tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post2813804316785812428..comments2023-10-16T07:13:12.123-05:00Comments on A plain blog about politics: Presidents Act on Party PrioritiesJonathan Bernsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-33247181014326809562010-09-27T23:26:08.776-05:002010-09-27T23:26:08.776-05:00What would have constituted "focusing on the ...What would have constituted "focusing on the economy?" A second stimulus package? That might have been slightly more popular than ACA, but probably not by much, and would have faced the same solid GOP opposition. I doubt any measures passed for the sake of "messaging" would have mattered in the face of 9% unemployment; only something that actually provided a significant number of jobs. So it would have to have been something big, and therefore not easily passable.<br /><br />Four random thoughts:<br /><br />(1) Health care reform never was all that important to middle-class swing voters, at least from what I can tell from polling data over the years. Support for covering the uninsured seems to be a mile wide and an inch thick, at least outside the Democratic base.<br /><br />(2) It's possible that ACA hurt congressional Democrats without damaging Obama. Remember the dozens of members from pro-McCain districts who needed to win voters who never backed BHO. Of course, it's possible that many were going to lose at the midterm regardless of what the president did. But a pro-ACA vote does seem to be hard to defend in more conservative areas of the country.<br /><br />(3) If Obama had pursued the more small-bore approach that Biden & Emanuel recommended in August 2009 (as opposed to abandoning the issue entirely), how much flak would he have faced from within the Democratic Party? Would he have received more Republican support on Capitol Hill? (Except for Snowe, probably not). Would he have been able to pass it more quickly, and avoided months of dreary process stories? (I suspect that summer '09 would have been the last time that Obama could have changed course on the issue without looking like he was surrendering to the GOP).<br /><br />(4) Given that opposition to ACA was strongest among older & wealthier voters (who would be least concerned about unemployment), I'm not convinced that they were motivated by BHO's "failure to focus on the economy." Remember that Rick Santelli's "tea party" remarks were motivated by a program to prevent home foreclosures.Richard Skinnernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-13823430262184129552010-09-27T15:58:05.266-05:002010-09-27T15:58:05.266-05:00Jay,
Thanks for the comment. Let me clarify...I ...Jay,<br /><br />Thanks for the comment. Let me clarify...I think you make a fair point that I reached when I implied that you say that Obama ignored the economy. You don't say that. But I do think that you underestimate how much of the 111th Congress was dedicated to the economy, even if we don't grant Colby's point in the comment above that Obama sold health care as an economic issue. The stimulus, various UI & COBRA extenders, the banking bill, the small business bill that they just did, the various 2nd stimulus jobs bills...I think a fair reading of Obama's first two years is that it was, in fact, as much about the economy as were FDR's first two years. Even though both did other things (drinking, health care), the economy & the reaction to economic crisis was by far the biggest. <br /><br />The other key point is that I think you are underestimating the extent to which the Democrats were locked in to health care. As it was, liberals weren't going to get quite a bit of their agenda. Had Obama also delayed health care (and started off delaying climate), I really think he would have risked a major revolt. So even if putting it off might have bought a slight improvement from independents, it may have hurt him quite a bit among Dems. Moreover, it's just unclear to me that putting off health care would have bought him anything substantive on the economy, certainly not anything major -- and to the extent the economy is hurting him, it's the reality of it, not the spin, that hurts. <br /><br />On 1934...yes, unemployment was still high, but it was falling (why just private sector employment? No reason to think that distinction matters for short-term political effects). And mostly what students of elections have found is that it's economic growth, not employment, that matters, anyway.<br /><br />Last thing...yes, we'll see studies of this after the fact, and those will be interesting. OTOH, I'd urge caution on all sides. We can do a couple of things...we can compare actual election results to what structural predictors would say. However, then it's hard to know which "other" things mattered, in either direction. Second, the models that include presidential approval cannot tell us what the results would be had the president acted differently (so that if you're correct that his approval rating is much higher w/out ACA, then those models won't capture it). OTOH, models that show specific effects of the ACA vote, like the one that Seth Masket ran recently, only capture the effects on individual members, but may miss the overall electoral environment caused (in part) by what happened, rather than what didn't happen. That's not to run down any of those studies, at all, but just to say that unfortunately we should be very cautions about interpreting them wrt any particular counterfactual.Jonathan Bernsteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15931039630306253241noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-59725746747937784252010-09-27T14:54:32.947-05:002010-09-27T14:54:32.947-05:00Professor Bernstein,
