It's the Economy, Stupid -- Part Deux

More than 75% of Americans now say that the economy is their number one concern heading into the general election in the fall. Those poll numbers are more than confirmed by consumer sentiment surveys which, despite a recent bounce care of the slight retreat of gas prices, have been at multi-decade nadirs. With incomes stagnant and spending squeezed by higher food and energy prices on the one hand and tighter credit on the other, hundreds of millions of Americans are feeling unable to meet their needs and/or desires with the money available to them.

Given this situation, you'd think that economic news would attract more debate and discussion. It doesn't. On Monday, Senator Obama caucused with some economic policy heavyweights, including Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, John Corzine, Paul Volcker, former Bush treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and billionaire investor Warren Buffet. That meeting followed a ten-day trip abroad that attracted voluminous attention, reams of journalistic commentary, and lots of chatter in the blogosphere. The meeting Monday was certainly widely reported, but it is a one-day story at best, without controversy, without much in the way of discussion, and little in the way of excitement.

That's the problem with economic issues today: they may be important, but when it comes down to the details, they are, well, boring. Boring when compared to acute, life-and-death questions of troops in Iraq and nukes in Iran, and less amenable to villains, heroes, or solutions. It is true that the gap between the wealthy and the rest has been yawning wide, and it's true that many are feeling squeezed. It's easy to point fingers, but the issues are systemic and global, and the answers are mostly wonky.

Somehow, we're going to have to overcome this reluctance to focus in detail on economic issues. In 1992, the Clinton campaign was able to turn the economy into an electoral attack against a sitting president and blame him for it. The Obama campaign can legitimately associate McCain with today's problems in the credit markets and wealth distribution, but McCain himself has already been distancing himself from Bush and the Republican Congress. That means that "It's the economy, stupid" - a slogan that worked so well for Clinton - needs updating. It is the economy for most Americans, but no one has yet figured out how to channel that sentiment.

There is a parallel with health care: Americans rate health care as a top concern, along with Iraq, the economy, and rising energy prices. But does anyone walk into a voting booth and push a button because candidate X has a more appealing plan for Medicare Part D or for insurance co-payments? Maybe, but there is more evidence that people vote their passions, and those passions are usually not the product of health care reform white papers or economic stimulus packages.

Obama has a remarkable ability to reframe the public debate, but generating passion around "the economy" is still elusive. The topic may be front and center, yet people tune out when the discussion gets going, whether on the Huffington Post or in the Washington Post. What's needed is an "it's the economy, stupid" for 2008. What should that be? "It's really the economy, stupid" probably doesn't cut it. No, there needs to be a clear and simple enunciation about the consequences of global capital flows, the changing nature of the global economic system, and the responsibility of a national government to manage the dislocations that recent developments have caused. Would that engage the electorate? Would it lead to heated discussions?

There was a priceless moment in the fictionalized account of the 1992 election Primary Colors where the nominee (a veiled Bill Clinton) confronts workers in a factory about to close and says bluntly, the jobs aren't coming back and the world has moved on, but there are things government can do and things individuals can do that they haven't been doing. It was a bracing vision of plain talk and idealism, blunt yet compassionate, direct, and challenging. It was fiction, but it's the right formula. Obama can begin that conversation (as could McCain, he of the formerly "straight talk express"), but it must be continued by others. That is our collective responsibility, to take the act of citizenship and engagement to a next level and engage with those issues that so many say matter. If we then refuse to tune in, and instead follow American Idol with more passion than we do the future shape of our economic lives, the slogan will become an epitaph: "It's the economy, and we were stupid."

Comments

[tiggrrl]

We've been writing a lot about the economy over at the CA NOW blog: http://www.canow.org/canoworg/economics/

Being in a state that has been especially hard hit by the housing collapse, and in the middle of a state budget crisis that is unlikely to be resolved without the working poor taking yet another hit, we're really seeing the effects.

[tuttlemsm]

Are you better off now than you were eight years ago?

[mike53]

Yes. Most people are.

