Economy May Not Influence Election As It Has in Past (Dems frustrated)

WP ^ | 08/31/08 | Lori Montgomery

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Economy May Not Influence Election As It Has in Past

Polls Contradict Forecasting Models

By Lori Montgomery

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, August 31, 2008; A12

Home prices are plummeting, food and energy costs are sky high and, for many families, disposable income is stagnant or falling. Economic forecasters say conditions are the worst they've seen in a presidential election year in nearly three decades.

That should spell big trouble for the party in control of the White House, and the Democrats should be waltzing to victory, history suggests. But so far it hasn't turned out that way, even though voters by a wide margin name the economy as the most important issue in the campaign. As the presidential contest enters its final months, public opinion polls show Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) locked in a tight race with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Economists who say economic conditions can be used to explain the outcome of almost every presidential election since at least the 1950s are perplexed.

"Historically, the economy seems to matter. And given the state of the economy, it should be giving Obama an edge," said Chris Varvares, president of Macroeconomic Advisers, a St. Louis firm whose forecasting model found that Obama should trounce McCain by nearly 10 points in November.

Indeed, certain economic factors are so negative that,

[arthurus]

Economy May Not Influence Election

That's because most people are not actually feeling abnormally "pinched." The most that incessant proclaiming of Depression and Catastrophe can accomplish is to make many people think that other people they hear about are not doing so well while they, themselves are doing okay right now and well, we shouldn't rock that particular boat too much. Also recessions now are not nearly the problem that they were a generation ago. Herman Kahn, the original 'futurist" and the best such to date wrote about the then "Coming Economic Boom" and believed that, essentially, hard times would be at an end with the next "boom." He was writing before Reagan and we have not had anything like "hard times" since. Our recessions and downturns since then have been hard times only by comparison with the top of the boom and only in the numbers. It is sort of like the problem of The Poor. It never goes away because The Poor is defined as the bottom 10%. There is always a bottom 10% even if that class drives new cars and lives in 4brm 2bth nice yd homes.

[pray4liberty]

People sense that Obama won't make things any better, probably worse.

Yup, "change" is going to be all we have left in our wallets if he becomes the President.