This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, June 12, 2012 - After weeks of political “he said-he said” over the state of the U.S. economy, pundits suggest that it will be the critical issue this November and are reaching back 20 years to the now infamous message from Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. But is it really the economy, stupid?
David Tucker, 29, of St. Louis, says it is for him.
Tucker, who currently has a temporary job as a document reviewer for a title company, says the nation’s elected leaders need to focus on helping the unemployed find jobs. He plans to vote his opinion next fall.
“I will make sure to let my voice or opinion be heard,” he said. “I feel like all those politicians are giving too much lip service and arguing back and forth and doing nothing to offer resolution. People need help, and I think arguing like children isn’t going to make things better.”
Tucker, originally from Mississippi, moved to St. Louis in 2005 after earning a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from Lane College in Jackson, Tenn. He planned to attend graduate school, and his dream was to work eventually as a film or television producer. He put his career goals on hold during the recession, along with graduate school, and he is still struggling to find lasting full-time employment.
Tucker said he plans to vote again for President Barack Obama because he believes the president is doing the best that he can.
“I don’t think the president should be getting all the blame because this mess was started before he got into office,” Tucker said. “And I think some of these politicians are not being helpful. You might not agree with his politics, but there is no need for all the ugliness. They need to work together on our behalf. They work for us. We put them in office, and we need to hold them more accountable.”
But Stacy Washington, 39, of Olivette said while the economy will be high on her list in November, her major concern is Obama’s overall job performance, which she rates as poor.
“The president doesn’t actually create jobs, he just fosters an environment where job creators can create jobs — and not growing the size of government to a place where the private sector can’t compete or create jobs,” she said. “It’s a complex formula, but I rate the president very poorly on creating and fostering an environment for job creators.”
Washington, who served four years in the U.S. Air Force as a weapons system analyst, describes herself as a conservative who votes Republican. She writes a blog titled Stacy On The Right, where her tag line is “Argue the facts, since your race card won’t work here.” She is a member of the Ladue School Board, does political consulting and appears as a commenter on a local radio talk show. But she says that all takes second seat to her role as a mother to three children, ages 8 to 12.
“My No. 1 job is mom, but I do wear a lot of hats, and I’m blessed to be able to do that because my husband is gainfully employed and he feels like what I’m doing is important,” she said.
Washington believes that Obama has not fulfilled his promise of being a uniter who would help move the nation forward to a post-racial America.
“There has been more polarization and more name-calling and more angst about everything, including race,” she said. “It’s been really disappointing because just a few well-chosen words could have smoothed and helped. And instead it’s been a lot of incendiary rhetoric coming from him and from the left and the right, and everyone’s participating in it. At this point it’s not going to stop, and it’s only going to get worse going into November.”
She said Obama has been intransigent on key issues, including the economy.
“The job of the presidency is not just to govern from the right or the left,” she said.
Washington said she voted for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in 2008. Despite being critical of Republican Mitt Romney during the Missouri primary, she plans to vote for him in November.
“If I look at Romney and Barack Obama, Mitt Romney is the better choice, but I did spend a considerable amount of time cataloging his flip-flopping and all the things I felt that he didn’t do that would preclude him from winning the Republican nomination. I didn’t get my way, so I am coalescing behind the nominee.”
As the economy turns
David Kimball, professor of political science at University of Missouri at St. Louis, said he expects that economic issues will continue to be a major factor for voting decisions in the fall, particularly in the presidential race.
He said that social issues tend to attract hard-core supporters or opponents who rarely change their minds, but the economy might sway some of the undecided voters.
“Most people have decided what their position on gay marriage is, and they’ve known for several years now which party is more against gay marriage, and so I don’t see that as an issue any more than can really swing many voters. It’s already been out there for several years,” he said.
On the other hand, a major economic downturn — or uptick — right before the elections could change some minds.
“It’s uncertain now whether the economy is improving well enough to help President Obama, or whether it’s not,’’ Kimball said. “The economic news over the last week or so is less positive, and I’m sure that has people in the White House worried.”