[Zeje]

No. Most people are more in debt and have less disposable income

[therealredstateblues]

By what measure are you making this determination?

[ladyv]

Everything needs to be framed as actually being about the economy.

"People keep saying, 'When're we going to talk about the economy? What's the plan for the economy?' We are talking about the economy.

When we talk about Iraq - when we talk about pouring trillions of dollars into the occupation of a country we should not have attacked in the first place and we're being asked by John McCain to continue to throw good money after bad over there - we're talking about the economy.

When we talk about Afghanistan - when we talk about the war that was necessary, the war we should've won, the war McCain wanted deferred so we could pour those trillions into the war Bush preferred - we're talking about the economy.

When we talk about the American military families stretched past the breaking point - those families suffering greater financial turmoil now than even the average American, suffering higher divorce rates because of these endless re-deployments, returning home wounded to a job market that's (whatever statistics look good) - we're talking about the economy.

When we talk about our crumbling infrastructure - our bridges collapsing, our interstate highways becoming increasingly unsafe, levees failing - we're talking about the economy.

When we talk about (blah blah environment) - (blah blah environment points - we're talking about the economy.

(go on forever)

(cont with inspiring half)

[Herrington]

Ok, here's the question:

The Economy. Is it working for you?

Why not?

[therealredstateblues]

Little wonder Obama doesn't want to talk about the economy - his closest advisers, goolsbee and furman are scary globalist acedemics, as is Rubin, he is only offering more globalization which has devastated the middle class.

Sure they talk about increasing the social safety nets which is good and should be done, it is little more than a bandaid on the root causes of our economic woes - too cheap and easy credit causing bubbles and inflation, huge deficits devaluing the dollar, globalization stagnating wages and reducing the middle class std of living, and voodoo economics shifting wealth upward.

We need to be talking more about localization rather than globalization - not only for our own economic health but also for energy usage and environmental concerns

The Dems sold out labor under clinton with Nafta. They arrogantly assumed they no longer needed the support of labor. This is the primary reason that dems struggle with the blue collar midwestern vote. The dems would do well to take on more of a populist lean rather than the globalist one - in this way they can win back labor as well as independents and even a few true conservatives

[therealredstateblues]

All Obama seems to have to offer for the economy is more globalization from his globalist acedemic advisers like goolsbee and furman - little wonder he doesn't want to talk about it because its 180 degrees from where the public is on this issue

Now they will say that we need nmore social safety nets which is true, but it is only a bandaid and doesn't address the root causes of our ecomomic woes - too cheap and easy credit causing bubbles and inflation, huge deficits devaluing our dollar, job offshoring reducing the middle class std of living and stagnating wages, and voodoo economics that shifts wealth upward

Sadly, Clinton sold out labor with Nafta, and from then on the Democratic Party has ignored the labor base - and this is one of the biggest reasons that dems struggle with the blue collar vote

The only way for dems to salvage the labor vote and even win over some independents and true conservatives is to take on more of a populist platform - rather than the corporate globalist position

[ChiMan1]

"O" doesn't really have time for the Economy right now he is holding back the Oceans rise. LOL!

[Herrington]

We have been mugged by the conservatives and don't even know it because it has happened so slowly. Well, the pace has picked up as the pickings have thinned.

The current U.S. business model is smash and grab. Before it was always someone elses job that was lost and now it is an absolute certainty that it will be your job that is lost.

Would you stand for an increase in taxes that took half of your income? Well then why stand for a business comunity that has put half of your paycheck into their own pockets and called it a good thing?

[likeicare]

Or, to be more specific, "It's the usury laws, stupid! Bring 'em back!"

[magen]

Obama '08

Government for We the People.

[americaforme]

Obama better not be another Clinton,we dont need a yes man...Outsourcing has to stop!!! We need to pick up the pieces and get on down the road. Business should be punished for leaving America in the future..There picking our bones, yes, wise up! Stockholders money wont mean a damn thing when we have lost our Blessed America...These Global nitwitts are streaching us like plastic man. Buffet lines his pockets, what does that do for