On Monday, as the Bush Administration’s $700 billion bailout deal narrowly failed to pass in the House of Representatives and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost almost 800 points in a matter of hours, it became even more apparent the struggling economy would be the deciding factor of this year’s presidential campaign. Just last week, John McCain took a drastic and arguably desperate measure in suspending his campaign and returning to Washington, and initially suggested that last Friday’s debate be postponed until a solution was found for the financial crisis.
It seems as if McCain staked his credibility on the economy to the success of the bailout bill, as he carelessly took credit for its passage early on Monday before the vote failed in the House. Since the bailout bill failed to pass, (with a sizeable majority of Republican legislators voting against it) McCain’s gimmick to suspend his campaign and return to Washington last week looks tremendously foolish, and the perception now is that if McCain can’t even convince members of his own party to support this legislation, how well can he govern as President of the United States?
Regardless of the success or failure of the bailout bill, the economy was not the issue that McCain and the Republicans wanted to decide this year’s election. Fair or unfair, a president is always judged by the strength of the American economy during his tenure in office, and many voters associate the current financial crisis with the supposed failed policies of the Republicans and the Bush Administration. And it’s not as if John McCain was running as a candidate with strong economic credentials. In a meeting with the Wall Street Journal editorial board earlier this year, McCain himself confessed he “doesn’t really understand economics,” a gaffe which was somewhat overlooked at the time but will certainly resurface in the coming weeks. A very telling poll is one which was released last week (before the failure of the bailout bill) by CNN, which showed that Barack Obama had a ten point lead over McCain on the issue of which candidate would be better at handling the economy.
In discussing the economic crisis and its impact on the upcoming election, former vice president of the World Bank and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz stated, “I think there is little doubt how the November elections will turn out…In a situation like this, there’s no way the Americans will return the party of the outgoing president to the White House.”
Stiglitz’s point has numerous historical precedents. During the midst of the Great Depression in 1932, Franklin Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover in one of the most overwhelming landslides in American electoral history. In 1992, when Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush, his advisors constantly recited the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid,” a reference to the fact that people tend to vote with their wallets when the economy is not doing well. Four years ago, the Kerry campaign tried to paint a bleak economic picture under the Bush Administration by citing losses in American jobs, although national defense would prove to be the deciding factor in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
With just a month remaining until election day, it now appears as if the economy will decide the 2008 campaign. And if Al Gore couldn’t defeat George W. Bush in 2000 after eight years of peace and prosperity, then it’s exceedingly difficult to see how a McCain victory could add up this November.
