Why are so many here on DU so easily fooled by Bush hype?

[jeter]

Okay, we had one good quarter. Bush Sr. had a couple of good quarters. In the last year of his Presidency, the economy grew by 6.1%. Not one quarter. Four quarters averaging at 6.1%. Yet he lost on "It's the economy, stupid." Why? Because it was the famous "Jobless recovery." Because of a $300 billion deficit.

In 1979-1980, the economy grew. In fact, there was never a recession (two consecutive negative quarters) during the whole Carter Presidency. Yet he lost, why because of the economy. Because Job gains were small. Because the deficit had increased. Because of the oil situation.

All the pundits were predicting Bush to crush the Clinton. They were predicting that Reagan couldn't beat Carter. Reagan, in 1980, was seen as the reincarnation of Barry Goldwater. They remembered the demolition of Goldwater in 1964 by Lyndon Johnson. And heck, the economy "wasn't so bad" and Carter had brought Peace to the Middle East. If he survived Kennedy's challenge. He would beat Reagan. Clinton, in 1992, had his own problems. He was accused of having affairs, which killed Gary Hart's campaign in 1988. He was accused of dodging the draft. Yet he won. In 1980, Reagan won.

Pappy's numbers were in the 60s up until the spring of 1992. Clinton trailed both Bush Sr. and Ross Perot until the Democratic Convention in July.

But a funny thing happened in both cases. The opponents had a message and stuck to it. They didn't let their opponents dictate what was up or down. They did. They won.

So back to the economy today. 7.2% growth. 8% productivity. Greenspan saying that job growth will come. Now everyone seems to be conceding that the economy is alright.

Yet:

- We still have a $400 billion deficit (record)
- highest bankrupcies on record
- 3.5 million private sector jobs lost (neither Reagan nor Clinton could claim that jobs were lost under their predecessors.
- 3 million public sector jobs lost.
- Record state deficits
- Surging Trade deficit
- A dollar that has lost 30% of its value
- increasing poverty
- standard of living/purchasing power of citizens falling
- energy prices rising (from $12 a barrel to $32)
- rents and housing rising
- price of food rising
- Pensions disappearing
- Overtime being cut back or eliminated
- increases in "underemployment" to make ends meet
- 15% of people without health insurance
- 30% of people with bare minimum of health insurance.

These are the things people care about. As 1980 and 1992 shows. It's the real economy vs. the paper economy. Things are not better, they are worse. You can call this the "Job loss recovery."

We need to get this message out and stick to it. People aren't stupid, they don't give a shit about productivity numbers and growth rates. They care about jobs, rents, their purchasing power. They care about bread and butter, not economic reports. Christ, there have been similar reports since Bush took office. He's been telling everybody that the "recovery" is just around the corner for 2 years. Now we're suppose to believe him. If he makes that argument, or if he says that the Democrats "want" the economy to be bad so they can win, then we hit back, "you see, the President is out of touch. He doesn't care about working families. He thinks everything is fine. He won't change anything."

When those numbers I mentioned above start improving. Then i'll say the economy is doing better. Until then. It's still the economy, stupid.

[JeebusH]

1. I think because the media are bigger whores than they ever were in the ...

past and because of the general "stupification" of America

[jeter]

3. JeebusH, that is bullshit

It's an excuse to be lazy and not do the right thing. You think the media let Reagan off easy in 1980? They let Clinton off easy in 1992? How old are you? Do you remember those elections. No they persevered because they had a message that resonated. They refused to go away. The media are whores. But they have always been whores. Blaming them for everything only gives you an excuse not to work - because you can blame everything on them.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

21. If you ignore the impact of the mainstream media on how people in...

...this country think, you're doing little more than sticking your head in the sand. The vast majority of Americans do not have access to the Internet and most of the ones that do lack the willingness to do the research necessary to uncover real facts. That is a painful fact that few here on DU will ever acknowledge.

Additionally, prior to the late 1980s, the mainstream media was not owned to the extent that it is today by major corporations with rightwing political agendas. Starting in the early days of the Cold War (late 1940s), the CIA began a secret project called Operation Mockingbird, with the intent of buying influence behind the scenes at major media outlets and putting reporters on the CIA payroll. This has proven to be a stunning ongoing success. But not to the extent of today's control of the media. The news that the vast majority of Americans see on a daily basis consists of television sound-bites and newspaper articles tailored to the message the rightwing wants to deliver. When that press begins to attack a sitting president, you can bet that their corporate masters have decided that they want a change in the public leadership of this country.

