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At Media Matters, Eric Boehlert has a good catch this morning: Sundayâs New York Times op-ed roundtable on how President Obama can âreboundâ seems to have completely botched the set-up. The introductory text declared that a new ABC News-Washington Post poll had Obamaâs approval ratings âhover[ing] just above 40 percentâ; in fact, as the first question in the data set shows, the poll had approval of the president at 50 percent. Thatâs a significant difference. (The NYT may have been referring to the pollâs finding that 43 percent of respondents had a âgreat dealâ or a âgood amountâ of confidence in Obama to âmake the right decisions for the country’s future,â which got the lead in the Postâs write-up of its results.)
But the bigger problem is with the premise of the piece, and with the decision by the Timesâwhich, contrary to some other major newspapers, often makes judicious use of its op-ed spaceâto set aside nearly 4,000 words so that a roster of political also-rans (Robert Shrum? Harold Ford Jr.? Gray Davis?) could engage in some âMe the Peopleâ punditry. Thatâs because, while there is evidence for some âmodest long-term declineâ in Obamaâs standing with the public, as Pollster.comâs Charles Franklin told CJR last month, thereâs also an obvious explanation for it: the economy.
Happily, after a spate of coverage last week that buried this pointâor that treated a president whoâs passing legislation (thanks to big majorities in Congress) but struggling politically (in the face of a dismal economy) as one of the great puzzles of the universeâthereâs been some good journalism lately about this very non-mysterious phenomenon.
The most high profile example is, appropriately enough, on the Times op-ed page: itâs from Paul Krugman, who writes in todayâs column:
What political scientists, as opposed to pundits, tell us is that it really is the economy, stupid. Today, Ronald Reagan is often credited with godlike political skills â but in the summer of 1982, when the U.S. economy was performing badly, his approval rating was only 42 percent.
My Princeton colleague Larry Bartels sums it up as follows: âObjective economic conditions â not clever television ads, debate performances, or the other ephemera of day-to-day campaigning â are the single most important influence upon an incumbent presidentâs prospects for re-election.â If the economy is improving strongly in the months before an election, incumbents do well; if itâs stagnating or retrogressing, they do badly.
This is true. Elsewhere in todayâs Times, meanwhile, the reliably solid John Harwood has an item that takes up a much more consequential topicâthe debate over why unemployment remains stuck at levels above what economic models predict, given the other data, and how to go about bringing them down. But in the process, he sneaks in some basic political science, writing that the jobs situation is the âbiggest conundrum facing President Obama before the midterm elections,â and that:
So long as the job market remains weak, even substantial achievements like the passage of new financial regulations wonât alleviate voter discontent with the party in power.
This is also true. Finally, McClatchyâs Steven Thomma gets at least partial credit for his version of the âWhy doesnât Obama get any credit?â story, which appeared over the weekend. Thommaâs article includes some debatable assumptions, and a stat about Obamaâs job approval, taken from Gallup, that doesnât seem to correspond to the link McClatchy provides. But the piece gets the big picture stuff about whatâs shaping the political environment mostly right. From the opening:
Why doesn’t he get any credit?
First, the economy remains shaky. Second, he went farther with a big-government, big-deficit approach than some voters wanted, notably independents, who’ve turned against him. Third, he broke some of his own vows in the process, such as by becoming a backroom deal-making politician to get health care, alienating young idealists.
And a little lower:
The biggest problem is that unemployment remains high and people are worried about their jobs, their paychecks and their savings.
First the economy, then substance, then (if at all) process: thatâs a pretty good bullet-point summary of what to look for if youâre trying to make sense of where the president stands. Too often itâs forgotten, so itâs good to see a few journalists rememberingâand writingâthe obvious.
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