Late Monday, James Carville’s Democracy Corps released a strategic memo that lays out a stark reality for President Obama and the Democrats: Shift the campaign narrative away from the economy, or die. Titled “Shift the Economic Narrative,” the memo encapsulates focus group work done by Democracy Corps to assess what voters are thinking. The memo says “[Voters] know we are in a new normal where life is a struggle — and convincing them that things are good enough for those who have found jobs is a fool’s errand. They want to know the plans for making things better in a serious way — not just focused on finishing up the work of the recovery.”
The above flatly repudiates President Obama’s “the private sector is doing fine” statement made during Friday’s press conference. It also points out that if the president’s economic plans are not seen as serious, they will go nowhere.
The memo goes on to note some of Mitt Romney’s vulnerabilities, before delivering this hammer blow: “But we underscore the sentiment [the voters] expressed in the postcards to the President they wrote at the end of the exercise: overwhelmingly, these voters want to know that he understands the struggle of working families and has plans to make things better.”
So far, the president has offered another round of stimulus, and more “investment” in “green jobs.” The Democracy Corps memo quotes several voters who are struggling even to keep their minimum wage jobs. It also quotes families whose college educated-children cannot find work, and have had to move back home with their parents. They represent, according to the memo, the “new normal.” One non-college-educated woman in Columbus, OH describes her “new normal”: “We recycle, we do cans, we do metal. On trash [day] when people set their garbage out, we go trash picking. I know it sounds nasty but dumpster diving, whatever.”
The Democracy Corps paints a bleak, Dickensian view of the “new normal” to drive home the point that life across the country has become a struggle of survival for millions of proud, law-abiding Americans who were once middle class. Health care costs remain a problem, too: “At work, salaries were frozen a few years ago. Everybody took a ten percent cut. There were layoffs. Health care is going up. My take-home pay is…less than it was five years ago,” writes a college-educated man in Pennsylvania. The memo also notes that gas prices and the prices of groceries have continued to rise higher and higher, straining family budgets. Any optimism the pollsters found was tied to the possibility that the economy must now be a rock bottom, so it cannot get much worse.
After detailing the many struggles taking place every day across America, the memo notes that Obama retains a slim lead because voters see him as “the devil you know” or the “lesser of two evils.” But if he is seen as out of touch, that advantage evaporates.
The memo pushes the president to talk up government programs that lend assistance to middle class Americans, and to talk about the future, not about the present or the past. The memo concludes with a call to laud government spending, and a suggestion to destroy Mitt Romney: “This economy has made many voters feel disconnected from and at odds with the government in Washington. Messages that connect on a pocketbook level and commit to the programs voters rely on most have the capacity to be very powerful, particularly when the offer on the other side is suspicious and weak.”
President Obama must have gotten an advance look at the Democracy Corps memo: Today he is signaling a shift away from talking about today’s “new normal” economy, to talking about the future, according to the Wall Street Journal.
President Barack Obama will use a campaign policy speech Thursday to contrast his preferred approach for the country’s economic future with ideas proposed by his likely Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, people familiar with the speech said.
Mr. Obama’s address in Cleveland, described by his aides as a “framing” speech, isn’t expected to include any major new proposals. While some of his political advisers had pushed for that, his economic team made clear they don’t see many fresh options…
Outside the Obama administration, three solutions spring to mind: Abolish ObamaCare, unleash domestic energy exploration and exploitation, and roll back the EPA’s regulatory drive against energy producers.
From the “it’s the economy stupid” dude.
Life has gotten crappy. So vote for more of the same, because otherwise. . . ?
Yeah, if that’s the best you can come up with James, you’ve got less than nothing.
Unfortunately that is exactly what the theme is. I know a lot of self-proclaimed Democrats who hold the logic that voting for a Republican is tantamount to sin – endorsing evil itself. The only option is Democrat. I think that will be the Democratic bumper stickers they will hand out to their base:
“What are you going to do – vote GOP? Don’t make us laugh.”
– we can ignore what is happening to our savings.
What savings? You must be doing great. Private sector eh?
1. Drill, Baby, Drill! Cut green spending in half, the rest to Clean Coal. Dig, Baby, Dig! Exploit the XL pipeline and ANWR. Imagine what energy independence would do for the United States – no more US dollars ending up in Islamic Terrorist pockets or Chinese banks.
2. Jerry Pournelle’s idea of doubling the size threshold for all Federal Regulations – organizations exempt from Regulation X go from 50 to 100 employees, or from 5 to ten million dollars gross income, etc.
3. And yeah, abolish Obamacare, for something that actually works – Health Saving Accounts.
I’d go a step further. After increasing the size threshold for companies that you mentioned, I’d implement a freeze on new regulations for a few years. During that time, I’d implement a comprehensive review of existing regulations to eliminate those that are contradictory, obsolete or not meeting a sound cost/benefit analysis. If a new circumstance arises where new regulations are required during the freeze, they would have to be written into law by Congress instead of by the bureaucracy.
Sure, grandfather everything not specifically mentioned in the Constitution.
And get rid of the penny.
Abolish COLA’s
Raise all retirement ages 5 years (over the next 20).
There, fixed.
You’re welcome.
“Mr. Obama’s address in Cleveland, described by his aides as a “framing” speech, isn’t expected to include any major new proposals.”
BHO makes a speech. We get framed. Again.
A “framing speech”? Really? Who’s he going to frame this time?
That’s cute! — The Choom-Smoker-in-Chief framing… a speech!
Just what we need! Some snide, nasty, and devilish little voice in my ear whispering, as the venue will be Cleveland, that it will be about “we need more Union involvement in the job-markets’ decision making processes”. Can’t get that idea out of my head that this will be his level of new/old BS.
“Outside the Obama administration, three solutions spring to mind:”
No need to reinvent the wheel.
Here’s Romney’s economic plan:
http://mittromney.com/sites/default/files/shared/BelieveInAmerica-PlanForJobsAndEconomicGrowth-Full.pdf
Over 80 pages long, it’s a lot more detailed than anything Obama has even attempted.