The rightwing corporations used the media to attack Clinton because they were not satisfied with the level of profits they were making despite having the best economy the U.S. had ever known. They used the Lewinsky scandal as their foot in the door to attempt to have Clinton removed from office. The attempted removal of Clinton failed, but the "guilt by association" tactic almost gave Junior an outright election victory over Gore in 2000.

Now they have begun attacking Bush because he failed to deliver on the original corporate tax-cut package which was three times the sizr of the cuts delivered, his policies have failed to revive a floundering economy that began to go downhill the moment he bagan squatting in the White House, and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan are proving to be an additional growing drain on the economy. They are using a variety of means to report stories negative about the Bushies to include stories like the Plame Scandal, the failure to promptly treat soldiers back from the Middle East, the Bush family's connection to the Nazis from 1926 until 1942, the rising death toll in Iraq, and the poor economy.

And before you jump on the age thing again, I'm old enough to remember every election back to 1960 and all of the political events since then.

[jeter]

24. I'm not going to jump on the age thing

Only your paranoia.

[Art_from_Ark]

23. The media handled Reagan with kid gloves

They ignored his ignorant ramblings, like "trees cause more pollution than cars" and "there are more forests now than there were when the Pilgrims came", and because he's a conservative, he's, by definition, for conservation. At the same time, they were clobbering Carter: every day, the network news devoted half of each braodcast to "Day XXX of the Iran hostage crisis", while the remainder usually focused on inflation and/or oil prices.

[jeter]

25. No they didn't

What you don't seem to remember is that Reagan was seen as unelectable throughout most of that campaign. The polls were tied for months.

The Iran crisis actually helped Carter whose popularity was quite low up until then. His popularity zoomed up to 70%. He defeated Kennedy easily. And expected to "whip his ass in November." (actual quote).

Reagan was seen as mean, a warmonger, unexperienced.

It was the debates (only days before the election - because of Carter) that things turned around for Reagan. His "there you go again." Reagan was seen as a nice guy who wanted to try new things. Whereas Carter came off as shrill. The day before the election was the anniversary of the Hostage taking and that day there was a lot of attention on it. It was then, and only then, the day before the election that things went from bad to worse. Reagan won by 10%, which shocked just about everyone.

[La_Serpiente]

2. Well find out about the unemployment rate

very soon.

[jumptheshadow]

4. We need to raise money

For a unified Democratic commercial that will run during the primaries.

Everything you say will resonate deeply with voters. All we need is a stark black-and-white commercial that lists the statistics.

[Don_G]

5. It's Much Worse Than That

Everyone living on credit now, companies borrowing way beyond their profits and the Fed hyping up the economy just so things don't collapse during "their" watch.

[jeter]

6. That pretty much sums it up

That's George Bush's economy. Keep people hopped up on debt until you pull the rug out from under them after reelection.

[Nobody]

7. Not to mention...

it's about to be Let's Use A Hallmark Holiday to Keep the Economy Afloat Until Next Year time. Yes, I mean December, the month of Buy Everything You Can Whether You Can Afford To Or Not.

Notice I'm not calling it Xmas. This isn't Xmas, or Solstice, or Hannukah, or any other real holiday. Those who celebrate the real holidays know that it's not spending money that is the true meaning.

Maybe we can ignore the inevitable screaming of the retailers the day after Thanksgiving and reclaim the winter holiday season for family and friends instead of pushing ourselves deeper into debt.

Maybe I'm just an incorrigible idealist.

[NNN0LHI]

10. My brother just refinanced his house (again) to remodel the place

His house looks beautiful too. He now owes more money on his house than he paid for it 20 years ago. He can't even afford to retire now with a huge house payment. And he is 4 years older than me and I am already retired. I think there was a lot of that going on.

Don

[leftchick]

11. There are people all around my neighborhood having remodeling done!

We wanted to remodel when we moved into our older home two years ago but held off because of the grim Economic outlook. Thank God we did not do it but I look around and wonder what all these other folks are doing?!? :shrug:

[MojoKrunch]

15. The people in my neighborhood are leaving.

Or at least trying to leave.
Moved to this neighborhood two years ago and in that time almost a dozen houses have gone up for sale on my 6 bloock street.
From what I can tell only a couple have sold or were taken off the market.

Mojo

[jeter]

20. I have a lot of that around here, too.

The economy isn't as great as is being spun.

