It’s the Economy, Jackasses

Image by Violentz via Flickr

A lot of claims are going around about President Obama’s declining poll numbers, which are now hovering around 50%. Most prominently, David Brooks claims we are watching what he calls “the Obama slide.” And he claims we’ve arrived here because the administration “has promoted one policy after another that increases spending and centralizes power in Washington.”

Oh please.

I’m a libertarian. I’d love it if the American people despised government spending and centralization and punished any politician who tried it. But that’s bullshit, and I suspect Brooks knows it.

Political reporters and columnists love to believe that every little moment, every little maneuver, every little comma in every little statement made by a candidate or officeholder is of the utmost importance. It’s what they (we?) get paid to write about, and to report on, and to break. The truth, however, is that the American electorate is a dumber, more lumbering beast than all of that. Fundamentals determine elections and approval numbers — the economy, partisan polarization, wars. And while we can make up a narrative to explain what’s happening — or what’s happened — it’s just that: made up.

Take the last election. While much can be made of debate performances, Palin, etc., the election was largely predictable based on fundamentals, particularly economic ones. In fact, predictions were made publicly based on such models. And here’s how that turned out:

Prediction: 52% (Obama) – 48% (McCain)

Actual: 52.9% (Obama) – 45.7% (McCain)

Pretty good. But this shouldn’t really be all that surprising, given that people tend to “come home” over the course of an election, leaving economic factors as the largest, most salient variable. Take this graph, from Andrew Gelman, plotting income growth against the incumbent party’s share of the popular vote:

So, while it’s not an iron law, the basic fact is that if you have decent income growth, the incumbent party is going to do pretty darn well. If it’s middling, things will be close. If it’s piss poor, the incumbent will get his hat handed to him.

But what does this have to do with Obama’s numbers right now?

Well, first of all, we only care about approval numbers based on how they’re going to affect elections. So, it’s worth getting out of the way that elections are largely determined by the economy. Secondly, it’s worth realizing that historically, bad approval numbers don’t mean you can’t get reelected — and 50% is no magic number for reelection, either, so long as the economy’s not too bad.

But let’s take a look at the What Determines Presidential Approval question head on…

The Broad Consensus

The first thing I’ll note is that a lot has been written on this. And the consensus is pretty clear: Economic factors are largely responsible for presidential approval numbers. Not just domestic economic factors, but also international ones.

Much was made recently of the Gallup chart showing that Obama’s approval has fallen while the Dow Jones has risen. This, in some people’s minds, argues against the case that Obama’s low poll numbers are primarily caused by the economy. However, as Slate described way back in 2006, the stock market is almost a counter-indicator of presidential approval — for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. What’s more, only about half of Americans own stocks — and that’s counting people who don’t own them directly, but simply through mutual funds through their jobs.

The truth is that the stock market has never been the marker to which political scientists are primarily referring when they discuss the link between presidential approval and the economy. Instead, they’re talking about unemployment, retrospective feelings about the economy (“Are you better off today than you were a year ago?”), prospective feelings about the economy (“Do you expect to be better off a year from now than you are today?”), consumer confidence, income growth, etc.

Approval Is a Funny Thing

Now, of course, saying that the economy is the prime mover of presidential approval doesn’t mean it’s the only mover. Scandals and screw-ups and wars can also intervene. But it’s worth noting, from relatively recent history, that the biggest presidential scandal of the last two decades — the Lewinsky scandal — never hurt President Clinton’s approval ratings.

What’s more, that scandal period underlines another quirk of presidential approval: Even when we have divided government, views of Congress and the president move in tandem. Clinton was under threat of impeachment by Gingrich and his GOP majority, yet people’s views of the president and of Congress stayed positively correlated. Why? Because voters aren’t deciding independently how they feel about President Clinton and the Republican majority — they’re simply expressing an opinion about how they feel toward government in general. And how they feel toward government in general comes back to the economy. And, presidential blow job or no, the economy was awesome.

Our Unpopular Governors

Over at The New Republic, Jonathan Chait makes the point that it’s not just Obama who’s popularity is hurting. The nation’s governors are getting their asses kicked, too. And, thus, if the problem’s not limited to Obama, it’s more likely to be the economy at large. There’s definitely some truth to this.

Back in May, Nate Silver looked at 12 governors tracked by Survey USA and found that they had lost an average of 9 percentage points of approval compared to a year earlier (before everything fell apart). This trend doesn’t seem to have reversed. Take a look at these more recent approval-disapproval numbers:

Alabama (R): 61-36

California (R): 19-76

Iowa (D): 36-51

Kansas (D): 49-35

Kentucky (D): 47-47

Minnesota (R): 48-50

Missouri (D): 50-41

New Mexico (D): 55-43

New York (D): 24-71

Oregon (D): 40-53

Virginia (D): 45-46

Washington (D): 35-62

Wisconsin (D): 33-62

Yikes. Two of America’s three biggest states — one governed by a Republican (Ahnold), one by a Democrat (D. Pat) — freakin’ hate their governors. The only guy Survey USA is tracking who seems to be doing okay is the Republican down in Alabama. God bless you, sir.

Obama’s Drop

So, is Obama’s drop really all that bad, in context? Both Clinton and Reagan took big post-honeymoon drops (bigger by November than Obama’s so far), and each rebounded to reelection. (One might note here that Clinton inherited a recession that was ending, as opposed to one that was deepening.)

One Explanation

Nonetheless, whether it’s the BIGGEST DROP EVER or not, you may still want to know for sure what’s behind it. So what are the two theories?

One explanation is typified by the David Brooks column mentioned at the beginning — which is really just a calmer version of this Ben Stein argument:

The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.

They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.

They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a “community organizer,” Illinois state legislator, and Senator.

The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.

Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond naïveté, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.

What this theory doesn’t account for is that you’re simply going to see a big drop in approval ratings when you start out at a honeymoon 70%+. And as early as the stimulus debate, Obama lost huge numbers with Republicans — even though Republicans saw him as working in a bipartisan manner. It’s hard to blame Obama for being polarizing when the people leaving the tent admit he’s asking them to stick around.

Another Explanation

A second explanation for Obama’s poll drop goes something like this:

Full stop.

Conclusion

Okay. Maybe not full stop. To really demonstrate this, someone would need to analyze things state-by-state. Change in unemployment vs. change in presidential approval would probably do the job.

Anecdotal evidence looks good.

This post notes that approval for Obama in Minnesota has fallen significantly less than in Iowa and Wisconsin. The difference? “Minnesota’s unemployment rate is up only 8 percent from January to July (7.5 to 8.1 percent), compared to 28.6 percent in Wisconsin (7.0 to 9.0 percent) and 35.4 percent in Iowa (4.8 to 6.5 percent).”

This post finds a similar effect.

Connecticut, where unemployment hasn’t been too terrible, still puts its governor and president in the mid-60s.

Real Conclusion (for real)

President Obama may or may not be making major political mistakes. Conservatives can even argue that his policies are why the economy is so bad, thus he dug this hole for himself, after all.

Personally, I’m not that invested in whether Obama’s numbers go up or down. What I am invested in is dispelling the notion that movement up or down in the polls can tell us a significant amount about whether a president is governing properly or not — or even whether he’s got a better or worse chance of getting reelected. Polls follow events — not the other way around.

Elections are when politicians have to listen to the people. In between, they should want to make the best decisions possible. If the economy grows, if we have peace and prosperity and people are better off, reelection will follow.