Almsot 20 years after the fact, history is still attempting to comprehend how and why a seemingly popular president, just a few months before an election, one who presided over a mostly good economy and who won a war, lost his re-election attempt. What's more, if the GOP continues the decline it began in 2006 over the rift between the Conservative Establishment and the Christian Right (which has morphed into the rift between the Tea Party and the Conservative Establishment), the party will self destruct. Further, if the Democrats mislearn the lesson of Clinton's victory, the party's best President in years- Barack Obama- will go down in history as a loser when he otherwise may not be.
Myths
It was the Economy, Stupid. Except that it wasn't. The Dow Jones was up roughly 33% during Bush's presideny- at least that part leading up to the election (eerily similiar to Obama, by the way). As for unemployment, it was in the low 5s when he took office and in the mid 7s in the summer of 1992. It certainly allowed Clinton to argue that the economy was bad, but unemployment has averaged 7% since 1974 (and the average unemployment from '74-'92 was even higher). It took a bit of a spike from the inflation following the Gulf War, and it went up a bit following the fallout of the Savings and Loan Crisis of 1991.
Read my lips: higher taxes. There is conventional wisdom that Bush lost because he broke a campaign promise not to raise taxes. This has been a tragically dangerous lesson for the GOP, as even in the face of a paucity of government revenue, they refuse to raise taxes citing Bush's defeat. Fact: Ronald Reagan raised taxes. I understand he lowered marginal and corporate tax rates. He also raised payroll and self employment tax rates. And, while he lowered corporate rates, he also eliminated a lot of the deductions corporations were allowed to take. Under Reagan, tax reform was just that- reform, and reform was not synonymous with cut.
Why Bush Lost, and Why Both Parties Mislearned History
The Economy Stupid argument had nothing to do with the economy. It was part of a larger attempt on Clinton's part. The biggest reason Clinton had a chance in '92 was that he was able to convince America that he was "cooler" than Bush; that he was more attuned to the problems of everyday Americans. He did this by portraying Bush as senile. George Bush is the same generation as my grandparents were- actuallly a little bit younger; agewise, my grandparents were in between Reagan and Bush. But in 1992, my grandmother was diagnosed with terminal cancer (the doctors gave her 6 months to live; she hung on for 3 more years, first by moving in with my parents and then into a nursing home); my grandfather had his second heart surgery and a hip replacement. Both were in excellent health; but they were old, and I can't help but think that a lot of Americans were dealing with the same thing my parents were, and wondered how much of an issue Bush's age would play. I understand Reagan was 77 (just days shy of 78) when he left office, but he was ageless. The silver screen had a fountain of youth effect on him that just simply didn't apply to others. He also stumbled across the finish line: the last half of his second term, he had numerous lapses in judgment and public gaffes. In many ways, Bush was president from '87 on.
America was sick of the White House being a geriatric center (not just with Bush and Reagan, but also with Gerald Ford in the years before Carter), and Clinton took full advantage of America's longing for youth. Instead of saying Bush is too old, or that he was senile (a tactic that surely would've backfired), what Clinton did was show a lot of youth in his own campaign, and jump at every chance to point out when Bush was out of touch with reality, even if he actually wasn't (remember pony tail hair guy?)- and then hope that America would connect the dots. It was about the appearance of being out of touch. The Economy Stupid had nothing to do with money. It was about age.
On the issue of taxes, the argument goes something like this: Bush abandoned "real conservatives", who either stayed home or voted for Perot. Perot took Bush's base when Bush left it. The problem with this argument is that it confuses Ross Perot with Ron Paul. Perot and the Reform Party were completely moot on social issues. They opposed any platform that took any stance on any social issue. They didn't cost Bush his base, and certainly ont on the issue of taxes. If anything, Perot took away almost as many votes from Clinton as he did from Bush- and the voters he did take were the moderates who allowed Bush to prevail over Dukakis- and not the cons who allowed Bush to prevail over Pat Buchanan.
Simply put, Bush lost because Clinton out-campaigned him. Instead of running on his record, Bush ran against Clinton. Instead of appealing to the voters who elected him, Bush tried to be cooler than Clinton.
