photocredit: jurvetson
Consider the parallels between 1993 and 2009. A charismatic, fresh-faced Democrat steps up to the presidential role after eons of Republican rule. Faced with deepening deficits and a persistent recession, the Democrat treats the economy as an inherited debt, a sort of “It was broken when I got here” situation.
Bill Clinton decided to try out his Third Way, the middle ground later adopted by Tony Blair, where economics were treated in center-right form, and foreign policy more center-left. It would balance itself out and everyone would be happy.
It worked for Bill Clinton, mainly because he wasn’t faced with a steep recession but only a sputtering economy that raised itself up with the emergence of technological innovations in the following years. In all, Bill succeeded by staying out of it. Easy enough.
Barack Obama, however, is not so lucky. The Great Recession is more than that; it is a fundamental restructuring of our economy, and a necessary purge of our inefficiencies and self-serving credo. He is essentially riding a tidal wave which no one yet knows where it will land.
Obama has gone a different way than Clinton. Clinton espoused centrist policies that were mostly in line with his Republican predecessors aside from a modest tax hike for the rich. Obama has been feverishly ambitious. He is going a much more leftist route, with the largest stimulus spending bill in US history and an attitude toward corporate culture that could at the very least could be called adversarial. And he is using this as an opportunity.
Obama has voluntarily owned this economy. The rotten core is still Bush’s fault, but Obama is now fully invested in the future of our economic health. He has bet all his chips hoping the economy will at least warm up (or hopefully boom) during his first few years as president, thereby giving him double or triple the political capital he came in with in return. This is where he will double down again: healthcare and education reform, green energy, sweeping corporate ethics reform, and his pet project, the obliteration of the GOP for a few generations.
Deficits will continue to grow and unemployment will inch skywards in the months ahead. But he already knew that. The economy will not make a U-turn within a year, or maybe even two. If a boon is achieved (which many economist cautiously predict) within then next three years, however, Obama will be more ambitious and confident in his third and fourth year, and will all but secure his re-election.
The GOP is betting on the same race. If Obama loses his grip on the economy, they will be handed a lifeline; if he succeeds, expect them to put up Dick Cheney in 2012, just to make it at least fun to watch.
Whatever happens in the next few years, the central theme in 2010 and 2012 will be the same as James Carville predicted in 1992: It’s the economy, stupid.
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Tags: gop · obama · The Great Recession1 Comment
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