You have hit on the core of ...Professor Bernstein,<br /><br />You have hit on the core of our disagreement - I think that health care reform has hurt the President, you think it has not - but with due respect I don't think you have ascribed to me positions that I have never held.<br /><br />I have never agued, nor even implied:<br />(a) "Presidents" do not "try to enact their party's platform." Specifically, FDR "ignored" his party (!).<br />(b) "Obama ignored the economy."<br /><br />I think it is appropriate that we not criticize strawman versions of each other's arguments. Here is a summary of my position: President Obama made a strategic error in pursuing health care reform during 2009/10 while the economy was still languishing. His emphasis should have instead focused more on economic recovery. This need not have been to the exclusion of "the Democratic party's platform" (depending on how we define that term), nor for that matter would I have expected it to be. <br /><br />Additionally, I think some clarification on the 1933-34 period is appropriate. I would assert the following:<br />(a) Economic growth was very robust in 1933-34, as you point out, but private sector employment was still exceedingly weak by the time of the 1934 midterm election.<br />(b) The 73rd Congress of 1933-34 was a very active one that focused on a large number of items, but its emphasis was overwhelmingly on stabilizing the economy. <br /><br />These are not mere historical quibbles, but instead relate to my broader point in the following way. I would argue that the Democrats in 1934 beat historical trends despite continued weakness in the economy because of broad public approval of the First New Deal, which *focused* on work programs, poor relief, regulation of the private-sector institutions deemed responsible for the collapse, and of course national planning to stabilize the economy. Conversely, the 111th Congress has not focused on economic recovery, and instead has spent most of its energy on an unpopular health care bill, leaving the Democratic party of 2010 more vulnerable to economic-based criticisms from Republicans than the party of 1934.<br /><br />Of course, I do not expect you to agree with these assertions. My point is merely to clarify where I am coming from.<br /><br />Regarding our continuing disagreement on the essential issue here, it seems to me there is a good critical test of our respective hypotheses, and that is a post-election regression analysis that predicts Democratic share of the vote by district via a number of obvious structural metrics (tenure in office, incumbency, PVI, etc) as well as votes in favor of health care reform. A statistically significant, negative share of the vote would strongly suggest that health care reform has been a drag on the Democratic party.<br /><br />Respectfully,<br />Jay CostAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-42976804261714221462010-09-27T12:48:32.783-05:002010-09-27T12:48:32.783-05:00Is it even worth pushing back against this stuff, ...Is it even worth pushing back against this stuff, beyond simply recording for the record what BS it is? So long as the economy is sucky the polls will also be sucky (for Dems), and whining about Obama will be an easy sale for pundits.<br /><br />Admitting that we sort of set ourselves up for this (at least I did) by tacitly expecting a replay of 1933-34. The Depression through 1932 was SO severe that it pretty much did what Andrew Mellon said, liquidated everyone, and in the process also cleaned up most of the late 20s excess, and FDR was the beneficiary.<br /><br />Obama, like FDR, arguably prevented a total economic meltdown, but the crap is still getting flushed out of the system, hence no vigorous rebound.Rickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16932015378213238346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6926413038778731189.post-84830453202880259752010-09-27T10:10:36.986-05:002010-09-27T10:10:36.986-05:00Moreover, the "economy vs. health care" ...Moreover, the "economy vs. health care" thing is a false dichotomy. Remember all those warnings that Obama was taking over "1/8th" of the economy with the ACA? And just last week, Robert Reich posited that no further stimulus will be enough, the only that's really going to get the economy going again is to strengthen and secure the middle class (in typical Reich-ian fashion, he meant at the expense of the upper class, but there might be another way, I dunno). The ACA is an initial, albeit halting, step toward doing just that. Maybe it won't work, but Obama was clearly pushing HCR based on the economic benefits.Colbyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14262426400735202537noreply@blogger.com