The Economy, Stupid

One of the Six Themes of the Democratic Party is:

“Republicans are turning the economy into a catastrophe.”

With the current state of the American economy, you might think that would be a hard sell.

Think again.

Dan Henninger in The Wall Street Journal describes how president Obama is able to switch our focus with his yearning for “An Economy Built to Last.”

Michelle Obama lets us know how hard her husband has worked to get America “out of this mess.” She tells how (in spite of Republicans) “we’ve made some remarkable progress.”

Meanwhile, our press explains how distinctly out of touch Republicans are in dealing with economic problems. Republican candidate Newt Gingrich takes direct fire for his claim that “more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history.”

I would note that at the time Mr. Gingrich made this claim, the most recent food stamp data was for October, 2011. During the eight years of the Bush presidency, 14.7 million people had been put on food stamps. During the 33 months of the Obama presidency (through October, 2011) only an additional 14.2 million had been put on food stamps. (Note that Obama’s 14.2 million is less than Bush’s 14.7 million.)

While the number is growing, and the rate of increase during the Obama presidency is more than twice that of president Bush, the statement was technically false at the time it was made (January 16, 2012) based on the published October data. Mr. Gingrich can hope to be exonerated when the January data finally become available.

You might think all of this is “splitting hairs,” but watch the Reverend Al Sharpton use this circumstance to political advantage.

Really, just watch it. This is politics in America:




The Democratic Party theme is that “Republicans are turning the economy into a catastrophe.” With enough repetition, it becomes fact.

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