It’s a Single-Issue Election

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PJ Media:

 

 

It’s a Single-Issue Election

 

June 22, 2012 - 7:53 am - by Ed Driscoll

 

And the contrast between the two candidates couldn’t be stronger.

Regarding the first half of that equation, Dan Henninger writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Right now, with growth stuck below 2%, we’re toast. With strong growth at 3% or better, there will be jobs. With long-term growth, Medicare, debt and the rest of the horribles that keep worrywarts awake at night are solvable. With strong growth, the U.S. will not have to cede world leadership prematurely to whichever Chinese functionary slugs his way to the top of their heap. With strong growth, your college graduate can move out of the house. With normal American growth, Europe may be irrelevant but it won’t die, and a U.S. president won’t look oddly small talking to the Vladimir Putins of the world.

Mr. Obama was exactly right in Cleveland when he said economic growth “is the defining issue of our time,” that his and his opponents’ views on growth are fundamentally different and “this election is your chance to break that stalemate.” This he gets. Only the most obtuse “pragmatists” persist in believing the solution lies in a mystical center somehow combining elements from this ideological oil and water.

Put differently, this is a substance election. It’s not about whether one “likes” Barack Obama or can’t warm to Mitt Romney. Voters have to pick two competing growth models, which means paying attention to what the candidates are saying about economic growth.

It’s true the Obama Cleveland speech had many familiar rhetorical distortions. One of the most revealing, though, is that “Governor Romney and his allies in Congress believe deeply in the theory that . . . the best way to grow the economy is from the top down.”

Whatever that may mean, more interesting is the Obama counter-theory found here, what he calls “our North Star—an economy that’s built not from the top down, but from a growing middle class.”

There is no theory anywhere in non-Marxist economics that says growth’s primary engine is a social class. A middle class is the result of growth, not its cause. Barack Obama not only believes in class-based growth but has built his whole growth strategy around it.

One word appears nowhere in the 53-minute Obama speech on economic growth: “capital.” Human, financial, whatever. Capital dare not speak its name.

Why not? Perhaps Byron York’s latest article in the Washington Examiner provides a clue: “Obama saw corporate job as working for the enemy,” borrowing, presumably much to author David Maraniss’ chagrin from Barack Obama: The Story, York writes: Read More http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2012/06/22/its-a-single-issue-election/

[Valin]

@Draggingtree

 

Something Charles Krauthammer said the other day...(I paraphrase) "Everyday Romney doesn't talk about the economy, is a win for Obama."

[Draggingtree]

@Draggingtree

 

Something Charles Krauthammer said the other day...(I paraphrase) "Everyday Romney doesn't talk about the economy, is a win for Obama."

Romney needs to drive that message daily

[Valin]

@Draggingtree

 

Something Charles Krauthammer said the other day...(I paraphrase) "Everyday Romney doesn't talk about the economy, is a win for Obama."

Romney needs to drive that message daily

 

The Obama campaign is certainly doing all it can to not speak about the economy.