The Numbers
A Run at the Latest Data from ABC's Poobah of Polling, Gary Langer
Gary Langer is director of polling at ABC News, where he's covered the beat of public opinion for nearly 20 years - conducting and analyzing ABC News polls, evaluating data from other sources and setting the news division's standards for poll reporting. Langer is a two-time Emmy award winner, both for ABC's reporting of public opinion polls in Iraq.
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Is it the Economy?
August 28, 2008 11:59 AM
If you think rising GDP defangs the economy as an election issue, keep in mind: So did George H.W. Bush.
Bush touted rising GDP on his path to re-election defeat. GDP rose not only in the second quarter of 1992, he pointed out, but in the four previous quarters as well. The economy was better than people thought; they’d simply been deluded by negative news.
Didn’t work. It was the economy, as James Carville famously declared, and Bush’s seeming disconnect with the pain the public felt, that cost him a second term.
Fast forward 16 years. The Commerce Department reported today that GDP’s up by 3.3 percent over a year ago, raising the question of whether that growth may weaken the clout of economic concerns in the upcoming election.
With 1992 as a guide, don’t count on it. The lesson from that year is that what matters in political terms is Americans’ perceptions of their and the country’s economic well-being, not a data point much farther removed from the kitchen table. GDP in 1992 did not capture the deep economic unhappiness Americans were still feeling in the long hangover from the 1990-91 recession. And it may not in 2008.
Our business producer Dan Arnall notes that the current GDP figure is most influenced by increased exports given the weak dollar, and the one-time effect of the government’s economic stimulus checks. Compare those with other factors: Inflation at a 17-year high, home resale prices down by a record high in 20 years of data, unemployment at a nearly five-year high, credit tight, job market tight, gasoline averaging $3.69 a gallon - down lately, but still up 34 percent from a year ago, with possible production impacts from Tropical Storm Gustav looming.
People don’t come home and say, “Hey honey, GDP’s up, let’s party.” They look at incomes, inflation, unemployment, home values, credit and debt, future prospects. And now, as in 1992, they don’t like what they see.
Our weekly Consumer Comfort Index at this time in 1992 was a dismal -46 on its scale of +100 to -100. Today it’s an equally dismal -50, a point from its record low. In the 1992 exit poll 42 percent of voters called the economy one of their top two issues, more than any other by a wide margin. Fifty-two percent of them voted for Bill Clinton, 24 percent for Ross Perot, just 25 percent for Bush. Today, when we ask registered voters the most important issue in their choice, 43 percent say it’s the economy – again No. 1 by a wide margin.
There are differences from 1992. Then voters had a seemingly out-of-touch incumbent president on whom to vent their economic discontent. This year there’s no incumbent; that’s why Democrats are trying at every turn to tie John McCain to George W. Bush’s economic record.
To some extent it’s working. Voters who call the economy their top issue favor Barack Obama over McCain by a margin of 56-35 percent. Among all registered voters, Obama leads McCain by 11 points, 50-39 percent, in trust to handle the economy. And Obama leads by 49-36 percent as the candidate who “better understands the problems of people like you.”
McCain has room to push back on economic stewardship in a way Bush in 1992 could not. Comments like those recently from former Sen. Phil Gramm, echoing Bush’s in 1992, won’t help. Neither would an assumption that the public’s economic woes are over.
August 28, 2008 | Permalink | User Comments (14)
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Mission Accomplished – What!
During the convention we heard speaker after speaker with inspirational messages from rags-to-riches stories. How traditional American values brought gratifying and rewarding results to family after family. A Governor spoke of his children that have visited 4 continents and will have opportunities never opened to him. Michelle Obama talked about her family values that brought such fulfilling results, she attended Princeton University---and, even stated to the huge crowd that “the American Dream endures”. Yet, the Democratic platform is that doors are slammed, opportunities are blocked, the middle class dreams are shattered, hopes and aspirations gone---all is gloom and doom without government to step in, without Obama in charge. There is no “hope” for this party to unite when they cannot even get the message they send out in agreement.
Posted by: Mike | Aug 28, 2008 12:15:41 PM
Most people are working. Democrats are using fear to get votes. Just like Obama tried to use the RACE CARD on McCain when it was always the Democrats who were the Racist Party
Posted by: denny boy | Aug 28, 2008 12:25:36 PM
What this proves is that the poverty pimps among us along with their buddies in the press do a better job of getting their message out. While most of us continue to push forward, do well with our lives, pay our taxes and bills on time the politicians who want more control of our lives and the things we work for continue to send words of despair to many who just can not think for themselves.
Posted by: david | Aug 28, 2008 12:37:44 PM
The majority of Americans are just not smart enough to understand that the government needs to slow down its actions altogether, instead they cry for "fix this, fix that, do this, do that." People are crying for the government to do something more for them every election, instead of telling them to stop spending money we don't have, to stop fighting wars around the globe we cannot support, and to stop subsidizing everything at the expense of the average taxpayer. I want to make my own choices in life. It is not the job of the government to make my decisions for me. Give me liberty. Give me freedom from a lifetime of economic servitude under massive taxation.
Our number one issue this election should not be the economy. It should be ending these ridiculous wars that are spilling blood around the world. Our tax dollars are killing people right now. Women, men, and children. Right now it is happening.
