I think what many of us overlooked is that the Economic Collapse was imprinted on Bush and the GOP party in a much deeper manner than thought.
I think a lot of the Stay At Home Bush voters went into an “I hate all of them” mood. It will take another 4 years of Obama to wake them up, and even then it will take an inspirational figure to do it. I have no idea who that is. I suspect the GOP is going to put their chips behind Rubio.
I forgot to add, even with me saying that, I still find it hard to believe Romney couldn’t even get past the McCain total....that seems almost impossible because Obama did not get any MORE votes. It isn’t like Obama picked up the McCain voter, he lost voters too.
Maybe more people just think it is rigged and a joke and doesn’t matter? A puppet show?
I forgot to add, even with me saying that, I still find it hard to believe Romney couldn’t even get past the McCain total....that seems almost impossible because Obama did not get any MORE votes. It isn’t like Obama picked up the McCain voter, he lost voters too.
Maybe more people just think it is rigged and a joke and doesn’t matter? A puppet show?
Bush has been Hooverized, and he deserves it. But we don’t. Hoover had as little resemblance to the policies and style of Coolidge and Harding as Bush does to the conservative movement, except insofar as it has been corrupted by militarists (neocons) and compassinists (evangelicals).
Voters are shortsighted, in that they can’t seperate the party that happens to be in power and the had stuff that happens. It is just that conservatism be mistaken for Bushism. We brought that on ourselves. But not that conservatism be blamed for the meltdown, especially as Republicans didn’t own Congress for long stretches of the Bush years. Trend again, voters never take account of splits between the branches. The 94 minirevolt will never be credited with Clintonian prosperity.
Voters are stupid as well as shortsighted. Nevermind everything I said up to now. This is the main point: meltdowns matter less than how you respond to them. Every time we’ve responded with Big Government, from Hoover as the first president to treat an economic downturn as equivalent to war to TARP, the auto bailouts, QEinfinity, and the many stimuli, we’ve been stuck in the muck. When we responded the obvious way, by not prolonging the hurt, as in 21, after WWII, and 81, among others, we get out.
Just like how with Nixon the coverup is worse than the crime, covering up recession is worse than letting it happen. One exception is the 1890s, during which Clevelandian laissez faire couldn’t stanch the bleeding and which lent dangerous credibility to the Populism and Progressivism which finally overtook the Republic in 33, if not in the person of Hoover. I can’t explain it, and frankly it scares me. But otherwise all indications are that hands off is the correct countercyclical action.
We need to pound it into people’s heads that downyurns are not the problem. They are persistent, universal, and seemingly unstoppable. Something endemic to the monetary systems of modern economies, even ones on the gold standard, causes the business cycle. We’ll get less downturns under gold, and less severe, button not none. Whatever, let us cycle. Let us meltdown. The bad thing is throwing the baby out with the bathwater by reacting with the moral equivalence of war.