Election-year economy
June 29, 2004

I was asked some months ago by the proverbial "high administration official" what the Bush administration ought to say about Democratic charges that President Bush's economic policies were not producing the jobs the nation needs.

Remember all the talk about the "jobless" recovery that allowed corporations to return to profitability without generating new jobs? Bush was being compared to Herbert Hoover and we were told that his policies were actually designed to encourage American business to "outsource" jobs to places like India and Mexico.

Democrats in general and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in particular seemed almost ecstatic every time there was an announcement that the economy was losing jobs or failing to produce new ones. They knew, of course, that in presidential politics, James Carville was right when he urged all who listened in 1992 that "It's the economy, stupid."

I suggested at the time that since from all indications the economy was turning around, no one should worry too much about what was being said, because by November the voters would know whether things are good or bad. People on their way to vote would either have jobs or they wouldn't, and that, rather than Democratic or Republican "spin," would make the difference.

We have been told for years that politicians and their managers can convince voters that it's midnight at noon, but they can't. It does take a little time for good or bad economic perceptions to catch up with reality, but an economic turnaround or collapse in the spring and summer of an election year can neither be denied nor kept from voters on the way to the polls in November.

What's happening now as month after month of good news comes out is reminiscent of the Democratic reaction to the Reagan economy back in 1984. First, the Democrats of that era predicted that the recession Reagan inherited would persist because of Reagan's wrongheaded dedication to cutting taxes -- every believing liberal Democrat knew wouldn't work.

However, when things turned around and the economy began to pick up a real head of steam, Walter Mondale, the John Kerry of the day, pooh-poohed the recovery. He proclaimed that while the rich were benefiting from the tax cuts, the only jobs being produced as a result of the Reagan recovery were for "hamburger flippers."

Before it was over, Mondale was promising to raise taxes and give the American people the sort of Democratic economic policies he and his fellow liberals just knew that voters craved. He lost 49 states.

This year Kerry is repeating Mondale's mistakes of 20 years ago. He is going to have the same problem Mondale ran into then. It is difficult, if not impossible, to convince people that things are bad and getting worse in the midst of an economic boom the likes of which we haven't seen since, well, the Reagan years.

Kerry's problem is not unique to him or even to Democrats. It is, rather, a reflection of the fact that to win, a challenger has to convince voters that none of the policies the incumbent is pursuing is working to solve whatever problems the voters feel need to be solved. This isn't much of a problem if they are not, in fact, working, but becomes much more difficult when they are. Is it any surprise, then, that as the campaign gets under way, bad economic news is, to the challenger at least, good news because it strengthens his hand?

Think about it for a minute. Do you believe that John Kerry is overjoyed at the news that Bush's economic policies that he has charged for months cannot and will not work actually do seem to be working? He was all set to argue during the debates this fall that Bush cared less about working Americans than, say, Herbert Hoover, and now he's got to search the statistics for bad news that is becoming increasingly difficult to find.

It's the sort of thing that leads people to believe politicians must live in a different world than the one around us.

 

Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union, is a managing associate with Carmen Group, a D.C.-based governmental-affairs firm (www.carmengrouplobbying.com).