[depakid]

8. I completely agree with you and I might add

that looking at GDP in isolation (which is what BushCo & the media whores do) is not a very good way to gauge the overall health of the economy or even the actual rate of growth. Johnathon Tasini wrote a very illuminating article about this in Tompaine.com and he explains it much better than I can:

"our focus on the GDP is dangerous and, increasingly, does not reflect what average Americans are experiencing. The GDP tells us that dollars are flowing somewhere but sheds little light on who is benefiting from the economic activity. It treats every economic transaction as a good thing. GDP was never meant to be such a central factor in describing economic growth but it has evolved, over the years, into a central barometer, mainly for political reasons. Remember, the criticism often leveled at companies that focused on quarterly earnings just to boost share prices? The GDP is the government equivalent of the short-term focus on the economy."

"Indeed, it's a sad fact that some of the very dire circumstances faced by real people boost the Gross Domestic Product statistic. Sick people with no insurance run up the costs of health care—which is rung up as economic activity. As for debt, according to the Consumer Federation of America, credit card companies mailed five billion solicitations—nearly 50 per U.S. household—trying to dole out $3 trillion in unused lines of credit in just one year. That works out to about $30,000 per household—and, when that money is spent just to make ends meet, that credit card debt is chalked up to GDP activity, even if that activity sinks more families into economic despair"

Likewise, using productivity gains to make inferences about the state of the economy is even more deceptive. Of course productivity has increased. Americans are working longer hours for less compensation and are driven in many cases by a fear of being downsized, outsourced and laid off. While that may look good from the analyst's perspective, it's not something I would expect most people to cheer about.

The long and short of it is that Democrats need to stay on message. The economy is not going to improve significantly by next fall. In fact, irrational Republican economic policies damn near guarantee the opposite for most working families- and that's assuming that something especially nasty doesn't happen to, say the bond market or to housing prices. The media and the Republicans can harp all they want, but people know what's really up from their own experiences and from those around them.

[IggleDoer]

9. The point is that it wasn't the tax cuts that improved the economy

It was the out of control deficit spending that improved the economy. Give money to the biggest industries to do things (like resupply the war) and the economy has to improve. The question that has to be asked is this the best way to help an ailing economy? Some times the answer is "yes."

But don't use the tax cuts to justify this!

[depakid]

14. A more responsible way to use Keynsian pump priming

would have been to spend to use the money that's being wasted in the war as part of an expanded federal revenue sharing plan, designed to help states sort of their various fiscal crises. I took at the numbers not too long back, and as it turns out, that $87 Billion just earmarked for Iraq would have balanced each states' sort out their own budget shortfalls. Moreover, that money could have been put to constructive (typically local) uses that keep dollars circulating in local cities and communities, all the while picking up value as it moves through the multiplier efect.

Severely cutting taxes in the midst of an expensive open ended occupations does little on the state and local level except in areas where major defense procurement are located. Hoever,these has been little are no investments in the traditional Without traditioanl revenue sharing (which has been an economic mainstay for Republican and Democratic adminitration alike since the great depression, cash straped states and localities are often on their own- and it they propse some manageable comprimise and get it on the ballot, big interests out side of state interests flood the state with stronarm tactics and 20 to one media blitzen, just to esure that the reall messages Those whose postions are sould throur years of study

[coda]

12. Bush Sr at 6.1% his last year?

Where did that come from?

[jeter]

16. Dan Quayle during 2000 election

He was trying to take credit for the Clinton boom. Saying that Clinton didn't deserve the credit because the "boom" began during the first Bush Administration. He used as an example that the economy grew by 6.1% in 1992.

[agingdem]

13. Panic...

It's not the upticks that frighten me, it's what the media is capable of doing. Bush is a media creation. They took a smug no-nothing failed son of a president and turned him into a viable candidate because they (as a pack) didn't like Gore.

[jeter]

17. Which is why we must work harder

If we say "well the media has it in for us" and simply capitulate. Then we will definitely lose.

[Gin]

18. I'm not fooled...I know they control the media, and numbers can be and are

being manipulated to help the chimps standing. He is going to lose no matter what he does.

Pride goeth befor the fall. May the fall is a hard one!

[UTUSN]

19. In Addition to Your Excellent Post

the essential further ingredient is SOLIDARITY: We've got to hang TOGETHER once we have a nominee. And, frankly, these non-debates long ago got old and frankly, with GREAT THANKS to them, our six GOOD DEMOCRATS at one end of the field need to endorse somebody and campaign on that basis and be staff of the new administration with the grace and wit and intelligence they possess. ------Well, alrighty then---got carried away there.

[CWebster]

22. Hell, they are fooled by Clark

Doesn't take much.