Expert guest post by Sheri Rivlin and Allan Rivlin, Co-Editors CenteredPolitics.com
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Right now, one of the candidates for president is struggling to clear a threshold
that would even qualify him to lead the nation in this time of crisis — and
the entire national press corps has been following the other candidate.
It is not all that surprising that the national press corps followed Barack
Obama through the Middle East and Europe because the conventional wisdom of
the moment is pointing to the question of whether Barack Obama can meet a minimum
acceptability standard on the Commander in Chief dimension. Casting Obama as
Ronald Reagan by analogy to his 1980 victory over Jimmy Carter, this widely
repeated analysis makes the central question one of whether Obama can assure
voters that they can feel comfortable with him on foreign policy issues and
in command of the military. This view may be correct, as far as it goes, but
it places far too much emphasis on foreign policy in an election where voters
are almost completely focused on their economic insecurity.
Priorities can always shift, but right now it looks like voters will be going
to the polls in November to vote for change in the direction of the economy
[period, full stop]. If John McCain cannot contest that turf, there will be
no contest in November.
The key question of this election is whether John McCain can articulate a credible
economic plan that voters believe represents enough of a change from George
Bush’s economic plan and sounds like it might bring relief and security
to the economically struggling and worried. Or, to borrow a phrase, can McCain
offer economic “change, we can believe in?” So far, he is not measuring
up. The last couple of weeks of the McCain campaign were supposed to have been
focused on economic policy but rather than clearing the bar, he stumbled on
his approach.
Just as McCain traveled to economically stressed communities to deliver the
message that he understands people are hurting, one of his top economic advisors
described the problem as more psychological than real, and dubbed America, “a
nation of whiners.” This forced McCain to take a microphone to figuratively
exile Former Senator Phil Gramm to Minsk and state flatly that he does not speak
for John McCain. The problem was, the very same day Gramm was officially speaking
for McCain on economic issues in front of the Wall Street Journal Editorial
Board. This was just another misstep from a McCain campaign that has been making
mistakes with a frequency that has been nothing short of astonishing.
Had the week gone as McCain intended his message would have had several elements:
1) He knows people are hurting economically.
2) He supports sound policies, balanced budgets and spending restraints.
3) He advocates making George Bush’s tax cuts permanent.
4) He supports small initiatives like targeted tax cuts to help small business
create jobs and transition to alternative energy.5) And he supports offshore drilling to send a signal to markets that America
will develop more oil.
Partisans will differ on the merits of the plan although economists
flunk McCain’s budget math. Politically, however, it fails the test of
being different enough from Bush and important enough to gain voter confidence
that the economy will improve under McCain’s leadership.
In this month’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey voters reject President
Bush’s handling of the economy by 23% to 72%, and 77% say they believe
McCain would follow Bush’s policies (generally) very or somewhat closely.
Just 17% say they have a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in John McCain’s
plans and programs to get the economy back on track. There just is no big new
idea in McCain’s economic proposals and voters know it.
The inability to come up with a big idea economic change message may not even
be McCain’s fault, at least not alone. When he goes to the cupboard for
conservative economic medications looking for new ideas from places like the
American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation, or the CATO Institute,
the cupboard is bare. There really has not been much for conservatives to talk
about for years beyond charges that the Democrats plan to raise taxes. We would
be delighted if the McCain campaign or the Institutes and Foundations could
prove us wrong. In presidential election years Americans deserve a choice between
competing solutions to their top concerns, but for several years now whenever
George Bush or John McCain talk about the economy, beyond a few small targeted
tax cuts, all we have been hearing about is making Bush’s tax cuts permanent.
In “It’s a Wonderful Life” Zuzu learns from her teachers
that “every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings” and by the
end, Clarence the Angel proves this is true. For the past
few years, it has been equally true that every time a Republican politician
says, “we need to make George Bush’s tax cuts permanent,”
an independent decides they are going to vote Democratic. After eight years
of George Bush middle-income America is feeling economic pain with worries about
gas prices, home foreclosures, bank collapses, job loses, rising food, college,
and health care costs, and three-quarters of the electorate want a change in
direction. For any Republican to expend capital to make any part of Bush’s
economic program “permanent,” especially his tax cuts for the wealthy,
it can only be seen as death-defying stupidity.
Now it is fair to ask whether Barack Obama meets the standard of having credible
big ideas to move the economy forward, but truly it is not very germane to whether
he will be elected president. Unless John McCain can come up with a plan, there
is little pressure on Obama on economic issues.
So far Obama’s economic proposals are also fairly small gauge.
1) He knows people are hurting economically. He calls this an “economic
emergency.”2) He supports sound policies, balanced budgets and spending restraints,
and is more credible because Bill Clinton balanced the budget, and George
Bush created record deficits.3) He proposes tax cuts for the middle class and tax increases for those
with higher incomes.4) He has one big initiative to reform health care and like McCain he has
a list of small initiatives but instead of tax cuts, he is more likely to
use targeted spending to help people pay for things like keeping their homes
or affording college or job training.5) He opposes offshore drilling but will invest in helping transition the
economy to greater reliance on renewable energy.
Obama does have work to do in that just 28% say they have a great deal or quite
a bit of confidence in his plans and programs to get the economy back on track.
This is why Obama kicked off a renewed focus on economic issues this week with
a meeting of heavyweights including Warren Buffett and former Bush Administration
officials Paul O’Neill and William Donaldson.
But unlike McCain, Obama does not need to prove that he represents enough change
when it comes to the economy. Obama owns the trademark on “change”
to such a degree that McCain has completely ceded the ground to him, arguing
only that Obama’s proposals represent change in the wrong direction. In
voters’ minds the greater danger is that he will bring too much rather
than too little change, so a sweeping economic change message is not what he
needs at all.
Obama needs to clarify his economic message but even if he does not he has
a huge advantage because he is a Democrat. Voters give the Democrats a 17-point
advantage on managing the economy in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll.
The last time Democrats held the White House the economy was a lot better than
it is now. Mostly, Obama represents an orientation toward the economy that will
favor the middle-class and economically struggling while looking to the wealthy
to pay a larger share of the tax burden. This is something most voters expect
from a Democrat and something most voters will welcome.
The authors are co-editors of CenteredPolitics.com.
Allan Rivlin is a Partner with Peter D. Hart Research a Public Opinion Research
firm in Washington, DC, that with Public Opinion Strategies conducts the NBC
News/Wall Street Journal Poll.
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