The Alliance for American Manufacturing commissioned a poll I wrote about in passing earlier this week, but it's well worth spending some more time exploring, because within it are the keys for smart policies that could not just help the economy, but turn political fortunes.
For months and months, progressive bloggers and economists have argued that Democrats should be hitting the jobs issue hard, that that was both the smart and responsible policy direction to get us out of this crippling recession while at the same time being the political jujistu that would tie Republicans in knots. Here's some introductory evidence to that point:
The Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM) has released the results of a wide-ranging national poll that finds strong common ground among voters across the political spectrum about the nation’s economic crisis. Americans are united on some key issues:
- Voters want Washington to act on jobs, especially in manufacturing.
- At the same time, voters give the President and Congress even worse marks than last year for taking any action at all on jobs and manufacturing.[...]
- Less than a third of Americans see the U.S. as the strongest economy in the world, but overwhelming majorities feel it is possible and important for the nation to regain that position.
- Though it may surprise pundits and media talking heads, Republican voters favor pro-manufacturing job solutions just as much as Democratic voters.
The Republican side of that, in graphic form. This is from the presentation the AMA provided when briefing members of Congress on their polling:
And here's the preference of all voters:
But beyond that, overwhelming numbers of voters in all categories and all demographics believe that manufacturing is a critical part of the American economy and should be a primary focus of our government.
Just 50 percent of voters believe President Obama is working to create manufacturing jobs, a loss of 11 percent from when the same question was asked last year. Congress, however, fares much worse: 41 percent think Democrats are helping, and only 32 percent think Republicans are helping. But 86 percent of Americans want a national manufacturing strategy "to make sure that economic, tax, labor and trade policies in this country work together to help support manufacturing."
Obama could take that advantage and use it to push a strong manufacturing jobs program. There are policies that could be pursued right now [pdf], policies that the White House needs to start pushing hard in its "pivot to jobs" for the national economy, but also to do one key thing politically: put Congressional Republicans in conflict with their base over jobs. The desire to "make it in America" again cuts across all party lines, and it would be a very hard message for Republicans to vote against. And political manna from heaven when they did fight it.