.

CNN also reported that the “TED spread,” the difference between the three-month Libor and the three-month Treasury bill, fell to 2.22 percentage points from 2.42 points last Monday. As CNN noted: “The higher the spread, the less willing investors are to take risks.” The figure hit a record 4.63 points in mid-October. Before the financial crisis went critical, the TED spread stood at 1.04.

These numbers suggest that the emergency programs might actually be thawing out credit as intended. The planning may have been primitive and the follow-through questionable, but something’s working.

It will take a while for corporate earnings to rebound, and even longer for employment to pick up, so the laypeople might not be too happy next year. But Barron’s magazine and other observers are predicting a comeback for the stock market, which would cheer up people who make business spending decisions.

So here’s how it could play out for the Obama administration. Any anger over the burst of federal intervention and unprecedented spending gets dumped on President George Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson – although a Democratic Congress went along. Then those efforts pay off sometime in 2009 with a strengthening economy fueled by pent-up demand, and Obama grabs the credit.

It would be a dream come true for any president’s opening act.