Political fortunes may turn on economy

? An earthquake rumbled across the political world late last month. It upended the assumptions of the New Hampshire primary. It shook the foundations of the various presidential candidates. It also left a lot of Democrats worried — and deeply uncomfortable.

That earthquake was the report that the gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 7.2 percent in the third quarter. You could almost hear the Democrats saying: That wasn’t supposed to happen. There was no hint it was happening. There’s no plan for responding to that. There’s no precedent for that — not since, Lord help us, 1984. This is big trouble.

Big trouble, and big discomfort, because the Democrats are in the troubling and uncomfortable position of knowing that things have to go very wrong with the country for things to go right for them. Opposition parties are often in that position, of course, but in an age of recession and religious rebellion, the stakes are higher, the dangers greater. Americans felt no equivalent national-security fears the last time the GDP performed at such a robust rate, when they re-elected an underestimated, recession-plagued president (Ronald Reagan) and awarded him 49 states (all but Minnesota, native territory for Democratic nominee Walter F. Mondale).

There are other differences between 2004 and 1984, and the biggest one is Iraq, where American forces seem to be digging in for a prolonged and profoundly dangerous occupation — a word that makes no one particularly comfortable. But this will not be an election about comfort. There’s no comfort to be had anywhere in the world today.

The Democratic calculus was simple: Trouble in Iraq plus trouble in the economy equals a fighting chance for them. But if the economy is removed from the equation, everything changes.

It changes the nature of their own fight, for example. Until now there was general agreement among them that the Bush economic stewardship was flawed, the Bush tax cuts worthless, the Bush long-range plan ruinous. Most of the audiences these candidates are greeting in New Hampshire and elsewhere are Democrats and thus predisposed to agree with them. But at the heart of nearly all of the Democratic contenders’ strategy was the notion that the economic distress would be so widespread, even in a state not as battered by joblessness as others, that independents might be persuaded to come out in a party primary and vote for a Democrat.

The new numbers — if, that is, they represent a new reality — stand as a threat not only to the Democrats as a party next November but to the Democratic candidates as individuals next January. Suddenly the New Hampshire electorate is potentially more Democratic and less independent than it had been only a week ago.

Now back to the if of the matter, the new numbers.

“OK, look, the 7.2 percent was encouraging,” said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who abandoned his effort in Iowa to concentrate on New Hampshire. “What is not clear is whether this is really the beginning of a recovery or a one-time spurt of consumer spending generating economic growth. You know, the economics are one thing, but the question is how is all of this affecting the lives of typical working families and middle-class families. They’re going to have to see some job growth and feel more job security and see some help in paying for their health insurance and the rising cost of (college) tuition before they believe that the economy has come back.”

That’s true. Economics in a political year is only one part mathematics. Part of it is chemistry. And right now the chemistry is bad.

So the Democrats’ approach to the situation is to raise questions about the depth of the recovery, to point out the unequal nature of the recovery, to argue that the recovery has left many Americans vulnerable, or worried, or uninsured, or at the very least uncomfortable — which increasingly is becoming the word of the age.

The result is that both sides — the Republicans and the Democrats — are hardening, not changing, their positions. Last week, the President Bush flew to Columbus, Ohio, and established the ground he’ll stand on in 2004: “Just as the economy is coming around, some over in Washington say now is the time to raise taxes,” he said. “I strongly disagree. Tax relief put this nation on the right path, and I intend to keep America on the path to prosperity.”

New unemployment figures are to be released this week. They’ll provide evidence either for President Bush’s claims or for the Democrats’. But while the recovery may be young, the political season is not. Most of the Democratic contenders have, with holiday weeks removed, at best about 10 more weeks of campaigning. That’s not a long time. They’re stuck with the economic policies they’ve developed and stuck in the uncomfortable position of having their destinies determined by economic factors completely beyond their control. Uncomfortable age indeed.


David Shribman is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.