The "Are You Better Off" Election Meme Needs to Die

[marmar]

from Washington Monthly, via AlterNet:



In 1980, Ronald Reagan made a famous statement in a presidential debate inviting voters to make up their minds by sticking a big hatpin through their frontal lobes and assessing whether they were better off than they were when Jimmy Carter became president four years earlier. Ronald Reagan won that election.

To a remarkable number of gabbers, that seems to “prove” that if a majority of voters now conclude they are not better off than they were when Barack Obama became president four years ago, Mitt Romney should win, and it will be deeply weird if he doesn’t.

That is the clear implication of Susan Page’s USAToday story on the latest USAT/Gallup survey, which expresses great puzzlement that Obama’s still ahead in national polls insofar as Americans say they are not better off by a 55/42 margin. True, concedes Page, this is a question that pollsters have only asked “episodically” in the past (which makes you wonder why it’s so incredibly important), but still, didn’t Reagan beat Carter?

I have never understood the apparent belief of so many people that Reagan, in making (albeit with nice simplicity) the case that every challenger makes to every incumbent in all but boom times, somehow magically produced victory, as though voters said to themselves: “Wow, am I better off? Never thought of that one before!” Obviously if voters overall make a negative judgment on an incumbent and a positive judgment on a challenger, the challenger will win. It’s how they make these judgments, and how you balance the “referendum” and “two choices” factors, and how they interact with less discretionary candidate attachments like partisanship and turnout, that are the real questions. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/are-you-better-election-meme-needs-die

[Warpy]

1. I dunno, I'm a hell of a lot better off than when Stupid left office

with a stock market that was worth half what it is now. I'm getting Medicare soon and if I weren't, then I'd have insurance in another year and a half no matter what, for the first time since 1987. I've been able to save money out of my income, something I couldn't manage for Stupid's whole eight rotten years.

That dumb meme speaks to me. Republicans always cost me money. Democrats don't, even if they spend their time trying to fix Republican messes against Republican will instead of making things better.