GOP Sez: Greatest Economic Recovery in 20 Years
Reported by Marie Therese - July 23, 2004 -
Big Story with John Gibson. July 22, 2004. 5:28 PM EDT.
"Well, because the American people are smarter than you might think. They do consider more than one or two issues in deciding how they're going to vote, and they might not have it at the top of their list, but they're interested in health care and education. They're interested in controlling some of their own assets and their Social Security accounts. The president's got a great message that is going to appeal to those people, along with excellent leadership in the war on terror and the greatest economic recovery that we've had in almost 20 years. So, it's going to be a winning formula." - Charlie Black, Republican Strategist
Comment: The greatest economic recovery in almost 20 years?
Where does this guy live?
Oh, yeah. He's one of the "supervisory" class or "skilled workers" mentioned by Alan Greenspan (himself a member of this elite group) in his recent testimony before Congress (Testimony, 7/20/04.)
GREENSPAN: "But other compensation has accelerated this year, reflecting continued sizable increases in health insurance costs, a sharp increase in business contributions to pension funds, and an apparently more robust rate of growth of hourly earnings of supervisory workers. The larger wage gains for supervisory workers together with anecdotal reports of growing skill shortages are consistent with earlier evidence of rising wage premiums for skilled workers relative to less-skilled workers."
Translation? People who "supervise" are getting richer; people who work for the people who supervise aren't. People who are "skilled" are doing better. People who aren't skilled are falling behind.
In general, this is not good for a political party like the GOP that is largely supported by corporate types.
Their kind of people - the "have-mores" who hang out at the 19th Hole - are doing just fine, thank you very much. They've just bought a second home or rental property. They've just come back from Europe. They have retirement funds, their kids have fully-vested college trust funds and their wives recently had a little nip and tuck (thanks to that big fat tax refund check last year). Low-overhead, low-wage manufacturing plants in East Timor and New Delhi have increased earnings and profits. Personal investment portfolios are bulging. Life is good, if you've already got it.
But life isn't so good for "non-supervisory" America. According to Greenspan, the "non-supervisory" workers are falling behind in actual earning power. (Q&A with the House, 7/21/04)
The trouble with democracy - if you're used to the corporate business model - is that, once every four years, the "have mores" need the "have lesses" and "have nots" in order to get re-elected.
So the question for the GOP becomes: How do you snooker the little guys into re-electing the big guys?
Why, you hire some really smart market-research firms to do a lot of in-depth surveys, then you take that research, analyze it and tailor your "message", not to your constituents' economic self-interest, but to their subconscious hopes and fears. In the best of all worlds, you'd have the full cooperation of one or more corporate media giants to get your message to the widest possilbe audience.
When the beancounters tell you that, on a percentage basis, "non-supervisory" people donate more of their time and money to worthy causes than "supervisory" people, you promote "A Thousand Points of Light" or "Faith-based Initiatives."
When the questionnaires reveal that Americans want the American Dream for their kids but can't tell you exactly what that dream is, you sell them on "School Vouchers" and "No Child Left Behind".
When behavioral psychologists tell you that Americans value action over thinking, you sell your candidate by using "code" words carefully selected to appeal to the archetype of the "Action Hero": "This President", "strong", "decisive", "stays the course", "leadership in times of crisis", "solid", "powerful" and "bold". (It helps if the little guys don't see the leader of the western world sitting like a bump on a log in a second-grade classroom reading "My Pet Goat" during the most horrendous attack against America since Pearl Harbor.)
In 1932 Republican Herbert Hoover - the only other President to lose more jobs than he created - was roundly defeated by New Deal Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, scion of a wealthy Northeastern family.
Somehow, people didn't believe Herbert when he told a group of businessmen "Prosperity is just around the corner".
As the song goes "Everything old is new again..."
