{"id":13182,"date":"2007-10-10T10:51:16","date_gmt":"2007-10-10T14:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/13182.html"},"modified":"2007-10-10T10:51:16","modified_gmt":"2007-10-10T14:51:16","slug":"americans-reject-gop-happy-talk-on-domestic-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/americans-reject-gop-happy-talk-on-domestic-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans reject GOP happy talk on domestic economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In yesterday’s debate for Republican presidential hopefuls, Fred Thompson was asked why two-thirds of the nation believes that we are either in a recession or headed toward one. Thompson rejected Americans’ perceptions, describing the economy as “rosy<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

When CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo followed up, asking what explains the discontent in the public, Thompson said there were “pockets in the economy,” but the public hasn’t heard “the greatest story never told.” In other words, the economy is strong, but we’re just too dumb to realize it.<\/p>\n

It looks like there are quite a few people<\/a> living in those “pockets.”<\/p>\n

A growing number of people say the economy is the nation’s top problem, with the less educated among the most worried, an Associated Press-Ipsos poll showed Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Yet even with a credit crunch and soft housing market, economic angst remains well behind war and domestic issues among the public’s chief concerns, according to survey results.<\/p>\n

Given an open-ended opportunity to name the major problem facing the U.S., 15 percent volunteered the economy. That was six percentage points more than named it when the AP-Ipsos poll last asked the question in July.<\/p>\n

“They talk about a big surge in Iraq; well, there hasn’t been a big surge over here,” said Sadruddin El-Amin, 55, a truck driver in Hanahan, S.C., who named the economy as the top problem. “The job market isn’t getting any better, not for the working class.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This necessarily poses a problem for the GOP.
\n
\nMike Huckabee, to his credit, said:<\/p>\n

“You know, a lot of people are going to be watching this debate. They’re going to hear Republicans on this stage talk about how great the economy is. And frankly, when they hear that, they’re going to probably reach for the dial.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think that’s true, but I don’t think the GOP top-tier candidates have much of a choice. Bush has already executed what they perceive as the right economic strategy: he lavished the rich with tax breaks.<\/p>\n

If Giuliani, Thompson, McCain, and Romney concede that the economy has left millions of Americans behind, they would have to acknowledge some of the shortcomings of Bush’s strategy. If they pretend that the economy is great, just as it is, and they promise to deliver more of the same, the candidates look wildly out of touch.<\/p>\n

I’m sure they’ll think of some way to blame this on Hillary Clinton, MoveOn.org, and the editorial page of the New York Times, but I have a hunch it won’t sell well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In yesterday’s debate for Republican presidential hopefuls, Fred Thompson was asked why two-thirds of the nation believes that we are either in a recession or headed toward one. Thompson rejected Americans’ perceptions, describing the economy as “rosy.” When CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo followed up, asking what explains the discontent in the public, Thompson said there were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}