The American Campaign, Second Edition: U.S. Presidential Campaigns and the National Vote

★ Chapter 6 The Economic Context of the Campaign

★ Chapter 6 The Economic Context of the Campaign THE HEALTH OF the national economy establishes a second important and systematic context for the presidential campaign. Long before President Clinton’s campaign advisor James Carville concocted the slogan, “It’s the economy , stupid,” to remind Clinton campaign workers to stay “on message,” political observers appreciated the political importance of the economy. As The American Voter (A. Campbell et al. 1960), the classic study of voting behavior, stated it: “Economic interest has long been seen as a primary motive impelling political action” (381).1 The aggregate consequences of these individual economic judgments are clear. In his groundbreaking study Political Control of the Economy, Edward Tufte (1978) put it squarely: “as goes economic performance, so goes the election” (137). There is no question that presidential elections and the direction that their campaigns take are significantly influenced by voter satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the in-party’s management of the economy. The general condition of the national economy has a great deal to do with both the standing of the in-party candidate at the outset of the campaign and how that standing changes during the campaign. In-party presidential candidates fare much better when the electorate sees strong economic growth and experiences a higher standard of living and low unemployment, tax, inflation, and interest rates. A large body of research, using various measures of general economic conditions and examining diVerent sets of elections, well documents the very substantial impact of the economy on presidential elections (Tufte 1978; Fiorina 1981; Hibbs 1987; Lewis-Beck 1988; Erikson 1989; Alesina and Rosenthal 1995, LewisBeck and Stegmaier 2000). The basic point is simple: economic conditions strongly influence presi- dential elections. How and when the economy has its eVects on the campaign is not so clear cut, however. Moreover, the impact of the economy on campaigns and elections is in some respects overstated and in other respects underappreciated . This chapter makes four observations about the role of the economy in making campaign eVects on the election predictable. First, economic performance both before and during the election year matters to election results, but only economic developments during the election year appear to aVect what happens through the course of the campaign. The performance of the economy during the in-party’s term prior to the election year aVects the decisions of many early-deciding voters and thus helps to establish the stable context or parameters of the campaign. The performance of the economy during the election year aVects whether the in-party or out-party is more successful at attracting votes during the campaign. Second, though economic growth is undeniably important to campaigns and the election results, its importance is sometimes exaggerated. Presidential elections are more than matters of election-year economics. Voters are concerned about many things other than the economy. Exclusively economic perspectives on elections miss much of what concerns voters and aVects election results. Third, to the extent that the economy matters, the eVects of economic conditions on the campaign are not strictly matters of dollars and cents or the economic well-being of voters. The condition of the economy aVects the campaign indirectly through its impact on the public’s general mood toward the in-party as well as directly through more strictly defined economic voting. Good economic times foster a positive general outlook, and hard times cast a shadow over everything the in-party does. In this regard, the political impact of the economy is sometimes underappreciated. Finally, all in-party candidates are not held equally responsible by voters for the state of the economy. Incumbents are accorded full credit for a good economy and full blame for a bad one, but non-incumbents or successor candidates of the in-party are held only partially accountable for economic conditions. Voters draw a distinction between a president who personally controlled the levers of power that may have aVected the economy and a successor candidate of the president’s party who likely shares the outlook of the president but did not personally make presidential decisions. The Importance of the Election-Year Economy Although the economy throughout a president’s term matters to voters and therefore has a bearing on the election, the economy during the year of the the economic context • 129 election is especially important to the impact of the campaign on the vote. The judgments of voters...