Attending to the shaky sense of optimism

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KLPNO

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Hello everyone.

From the book Psychology of Hope by Charles Snyder.

The 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton exemplifies this distinction between optimism and hope. Attending to the shaky sense of optimism among the American electorate about where we were going as a country, Bill Clinton and his advisers apparently seized upon the important notion that planfulness needed to be emphasized. Indeed, the key word in the Democratic convention and throughout the campaign trail was hope. A Place Called Hope became a metaphor describing Bill Clinton’s boyhood Arkansas home town. Its larger meaning also conveyed his advocacy for a way of thinking that engendered willfulness and planning. President Clinton was elected because this vision of hope with its emphasis on planning appealed to the voters wary of the previous hollow Pollyannaish optimism that had become the norm in the political arena.

Does "Attending to the shaky sense of optimism" mean that Bill Clinton and his advisers "appealed to the shaky sense of optimism", that they tried "to make use of the shaky sense of optimism" (in the interests of Bill Clinton's presedential campaign)?
 
No, they were trying to fix it, not make use of it.
 
No, they were trying to fix it, not make use of it.

So Americans' sense of optimism was shaken and Bill Clinton and his advisers decided to restore it.
Is this the intended meaning of the phrase in question?
 
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