Organizing for America | A Running Account: It’s Not Always the Economy, Stupid

It’s Not Always the Economy, Stupid

By GWTardy - May 15th, 2008 at 8:40 pm EDT

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http://news.ncmonline.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=b027892667a469d9193415d484aa8fa8

Editor’s Note: It’s not the economy itself, but voters’ perception of where it is headed, that makes or breaks presidents, writes Earl Ofari Hutchinson. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

The political article of faith is that a sitting president and his party will pay a heavy price in his reelection bid if the economy takes a steep nosedive during his tenure. Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are banking on Bush’s economic fumbles and bumbles as their possible ticket to the White House.

But in an examination of how six of eight presidents fared since 1948 when the economy hit the skids or appeared to skid, the scorecard for presidents winning and losing because of economic woes is a draw. Three were beaten and three beat back their challengers. It came down to whether voters perceived that their economic plight would show no sign of getting an RX cure if they kept the incumbent in office.

The presidents who won had to do one crucial thing in the face of rising unemployment, recession, inflation, and public grumbles: They had to assure a majority of voters that things would and could get better if they stayed in the White House.

This was the task President Bush faced in 2004. He had to convince a majority of voters that things would get better on his watch – that if the voters swapped horses in the political midstream, there was no guarantee of improvement. Without using his exact words, Bush stole the sentiment behind the memorable line used by Ronald Reagan in his 1980 debate with Jimmy Carter when he asked voters, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

Carter was widely perceived as a president who caused the economy to go belly-up. Reagan nailed him on that.

The loss of jobs and the economy are major issues that factor into the ultimate fate of presidents. When unemployment is high or on the rise, and the GNP is stagnant or plunges and voters perceive that things are bad and will get worse, presidents are routinely ousted.

That combination of real and voter- perceived economic woe helped sink Presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush, Sr. It helped Carter win a narrow victory over Ford in 1976, and hurt him when he lost to Reagan in a landslide four years later.

The exact reverse was true for Reagan and Bill Clinton. Reagan's supply-side economics and big tax cuts were credited with igniting a mid-1980s economic boom.

That was the case even though the high unemployment rate that plagued Reagan through nearly all of his first term hadn’t dropped at the time of his reelection bid in 1984.

Clinton's tax hike, deficit reduction program, and investment stimulus program were credited with turning a record deficit into a record surplus and adding millions of new jobs to the rolls.

As Reagan's vice president, Bush Sr. benefited from his economic policies. In 1988, he won election. Four years later, when things turned sour, he lost. The more important factor is at what point the economy turns bad in the life of the administration, and the public’s perception that things will get better or worse.

The downturn for Bush Sr. came during the last two years of his term. Voters are much more likely to blame and punish a president if they go to the polls with economic doubts about him fresh in their minds.

Obama or Clinton will have to make the case that there will be fewer jobs, wages will plunge, plants will continue to close, outsourcing will be the rule and housing starts will plummet even lower if a Republican returns to the White House. They will have to imprint in the minds of voters that the cost of everything from food to cars will march steadily upward with no end in sight.

They will have to paint a stark, grim, and scary picture for workers and the middle class that this will all happen if the GOP heir apparent is elected. And John McCain will do everything to paint this as overblown, exaggerated and political panic mongering, arguing that if elected his tax cut and spending plan would be better than anything his Democratic rival has to offer. It’s a tough sell for him, but other GOP presidents and candidates have made the sell and shown that it’s not always the economy that makes or breaks presidents.

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