Kimball said that he expects the president to make the case that he inherited a crashing economy.
“But voters tend to be myopic. They tend to have a fairly short attention span, and they tend to focus more on what have you done for me lately,” he said. “I think it’s a harder case to make to voters that things really were worse off and things might be even worse if President Obama had not done what he’s done. I think the White House will make the argument that we’re better off now than we were when the president took office.’’
What about Missouri?
No matter the issues, though, Kimball points out that Republican candidates have a built-in advantage when it comes to the Show-Me State.
“Missouri is a Republican-leaning state and is more Republican than the nation as a whole,” he said, adding that Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill’s re-election bid is linked directly to Obama, who lost to McCain in Missouri in 2008.
“If the national economy’s not doing well, the president gets blamed and she gets blamed by association,’’ Kimball said.
George Connor, political science professor at Missouri State University in Springfield, believes the importance of the economy will vary geographically. He adds that conventional wisdom that says a down economy normally favors Democratic candidates might not hold true in Missouri because areas that have historically been Democratic strongholds aren’t as Democratic anymore.
For example, Connor said, it would be expected that Obama’s message on job creation and unemployment will resonate with St. Louis blue-collar workers who are living paycheck to paycheck and wondering if they’re going to get laid off, but in South County, for example, there are fewer blue-collar Democrats than there used to be.
Connor said that McCaskill won the Senate seat in 2006 after losing the gubernatorial election in 2004 because she was able to pick up additional votes outside of traditional Democratic areas.
“She won in [St. Louis] center city, Kansas City, Columbia and St. Joe, but she picked up additional seats in what we would call outstate Missouri. I think the base in [St. Louis] south county has eroded, and I don’t know if there are enough votes in outstate to make up for that difference,’’ Connor said.
Connor said the state isn’t the same as when McCaskill was elected because there has been continued growth of conservative voters in Missouri counties, such as Christian and Green.
“She won and Obama didn’t win in the state of Missouri,” he said. “And I think the state has gotten more conservative ideologically given the social issues — abortion, right to die — and because the Democratic base has eroded.”
Connor believes it’s still too early to know if the economy will be the driving issue in November.
“The economy makes the difference when there’s not much else going on,’’ he said.
He’s keeping an eye on the Supreme Court’s decision on health care, which he calls a wild card that could motivate passion in voters on both sides of the issue.
“Ultimately, the election in November will be a referendum on the president,’’ Connor said, adding that, statistically speaking, Missourians don’t like Obama.
'Things you can change, and things you can’t'
James Zavist, 59, of St. Louis said he has been underemployed since being laid off by a local architecture firm in 2008. The economy will matter to him in November, but so will the philosophical stands of the parties.
He plans to vote for Obama again.
“He is doing a pretty good job on the economy, given what he’s had to work with. Obviously, the economy is struggling to get out of the hole it’s dug itself into,’’ Zavist said.
He believes the government or the private sector can do only so much to prod the stagnant economy.
“There are things you can change, and things you can’t,” Zavist said. “The real estate bubble was a tough thing to work through. People still don’t have the same discretionary spending they had before, when they were refinancing every two years and pulling money out of their houses. It’s a lot less money floating around being able to be spent.’’
Zavist said he has lived through previous booms and busts during his 30-year career in architecture, though this recession was tougher because it was nationwide.
“In past recessions, there were opportunities in other parts of the country, and the world, to stay busy. These days, with everything that took a hit, the work’s just not out there,” he said.
Zavist believes the economy is beginning to turn around and that there is pent-up demand for construction and remodeling projects.
Since he was laid off, Zavist has cobbled together a series of temporary and part-time jobs unrelated to his profession. He has worked in security, retail — and now at a local casino — trying to avoid collecting unemployment insurance.
“I view working as being better than doing nothing, and there’s always opportunities if you can go after them,” he said.
