Chutzpah or Mad Genius?

This courtesy of Talking Points Memo:

As the economy slowly improves, the GOP’s effort to recalibrate its message for the 2012 elections continued Sunday as rising star and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels took to arguing that the recovery is too slow and the economy remains “pathetically weak.”

“Let’s not kid ourselves: this is the worst recovery ever from a serious recession, and history says the deeper the down, the sharper the up,” Daniels said on CNN’s State of the Union. “It should have been a very vigorous one. Hasn’t been.”

This is coming from the man who was President George W. Bush's Budget Director from 2001 to 2003. His presided over turning a $236 billion surplus to a $400 billion deficit. He predicted the Iraq War would cost $50 to $60 billion (It is approaching $1 trillion).

But this shouldn't be a surprise since Governor Mitch Daniels is the former CEO of Eli Lilly and a self-described propagandist.

“It is another sign of the importance P.R. tactics play in American politics,” Nyhan wrote. “The OMB director — once a budget expert — is now an operative chosen for his political skills, particularly his ability to sell the administration’s economic proposals in the media.

“In August [2001], Daniels admitted as much, telling the Wall Street Journal that ‘[t]o the extent I bring anything … to this job, maybe it’s an ability to think about how a product, whether it’s Prozac or a president’s proposal, is marketed.’ Predictably, he has displayed a disturbing tendency to make dishonest claims for political advantage on federal budget issues.”

But maybe Mitch Daniels is really a genius because if I hear much more of his asinine critiques of the President I think I, along with any sane thinking American, will probably need to obtain a prescription for Prozac. His party is looking like it is going to go down in November 2012, at least in the interim his Eli Lilly stock may go up.

GOP Unhappy with Conservative Economic Recovery

President Obama's polling numbers are up concerning his handling of the economy.

As TPM points out this is bad for Mitt Romney:

Thursday morning brought the news that weekly jobless claims were down to their lowest level since March 2008. General Motors, which survived only because of a government bailout (that Romney opposed), posted its largest annual profit in history. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics released data this week showing that new housing starts are picking up, moving away from the December slowdown. True, the economy is far from fully healthy or at full recovery, but continuing good economic news will make Romney’s message a harder sell.

And despite GOP protestations that the nation is being led by a Kenyan, atheist, communist, anti-colonialist the recovery is actually conservative in nature. As Matthew Yglesias incessantly points out the entirety of job growth is coming from the private sector while public sector employment (teachers, police officers, firefighters) continue to contract.

Paul Krugman takes this analysis one step further and points out that if the federal government simply helped state and local governments keep their employment numbers constant with population growth that would be tantamount to one million to three million more jobs.

This suggests to me that we could put well over a million people to work directly, and probably around 3 million once you take other effects into account, without any need to come up with new projects; just transfer enough money to state and local governments to let them return to doing the essential business of government, like educating our children.

It's the Economy Stupid

The handwringing over the results of the midterm elections continues unabated. Every pundit is offering their analysis and advice to President Obama on how to turn around his Presidency. Pundits recommend that he needs to demonstrate "leadership" or be "bipartisan" or "connect" to the American people. And right wing pundits of course demand that he adopt a conservative ideology.

People seem determined to ignore the one variable that explains it all, the performance of the economy. Probably because that explanation is boring and can't fill up the 24 hours of blathering that is required for FOX and MSNBC programming.

My conviction that the economy explains almost everything in our current political environment was confirmed when I read the Wikipedia summary of the final chapter of CNN's Cold War documentary while preparing for my World History class. This statement about President George H.W. Bush really struck me:

"The Soviet Union ends on 25 December 1991, and in his Christmas Day address Bush announces the Cold War is over."

George Bush presided over the country when it's mortal ideological enemy of 50 years fell AND managed the armed forces to a total and convincing victory over Iraq, the first major successful military operation since Vietnam, and he still convincingly lost the 1992 election to Bill Clinton. When I think about that election result it is a stunning event? Of course Bill Clinton's most famous slogan from the '92 campaign says it best, "It's the economy, stupid."

Political scientist have convincingly demonstrated the overwhelming relationship between the economy and Presidential re-election rates. It just seems pundits don't want political scientists to reveal that all the endless white noise on TV is useless and wrong.

So when someone suggests that Obama needs to do this or that to win back the American people remember that that person is probably just advancing their own personal agenda by disguising it as sincere advice designed to help the President.