1 August 2008, Fukuda appointed Asō as Secretary-General of LDP, a move that solidified Asō's position as the number two-man in the party. Prime Minister of Japan Unexpectedly on 1 September 2008, Fukuda announced his resignation as Prime Minister. Five LDP members including Asō ran for new party President to succeed Fukuda. On 21 September, one day before votes of Diet party members, Asō reportedly told a crowd of supporters outside Tokyo: "The greatest concern right now is the economy." "America is facing a financial crisis ... we must not allow that to bring us down as well." Finally on 22 September, Asō did win. He was elected as President of LDP with 351 of 525 votes (217 from 384 Diet party members, 134 from 47 prefecture branches); Kaoru Yosano, Yuriko Koike, Nobuteru Ishihara, Shigeru Ishiba got 66, 46, 37, 25 votes respectively. Two days later on 24 September, Asō was designated by the Diet as Prime Minister, and was formally appointed to the office by the Emperor on that night. In the House of Representatives (lower house), he garnered 337 out of 478 votes cast; in the House of Councillors (upper house), Ichirō Ozawa, President of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, was named through two times of ballots. Because no agreement was reached at a joint committee of both Houses, the resolution of the House of Representatives became the resolution of the Diet, as is stipulated in the Constitution. Asō reportedly said, "If you look at the current period, it's not a stable one." and "These are turbulent times with the financial situation and everything else." Later on the same day as his election as Prime Minister, Asō personally announced his new Cabinet (this is normally done by the Chief Cabinet Secretary). His Cabinet was markedly different from the preceding Cabinet under Fukuda. Five of its members had never previously served in the Cabinet, and one of them, 34-year-old Yūko Obuchi, was the youngest member of the Cabinet in the post-war era. Prime Minister Asō flew to Washington to meet with United States President Barack Obama in February 2009. He was the first foreign leader to visit the Obama White House; however, reports suggested that the new administration was interested less in giving Asō a political boost than in sending a message that Japan continues to be an important ally and partner – a low-risk, high-payoff gesture