Why It Matters
Political scientists try to make sense of elections. 1992 was an anomaly: a seemingly popular president lost to a relative unknown despite a stellar record. The facts of the 1992 election directly contradicted the premise that a candidate's record speaks for itself, the American value that a person who is good at his job ought not be fired. All too often, we forget that politics, like any job, is as much salesmanship as it is hard work. What we forgot about '92 was that as good as Bush was, he just didn't do as good of a job as Clinton did at selling himself.
Instead, what we remember are two slogans: The Economy Stupid, and Read My Lips, No New Taxes. We offer this as explanation why Bush lost because we want to believe that good politicians are always re-elected. We also remember them, because they're what certain interests want us to.
The Left wants Clinton to be remembered as the architect of the '90s economy. While he deserves a lot of credit, so does Bush. The only way to cleave Clinton from Bush, on the issue of the economy is to point out that Bush lost because it had gotten worse under Bush's leadership- and Clinton was able to get it turned around.
The Right has a wing of extremists (led by men like Grover Norquist) who not only want to destroy the federal government, but also want to put Reagan on a pedestal. Doing so requires divorcing Reagan from Bush. It requires labeling Bush as an apostate (it also provides Reagan a little bit of cover for raising taxes as people will remember Bush's tax increases but not Reagan's). Telling the story this way, it makes a lot of GOP candidates extremely reluctant to ever raise taxes again lest his base forsake him, facts be damned.
Going Forward
For the GOP, the lesson is quite simple. Somewhere along the way, tax reform has been replaced with a tax aversion fetish. This is outright dangerous to America, as most Americans expect government to perform basic functions- ones that require money provided for by tax revenues. Taxes are at their lowest level since 1958. This means one of two things must occur: either government must dramatically shrink- and by shrink, I don't mean by starving welfare queens; I mean, citizens, themselves, providing things they've taken for granted as government functions- things like road work, Social Security, military, police, emergency service. Or, in the alternative, taxes must go up. They can't be afraid of raising them because of Bush's loss- it isn't why he lost.
For the Dems, the lesson is a little more complex. Like Bush, Obama may be plagued by the specter of a bad economy. Bush's sin was being unable to sell the job he did. He was unable to sell the public on the idea that the unemployment picture, while precarious, was not indicative of the economy at large. Under Obama, the economy's per capita GDP is the highest it's ever been (if this were truly a bad economy, it would be dropping). Total GDP is the highest it's been since before the recession. The Dow Jones is near its 2007 highs. True, the housing market is still bad in many areas, and unemployment isn't impressive. But unemployment is barely up 1% since Obama took office, and the economy's added more job growth in the private sector under Obama than it did in the decade before he took office (in which net growth was 0). He needs to sell this. America already believes the recession isn't Obama's fault. He needs to run with this. He needs to sell the country on the idea (and since it's true, it shouldn't be that difficult of a sell) that because America spent 10 years sowing the seeds of this recession, digging out in a few months or even a few years is a totally preposterous expectation. Things are getting better; America needs to be patient.
The other lesson Obama must learn from the Economy Stupid slogan is that it stood for something larger: Bush's senility. The GOP wants to play the race card on Obama for a plethora of reasons- mostly because their base is primarily white. Clearly, those who are overtly racist needn't be courted: they're already voting against Obama. But the card can also be played against moderate Americans who don't consider themselves to be racist. It's done, not by saying, "Don't vote for the black guy", but instead by appealing to people's natural instinct to vote for like candidates. "Vote for this guy; he's more like you." Since that argument also reaks of xenophobia, it's best made obliquely. You make this argument by making Obama look like a member of some other culture. You make it look like Obama's policies are directed at helping some other group than middle class white. You say that he's "aloof", that he "doesn't get Main Street", and you couple the comment with a picture or story of him catering to the rich, or the extreme poor, or Muslims, or minorities. It's subliminal, but it works. America's angry (in part, because the anger of some Americans has been enticed).
Obama needs to get selectively angry. He can't do it too much, and even when he does do it, he can't over do it lest he play the part of the "angry black man", but he needs to get a little angry; he needs an "I'm paying for this microphone" moment. But most of all, he needs to illustrate how his programs are helping ordinary people. It's more than just a speech. It's an attitude.
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