It’s still about the economy

By Ed Rogers
WashingtonPost.com

During President Obama’s televised weekly address on Saturday, he doubled down on the rhetoric from his speech on the Islamic State last week. The post-speech analysis is in, and the general reaction from much of the commentariat is that the president essentially announced that his big plan to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State is to do more of the same. Well, given this administration’s history and bias toward self-congratulatory pronouncements, I suspect voters will be told that things couldn’t be going any better in fighting what Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel called a threat to “our homeland.” In the coming weeks, I suspect we will see more half-hearted attempts to cobble together a cosmetic coalition and muddle through. However, from the initial reports of Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts in Paris, it looks more and more like we will end up with a coalition of the pretending, not necessarily a coalition of the willing.

Anyway, national security issues are important and today, our national security demands attention. It would be irresponsible for Republicans to ignore the growing global chaos and the real threats our country faces. But everything in modern campaign history teaches us that the election in November will still mostly be about the economy. So it’s little wonder that the growing number of signs pointing to Republicans regaining control of the Senate have coincided with recent polls showing an increase in voters’ disapproval of how the Democrats are handling economic issues.

In the latest Politico poll, 57 percent of Americans said they “disapprove of his [President Obama’s] economic leadership.” The Democrats know this, so perhaps to some of the Democratic leadership, the international crises represent something of a mixed blessing. Ordinarily, Americans would rally to — or at least defer to — the president during times of international strife. Obama’s problem is that he is seen as part of the problem, not the solution to America’s waning influence and the growing threats that follow. Meanwhile, although the president engages in happy talk on the economy, the Democrats’ disconnect on this issue infuriates voters.

For instance, the same Politico poll also showed that, “by every measure in the survey, a gloomy mood still pervades the electorate when it comes to kitchen-table issues: Just 23 percent say their personal financial situation has improved over the past year, versus 30 percent who say it has gotten worse.” The poll is focused on likely voters in 2014 battleground states, so these results reveal a lot about the mood of our country. With 77 percent saying they are worse off or at least no better off than they were last year, Obama’s attempts to take credit for an economic recovery only confirms how detached from reality he and Democrats on the ballot in November have become.

The bottom line is that voters vote with their pocketbooks. This has been and will remain true. No matter what is happening around the world — short of a direct attack against the United States — the weak economy, anemic job growth and high cost and economic disruption caused by Obamacare must reign at the top of the GOP election agenda.
 
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