The key to the Republican message is not admitting that Barack Obama's Recovery Act accomplished anything. The CBO analysis and the opinions of most economists may as well not exist.
The message has two variants. One is that the Recovery aCt made things worse. How one proves that is , of course, irrelevant.
The main thrust is that nearly $800 billion was spent and nothing was done. Of course, all sorts of much higher numbers have been used. The press does not fact check, and most Democrats will not defend their work for fear of reminding voters that they are linked to the stimulus.
Obama has a "message problem," but it might be one that cannot be solved. About all a rational analysis could fault him with was not seeing how bad things really were in January, 2009. He tried to warn people that the rcovery would be slow, without talking down the economy. He cannot change his personality and he cannot reform overnight a Democratic approach to communications that would be more appropriate in the 1930s.
Two of the most respected Republican columnists are Kathleen Parker and Michael Gerson. Both expressed doubts about Srah Palin's fitness for the Oval Office, and Parker has a Pulitzer on her shelf. There was a time when George Will would be in their ranks.
Gerson recently wrote a column that correctly noted that the coming Republican victories would intensify gridlock. He sounded the main GOP line by saying that the economic results of the health reform and Recovery Act had been "disappointing." It is too soon for the health care reform to have any impact on the economy. Elsewhere, he complains that Obama has only recently shown any interst in jobs. Unmentioned were several stimulus measures the Republicans have blocked for months. Maybe he meant that just talking about jobs would create them.
Parker's column expressed outrage that Barack Obama went to Cleveland's City Club to attack speaker-in-waiting John Boehner. For some reason, going into someone's state to criticize them seems outrageous. She does not mention that Boehner launched a major attack on Obama at the same venue, the City Club of Cleveland. Another reason for discussing Boehner is the fact that he is about the only leading Republican who has outlined what the GOP will do about the economy-- keep the tax cut for the wealthy, freeze non-military spending at 2008 levels, and repeal financial reform ( even though 27 nations are meeting in Basel to adopt even toughter regulations!!)
She complains that Obama switched from Keynesian approaches to time-honored Republican efforts to stimulate business through subsidies. Not a word can be found about why they are even blocking these proposals or about their efforts to block the Keynesian programs. She writes that he has lost confidence in them. That is more than disingenuous.
She buys into the outlook that somehow the Recovery Act made things a lot worse. She says Obama took the economy over the cliff. Like other Republican writers, she offers no proof. An honest analysis would have to grapple with the Democratic claim that the Bush Great REcession almost produced a recession.
Some might recall how nearly ten years ago, she expressed shock and outrage that Jesse Jackson complained about efforts to keep blacks from voting in Florida in 2000. This sort of thing is so common in the Sunshine State that Even Republicans joke about it. She was outraged, saying something to the effect that we have tried to do so much for African Americans.
Parker columns play to what can be called the conventional wisdom , which has been created over the decades by Corporate America and the Republican information machine. As for the Democrats, they have no narrative upon which to hang their arguments. Whatever they had collapsed with the New Deal coalition.
Friday, we had an example of how the mainstream media reinforces the Republican message. President Obama had a press conference at which he did a good job defending what he has tried to do with the economy. It was an explanation that requir3ed two-step reasoning, so that probably meant many voters would not understand it.
That night, right-wing General Electric's NBC Nightly News, covcered carefully what he said about Koran burning and offered only one other line of the conference: a statement that he bashed the Republicans for not offering better economic plans. The fact is that have offered noting.
Of courses, NBC had carefully covered John Boehner's City Club speech in which he demanded that Obama's economic team be fired. Of course, he offered not one bit of evidence that the GOP could have done better. He simply played to the impatience of voters.