Here is how people vote: (1) Loyalists. If Al Gore had murdered a 2 year old in cold blood they'd voted for him anyway. (2) Single-Issue. Environmentalists and Abortionists, and Amoralists. (3) Philisophical. Republicans are against Democracy. (4) Pocket-book. Who's president -- how am I doing? (5) Who looks cooler?
The number 1,2, and 3 lines have been drawn. The number 5 group consists of a small number of twits. The number 4 crowd is HUGE and is what swings the election; however, I don't think most pay any attention to how the economy works and what role the government has.
Altough they will talk up the social security "deficit" and "raids", they will subtly place into every interview the "downturn", the "loss in investments", and the need to "cutback spending". I mean _MY GOD_ we just ran the second largest surplus in the history of the country and the DEMOCRATS are already talking about how they'll have to cut government programs. Its as if the word surplus didn't have a logical meaning.
Agree 100% with your thinking. The (4) group is also the most dangerous. They know practically nothing about how the economy works. They think of their 401Ks as a kind of bank account. ("Gee, I put money in -- it's supposed to get some kind of return.") They don't understand how the capital and bond markets work. They don't know how interest rates are set -- or by whom. They don't understand how tax rates affect government revenues -- or that cutting taxes increases revenues. They don't care. All they do care is that the money keeps rolling in. All that they know is that they did well under Clinton. They credit Clinton with giving "good economy". They will be hard on Bush. They will blame everything that's happening right now on him, even though the economic downturn started 2 years before Clinton even left office. His economists were clever. They hid the downturn in fudged productivity numbers. GDP was flat or declining.