Posted by: Max | Aug 28, 2008 1:05:31 PM
The Republicans are going to get killed across the board in November because of their "cut taxes, borrow, and spend" approach to the economy that favors big corporations and fat cats over middle America. A time of reckoning is at hand, and it will be a terrible thing for them to behold.
Posted by: Concerned Voter | Aug 28, 2008 1:34:13 PM
Here’s a question suggestion: “Do you consider the U.S. to be in a time of war, or not?” (or some variant).
One thing that intrigues me is how there’s this sense that Obama needs to get some credibility on national security. If a purple heart winner couldn’t, he certainly won’t (and definitely not by Veep proxy). As Bill Clinton pointed out, attacks on his experience in this area sound all too familiar. Carville simply ignored national security as irrelevant to the issue concerns of most Americans. The Dems and media pundits say the situation is different now because we are in a time of war. But do we really know if that’s the feeling in the heartland?
Posted by: Patrick | Aug 28, 2008 1:36:39 PM
Yes, it could be the economy or even abortion. I will probably vote pro-baby this time as I am on maternity leave now and can't get fired for a few months.
Posted by: McCain 08 | Aug 28, 2008 11:30:14 PM
Didn't Pres. Clinton's administration adopt NAFTA? So why is Bush to blame for companies going over seas and moving to Mexico? In addition, isn't the congress that makes the laws?
Posted by: Confused | Aug 29, 2008 8:41:24 AM
Here is an email from a fellow veteran officer and a true American patriot (not an armchair general like Bush, Rumsfeld, or Cheney):
“I see how hard it is for my boys to get a job, times are tough. A friend is a realtor and she hasn't sold anything since October and she use to average one a month. She now has a second job as a waitress at night. This new report that the economy is robust which came out today is full of ####. We have 9% unemployment in my state. In addition, once unemployed workers use up all their unemployed benefits, they are dropped from roles and no longer counted against the unemployed figures - it's a scam.
Same with the medevacs out of Iraq, they assign the ventilated causalities that arrive in Ramstein Germany to MEDCOM and pull the plug and they are no longer a causality of war. - Another scam. That is why the administration does not let the press near Andrews AFB, the American public might find out the truth. When I went to Walter Reed it was a disgrace - dirty, contract doctor's who did not care if the patient lived or died. No activities for the wounded soldiers (only beer). You would see a young 19-year-old wife pushing her 19-year-old husband in a wheelchair and he would be missing both legs and arms. Most wives had no place to stay so they would sleep in the hospital room chair. In addition, I would eat dinner with the amputees and listen to their stories how Walter Reed wanted to give them a medical discharge and report to a VA hospital before they even recovered - I told them to stay on active duty as long as they can. Some of them lived 300 miles from the nearest hospital.
It's funny how all the people who can't go to war want the war to go on. I never met a soldier in 30-years in the Army who wanted to go to war. Going into Iraq will go down in history as one of the biggest mistakes in history. Not everyone is meant to be a democracy - if the will of the people wanted it - so it shall be.”
Posted by: Roland | Aug 29, 2008 4:49:22 PM
AMERICANS ARE AMAZING PEOPLE, WHY CHOOSE THE PRESIDENT USING THE CRITERIA " I CAN CORRECT THIS, THAT, HERE, THERE," ETC WHY NOT VOTE FOR THE PARTY THAT DOES NOT GET YOU IN THE MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Democrats are less bullies from the way I see it.Look at Maccain he cant wait to start bullying be guaranteed it is war from day one
Posted by: Mary | Aug 30, 2008 7:49:26 PM
OBAMA, you dont need to be President to bring change. Learn from Palin. She has brought REAL CHANGE to ALASKA instead of talking about change like you.
Obama, you can go back to the Senate and Illinois, and let us see you bring change there instead ....
That will not work will it, Obama ... cause what you want is NOT CHANGE, it is the PRESIDENCY .... So let's get real here, OBAMA ...
LOOK AT PALIN ... SHE BRINGS REAL CHANGE WHERE SHE is AND WAS CHOSEN TO BE VP ....
REAL CHANGE FROM REAL, HONEST, HARD-WORKING PEOPLE, OBAMA.
NOT POLITICAL FRAUDS LIKE YOU, OBAMA, WHO TALK CHANGE .... WHERE IS THE BEEF, OBAMA?
Posted by: RealChangeFromPalin | Aug 31, 2008 11:56:38 AM
Sixty years ago, Chinese people wanted "change" and Mao Tze Tung made very good speeches. Mao promised he would take from the rich and give to the poor. The next 30 years when Mao was in power, everyone in China was poor. Millions of poor people died of starvation. This was the price Chinese people paid for "change".
Posted by: Tom | Aug 31, 2008 2:47:42 PM
I give you the answer if you a with McCain only
Posted by: GG | Aug 31, 2008 7:16:41 PM
Clinton introduced us to NAFTA, or "why are all the Mexicans coming here when all of our jobs went over there?", and a big issue of the primary season was the fact that an Obama rep supposedly went to Canada and told them not to worry about it when he was here saying it would be revisited. Democrats love to raise taxes, and I am a Democrat so I should know, because they love Social programs and it takes money to run them. Biden pushed the new bankruptcy reforms through, so where people used to get into financial problems and file and get rid of the credit cards but keep the house, now they are unable to file and they are losing the house. So, while I think we can all admit Dubya is no rocket scientist when it comes to the economy, let's give credit where credit is due. He did not get us there by himself.
Posted by: Melanie | Sep 1, 2008 10:56:31 PM
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