I actually laughed out loud when I saw this headline:
Good Economic News, but Democrats Differ on Whether to Take Credit
And that, my friends, really says it all.
The article notes a handful of positive statistics:
The jobless rate, at 10 percent at its peak after Mr. Obama took office, is down to 5.8 percent with nearly 11 million new jobs. The annual deficit, which reached 10.1 percent of the gross domestic product, the measure of the economy, has fallen below 3 percent of G.D.P., the level most economists consider acceptable. Gasoline is less than $3 a gallon on average, as the United States has become the world’s top energy producer. Exports are up, and so are consumer and business confidence.
Nevertheless, the article also observes that:
voters preferred Republicans to Democrats, 39 percent to 30 percent, to deal with the economy, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll before the Nov. 4 midterm elections. This comes just a year after congressional Republicans forced a government shutdown that hurt economic growth, private forecasters said.
Hmm, I wonder what possible reason could there be for the voters giving no credit to the Democrats. Allow me to make one modest suggestion:
if one side is hammering a negative story, and the other side remains silent, then perhaps it makes sense that the public will credit the negative story.
Now, I understand that for many people, the economy is still lousy. And I recognize that politicians who paint an unrealistically rosy picture risk being viewed as out of touch.
But this does not mean that Democrats should cower from taking credit for real, quantifiable improvements that are demonstrably related to Democratic policies. It is possible to take credit and simultaneously acknowledge that there is more work to be done. Can't Democrats chew gum and walk at the same time?
And this is not a recent problem. The article notes that Democrats have always had trouble balancing these messages. In the first paragraph, though, the article says:
Democrats would like some credit for the run of good economic news. Yet the better those reports are, the more divided the party has become over how — even whether — to take any.
Let that sink in for a moment: the better the news, the MORE the Democrats wonder WHETHER to take credit.
The fact is that the economy is in much better shape now than when Obama took office. It is simply political malpractice not to take credit when credit is due.
So who are these geniuses who can't decide whether to take any credit. Stan Greenberg - noted advisor to the Clintons - is singled out and quoted:
“I think the economy is going to grow and unemployment drop over the next couple years, and I think by the end of his presidency, we may be surprised that his approval ratings are up because of the stronger economy,” Mr. Greenberg said. “So it’ll be a great speech as he’s leaving, or breaking ground on the Obama presidential library, but it’s not a message for Democrats now. People are in trouble.”
Yes, people are in trouble, but it is factually wrong and absurd to cede the debate and allow the other side to depict genuine improvement as failure.
Let me just close with this point: does anyone doubt that the GOP would take full credit if the economy had improved so much on their watch?