Once more, Stupid, it’s the economy
By Wes Pruden
PrudenPolitics.com
We may be a nation of saps,
if the pollsters are correct in their current
assessment of the presidential race, but we’re a
nation of good-hearted saps. We always want to do
the right thing. We like that lovable ol’ lug in the
White House, blundering and incompetent though he
is. We want to think highly of ourselves, and how
better to do it than voting for Barack Obama?
The economy is in the
dumpster, the Middle East is ablaze with hatred for
America, and the president keeps busy making it
worse. He’s about to preside over the expansion of
nuclear weapons into the hands of Islamic mad men.
The bill of particulars is a long one and bears
repeating for the big audience. The president tries
to console us with reassurance from Alfred E.
Neuman: “What? Me worry?”
Mitt Romney, nobody’s idea of
FDR, Harry Truman or Ronald Reagan, gets his last
best chance Wednesday night to abandon the game plan
of feckless establishment Republicans who are
happiest when they join Democrats in trashing
imperfect Republican candidates. This time their
tattered slogan, “We’re not as bad as you think,”
isn't working.
Mr. Romney has a presidential
profile that looks as if it belongs on Mount
Rushmore, but he has to offer more than that, even
to saps. We’re told that voters want him to be
someone they could have a beer with, as absurd as
that would have sounded to earlier American
grown-ups. Being “not Barack Obama” is a powerful
qualification, and maybe the most important, but not
this year. He can’t be a lovable ol’ lug – we’ve
already got one of those – so he might as well run
like a Democrat, and go after his opponent with mail
and chain. Hammer and tongs won’t do it.
Respectfully, of course.
Remember to say a few nice things about the
president, such as “we all think he’s a man with a
good heart.” But remember to add that “it’s not
where his heart is, but where his head is.” (Keep
the body parts straight.) Above all, keep the focus
on the economy. That’s the one subject above all
that the president and the Democrats are desperate
not to talk about. Be prepared for the media critics
to call you a racist, a bigot, a bounder, a cad and
an ignorant jasper. Be prepared as well to hear some
imaginative stretchers (be careful not to call them
“lies”).
When Bob Schieffer of CBS
News reminded Bill Clinton the other day that
unemployment is higher than when the president took
office, the economy is still in the dump and a lot
of people say that’s reason enough to change
presidents, Bubba replied that he didn't know “a
single serious economist” who thought four years was
long enough to “heal” the land. If Mr. Obama pulls
that on you remind him that Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi,
Harry Reid and a clutch of his own economists – as
well as himself – told us that, “serious” or not,
Barack Obama could and would heal what ails us.
Concede that he inherited a
bad economy, but you could remind him (and the
audience) how he made it worse. We’re not only not
completely out of the Great Recession, but most
economists think another one is on the way. The
average growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
in the first 12 quarters of recoveries since World
War II has been 15 percent. The economy grew at an
annual rate of nearly 19 percent in the Reagan
recovery, but a weak 7 percent in the Obama
recovery.
Government spending, he
promised when he moved into the White House, would
unleash a robust recovery, leading to “an economy
built to last.” White House economists promised that
the stimulus would by now bring the unemployment
rate down to 5.6 percent. The rate today is actually
8.1 percent. He promised to have cut the deficit in
half by now; instead it’s more than $1 trillion
(that’s with a ‘t’) and counting, twice what it was
when he took office.
The only natural advantage
President Obama takes into these debates is his
voice. Since almost nobody has ever heard oratory or
even great preachers they’re susceptible to Mr.
Obama’s black pulpit eloquence.
It’s not that the president
is a man of bad faith. He no doubt believes some of
the stuff he shovels into our ears. It’s that he
believes in a lot of things that just ain’t true.
Mitt Romney can’t let him get away with it.
Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington
Times.