Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - (Page 11)

vealed few days later, when the vice president took the stage, gave his wife, Tipper, an extended kiss, pronounced himself “my own man,” and said almost nothing (200 words in a 5,500-word speech) about the Clinton-Gore record. Concerned that the Monica Lewinsky scandal was hurting him in the polls, Gore used the speech to put distance between himself and the president. That was understandable. The scandal was a drag on Gore’s popularity. But the obvious need to detach himself from Clinton personally inexplicably devolved into the belief that if he were to talk about, say, the 22 million jobs created, or the turning of deficits into surpluses, voters would somehow think “blow job.” What was especially crazy about the Gore campaign’s strategy was that the vice president had a genuine claim on the administration’s record. He was, at that point, the most involved and powerful vice president in U.S. history. He had his own large, crack White House staff, his own policy initiatives—reinventing government, managing the U.S./Russian relationship—and more influence on the president’s decisions than anyone other than Hillary Clinton. He was a strong advocate for what would turn out to be some of the administration’s most consequential actions, from welfare reform to fighting off GOP attacks on the EPA to taking a tough line with the Serbs in Bosnia. No one would have denied him substantial credit for the Clinton-Gore record. And yet, until the final weeks of the race, Gore largely avoided claiming that credit. It was the single biggest mistake of his campaign. Now we have two candidates making the same mistake. It’s not at all clear that Romney can reverse that error, given the fullthroated denunciation of Obamacare he needed in order to win the nomination. Obama, too, is limited in his ability to talk about his policy accomplishments because, unlike Clinton, he does not have—at least not yet—a booming economy for which his policies can credibly claim credit. The truth is, no president could have quickly turned around an economy as badly damaged as this one was in 2009. History shows that recessions caused by financial crisis always take years to heal, and while Obama’s stimulus prevented a depression, it was nowhere near big enough to make up for the loss of demand caused by a 40 percent drop in the average American’s net worth. But as Michael Grunwald explains in his new book The New New Deal, the administration used the stimulus to make investments and spur change in everything from green energy to medical research to public schools. These and other big moves during Obama’s first term, like the health care and financial reforms laws, have the potential to pay substantial economic dividends in coming years. Obama needs to tell the story of these accomplishments and how transformative they could be. A message about long-term payoffs might not seem like one today’s hard-pressed voters want to hear. But as James Carville and Stan Greenberg argue in their campaign book It’s the Middle Class, Stupid, swing voters don’t believe that happy days are just over the horizon. They know that the economy, and their place in it, is in a precarious state that is years in the making and will take years to get out of. If Obama can find a way to talk to them honestly about what he’s already done as president, they might give him a chance to keep doing it. The Jesuit Catholic Diﬀerence Visit campus! —Your JCU Tour Guides Recognized excellence and value #1 “Best Undergraduate Teaching” #4 “Best Value Schools” 2012 U.S.News & World Report Midwest Rankings Home of the NBC/JCU Meet the Press Fellowship Each year, in honor of Tim Russert from the Class of 1972, one of our distinguished graduates follows Tim’s spirit of inquiry, integrity, and involvement by serving as a MTP fellow. Small classes. Individual attention. More aﬀordable than you think. Visit www.jcu.edu 0or call 216.397.4294 Washington Monthly 11 http://www.jcu.edu http://www.jcu.edu

Washington Monthly - September/October 2012

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