The Crash, Obama and the Disappearing Dem Majority

Real Clear Politics ^ | September 15, 2010 | David Paul Kuhn

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The crash of our time came two years ago today. We know the economic story well. Lehman Brothers fell. The markets went with it.

But the political story of September 15 is barely known. That it made Barack Obama's majority. That, two years later, it explains why the Democratic majority is on life support.

Recall the Obama hyperbole of November 2008. Talk of an enduring progressive majority. New York Times' columnist Paul Krugman typified a corps of liberal analysts at the time. "We've had a major political realignment," Krugman wrote. "[The] presidential election was a clear referendum on political philosophies -- and the progressive philosophy won." Krugman won a Nobel Prize in economics that same year. Yet even he disregarded how the economy made Obama's mandate that day.

By March 2009, liberal analyst Ruy Teixeira wrote a report on the "New Progressive America." It dissected the presidential electorate. How white, brown, black and educated voted. Everyone but bicycling Norwegians. Yet, as I noted then, the nearly 50-page report ignored the economy's role. The lapse was, again, typical of the time and type.

We are now in another political time. The Democratic House could collapse in less than 50 days. Obama lost the majority long ago. And liberal analysts are running to economic explanations. Krugman has led the chorus. "It really is the economy, stupid," he wrote this summer.

It's an analysis that seeks to have it both ways. The economy is blamed in bad Democratic times. It's ignored in good. This cognitive dissonance deceived Democrats most. It brought hubris when they were on top. It now brings denial. If Obama first won his mandate on progressivism and now lost it with the economy, then the "professional left" does not have to consider where its ideas went wrong.

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Many forget, after all, where McCain stood before the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Gallup measured McCain ahead for 9 straight days until September 15. After that day, McCain never again led Obama. Obama had only won a majority once before September 15th. And that was at the peak of his convention bounce. After the stock market first crashed, Obama surpassed or met that 50-percent threshold 33 times.

That "convenient" stock market crash really helped Barry.

REALLY HELPED Barry.

[rightwingextremist1776]

You mean the one that was CREATED by Soros to help his boy win?

That scumbag ought to be the first but behind bars...

[rightwingextremist1776]

but = put

[floridavoter2]

I fear that Republican gains in November will give Obama the opportunity to blame Republicans for obstruction - thus ensuring a second term for him in 2012. I know it’s important for conservatives to win this fall, but I hate that it will make Obama’s reelection a more realistic possibility.

[henkster]

It wasn’t so much the crash that killed McCain, but his response to it. McCain lost the election on the 3rd question of the first debate, which was “how would you address the crash.” It was a hanging curve ball that McCain could have smoked into the seats by clearly coming out against the bailout, which was hugely unpopular. It was a potential election winner. Instead, McCain hem-hawed around about Wall Street and Main Street and came off as a slack-jawed, bugger-eating moron.

I knew right then we would have President 0bama.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I think the article rightly points out that Obama has been targeting his message and the benefits of his programs to an “inside baseball” audience (i.e. the Porkulus went to prop-up education and gubbermint bureaucrat jobs, not to aid unemployed manufacturing and construction workers). I suspect that Barry is not capable of breaking free of this elitist tone-deafness, and hence I think won’t be very effective in blaming the Republicans.

(conversely if he had frontloaded his agenda with big populist giveaway programs aimed at the middle class, we might have throngs marching in the streets singing The Internationale right now...)

[Bitsy]

You mean the one that was CREATED by Soros to help his boy win? That scumbag ought to be the first but behind bars...

From your lips to Gods ears. Soros is a despicable little slug with no redeeming qualities. But, God doesn't sleep and his day will come one way or the other.

[Pollster1]

I remember this offensive cover. The media had spoken and thought we would obey. After yesterday that is in doubt, and hopefully even more so after November 2 the answer will be clear. No, we're not socialists. We're Americans, and we're free.