OPINION:
It is said March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. But this year, spring came in like a bull and went out like a bear. Almost across the board, the economic news has been dismal. March saw home prices fall in 18 of the nation’s 20 surveyed metropolitan regions. April factory orders fell 1.2 percent. Manufacturing slowed in May, chain-store sales were flat at best, and auto sales dropped 10 percent. Little wonder May’s consumer confidence level fell to a six-month low.
Of course, the worst numbers were found in the most important category: jobs. The latest jobs report showed just 54,000 created in May. Adding insult to injury, revisions to the March and April reports showed those months had created 39,000 fewer jobs than earlier reported. May’s number was roughly one-fifth the previous report’s total and less than one-third of what had been expected. The nation’s already high unemployment rate increased to 9.1 percent.
Not long ago, reports were of a strengthening recovery; now talk is of a double-dip recession.
With a wave of Adam Smith’s invisible hand, the economy swept away what had been hard-won positive political news for the administration. The killing of Osama bin Laden and the upset win in New York’s 26th Congressional District are already forgotten.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Mr. Obama’s approval-to-disapproval margin was 47 percent to 49 percent. This was no outlier, either - earlier polls by Gallup (47 percent to 44 percent) and Rasmussen (48 percent to 51 percent) showed essentially the same thing.
The ABC News/Washington Post poll also showed Mr. Obama’s approval/disapproval rating for handling the economy was 40 percent to 59 percent - his biggest deficit on the economy going back to at least December 2009. Again, this was no outlier - recent CNN and CBS News polls showed 17 percent and 19 percent deficits, respectively.
For the first half of his presidency, Mr. Obama escaped responsibility for the economy. In the public’s mind, that was George W. Bush’s fault. Now, in his presidency’s second half, the public appears to be holding him responsible for the puny recovery.
This nuanced difference - between recession and recovery - presents Republicans with an opportunity they can exploit, potentially through next November. Their message now should not be about the economy - its cause or the response to it - but the recovery - its slowness and weakness.
Whether the recession was Mr. Bush’s fault or not is now beside the point for Republicans. In the political world no less than the economic one, resources are scarce. Limited resources can be expended in the uphill slog of seeking to change prevailing opinion, or they can be used far more effectively to ride the downhill slope of shaping one that is just forming.
Such nuanced differences between the economy and the recovery matter. The public not only intuitively grasps them, it responds to them. And people respond to them even if they themselves don’t realize it. The fact that the public may not articulate the difference does not mean it does not exist.
What may be happening with the American public’s perception of the economy could be compared simply to a plumber being called to fix a basement leak. The homeowner knows the leak was not the new plumber’s fault. The plumber’s criticism of the plumbing’s condition and the prior plumber’s work will be understood and accepted, or at least listened to, for awhile.
However, at some point, the homeowner just wants the leak fixed. It’s beside the point whether the current plumber caused the leak. The question simply becomes whether he can fix the leak.
Writ large, the problem is still the same: There is water in the basement, and the homeowner wants it out. Yet the issue has changed completely: Get me a plumber who can fix the problem.
The crumbling economy was Mr. Bush’s legacy. Now the elusive recovery threatens to be Mr. Obama’s. The public, like the homeowner, has moved on. Republicans have a similar chance to move on as well. Mr. Obama, like the plumber, does not have such a luxury - at least until the leak is fixed.
J.T. Young served in the Treasury Department, the Office of Management and Budget and as a congressional staff member.
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