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Can the Dole economic plan save his campaign? And how likely is it that economic issues will decide the election? Charlayne Hunter-Gault talks to our regular panel of historians to get a sense of the role economy has played in elections past.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The long view of economics in politics as seen by three NewsHour regulars, Presidential Historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss, Author/Journalist Haynes Johnson. They're joined tonight by William Kristol, editor and publisher of 'The Weekly Standard.' And starting with you, Doris, is it true that the economy over time has been the uninvited third candidate in political races, presidential races?
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, Presidential Historian: There's no question about it. The interesting thing is that way back in the past nobody thought the government was responsible for the economy, so up until the Depression really, even though we had a lot of recessions and difficult times during the 19th century, nobody blamed government or the party in power, and the Republicans were in the ascendancy from the Civil War until the Depression.
Then the Depression hit. One out of three people were out of work. People looked at Hoover, and they realized the Republican orthodoxy of laissez-faire, we can't do anything about the economy, let business solve itself, wasn't working, and so then they turned to government to help them. And ever since then, government has been responsible for the economy. So since then, it's been a huge role in all the elections we've had.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But Haynes, doesn't it--what about in 1896, the Cost of Gold speech didn't--I mean, doesn't it go--
HAYNES JOHNSON, Author/Journalist: Oh, sure, we've always had these currents in American life where if the prairie populists are rising in rebellion, have a recession in the farms, or even during the Depression they stood there with pitchforks or shotguns, and that is a political movement that, that collects with Wall Street and the money brokers and so forth. We've had that throughout our history, but Doris is right, that the theme of economics is the central one of our politics.
Short of war or peace, short of civil war or slavery or civil rights or a Great Depression, basically how do you feel about your life is an economic question. It's pocket book. I mean, you know, Mark Shields just said the famous, wonderful line of Ronald Reagan. If you feel better four years today, then vote for me, if you don't feel better, the--vote for the other guy, and it's the classic response. It's still going to be in this campaign.
One thing, there was a great vignette today of Jack Kemp, and it was classic politics. He said, the Democrats were soaking the rich, we don't want to soak the rich; we want you to get rich. And that's really what you have the collision here and the politics of it.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Of course, William Kristol, in 1992, it's the economy, stupid, that was the famous line. How did that--
WILLIAM KRISTOL, The Weekly Standard: Well, it was and the recession and Bush's apparent failure to have a program to counteract the recession but, in general, to have a domestic reform agenda hurt badly. But then, of course, in 1994, we had the greatest partisan sweep in recent times, a huge repudiation of the incumbent party, President, and Democratic Congress at a time of reasonably good economic growth, not great economic growth, but Clinton had no recession in his first two years.
He's now the only President in a quarter century who hasn't had a recession in his first term. If you had said back in ‘92 that Clinton would get 2 ½ percent growth in his first two years, the stock market at record highs, interest rates dropping, and the Democrats would lose control of the House and the Senate, no one would have believed you. So I don't think it's always just the economy, stupid.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But moving back from ‘92, Michael Beschloss, do you see the impact of the economy on other contemporary elections?
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: I really do, and obviously 1932, the Great Depression, 1980, 21 percent interest rates did nothing to help Jimmy Carter, but I think the thing that also you have to look at is that there's a difference between the way things were and the way that they appeared. One thing that a really savvy candidate can do is if he's an opponent of a President to make an economic crisis look worse than it really is. For instance, in 1960, America had a little bit of a sluggish growth rate.
John Kennedy said over and over, 'We have the lowest rate of economic growth of any major industrialized society.' Absolutely true, but he did not also mention that that was in comparison largely to a lot of other countries that were recovering from World War II. 1984, the United States was suffering from a growing budget deficit, Walter Mondale tried to make that argument. It wasn't--it didn't really catch on because people felt so much in the state of great prosperity.
Also, 1992, America was pulling out of a recession. As we now know, looking back, growth was not tremendous, but it was beginning to resume. If George Bush had been a little bit more astute in presenting this case to the American people and also if Bill Clinton had not been as savvy in presenting 1992 as a terrible situation that was going to continue, you might have seen a different result in the election of 1992 for the presidency.
WILLIAM KRISTOL: But with Bush, you know, in the Bush administration, they knew they were coming out of the recession, and Bush tried to make that argument, and it was ridiculed. People believe their own experiences. They don't believe a politician in Washington telling them, gee, the economy is okay. And that, I think, is Dole's hope. The economy is--has been decent, and Vin Weber makes the case it should be growing faster, but the stock market's at record highs, unemployment is low.
And Clinton's had a decent economy, but people do feel pinched, taxes are as high as they've ever been, their paychecks aren't growing. If Dole can get people to focus perhaps on their tax burden and their paychecks, perhaps he has a chance.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: See, I think the problem for Dole, though, is there is a real argument to be made. There's no question about the economy. It's the one that Buchanan made. In a certain sense, a lot of people have been left behind. Corporations are getting richer, the country is getting richer, but the fruits of that productivity have not been equally distributed among the people. The income distribution now is worse than it's ever been in our history, worse than class-conscious England.
But it takes somebody willing to take on corporate welfare. It takes somebody willing to take on the Republican support to be able to do that. And Dole is going to get all bollixed up if he tries to do that. It takes a left wing or even a guy from the outside like Buchanan. I don't see how he's going to talk that way and take it to its logical conclusion.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And, of course, when Colin Powell mentioned corporate welfare was one of the two times we got booed last night.
HAYNES JOHNSON: Or no applause. There were certainly no applause. There were some boos, but no applause at all. Another thing that seems to be fascinating to watch what's happening here in this convention. The Republicans are making the case the Clinton people were making four years ago--restore the American dream, we have great anxiety, the things you talk about, about the downsizing of the economy, all these things, it's a matter of attitude now. And they're going to--they're arguing all these things, the ominous lag, that things are worse. But if people don't feel that they're worse, that's very hard for Mr. Dole and the Republicans to, to capitalize on.
WILLIAM KRISTOL: But that's why they have to really make it taxes. I mean, you're right. If it's in general, it's the economy, okay, there's a lot of poll data on this. It's pretty reliable. People basically think they're a little bit better off than they were three, four years ago, but if you ask them, do you think your taxes are too high, they say yes, and that's why you'll see the repetition over and over again of taxes, taxes, taxes.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But hasn't it always been the case, or up until now it's been the case that the public has, has generally given the Republicans the greatest credit for managing the economy? I mean, has that all now changed, Michael?
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: There was an argument during the post-war era largely during the time in which there was a consensus for big government and big government involvement in the economy that the Democrats did a good job with coming up with the kind of social programs that we saw, for instance, in the New Deal, Fair Deal, later on the Great Society, but what the Republicans did was they were able to edit those changes.
They were able to manage these departments in a way that the Democrats could not. And so in a way, especially in recent years, when you had a Reagan boom of the 1980's, there's a sense that the Republicans were able to manage the economy well. That's an issue that's now breaking very differently according to the polls.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Just briefly, William Kristol, what about the fault lines within the Republican Party? Because they don't--the vision isn't unified, is it?
WILLIAM KRISTOL: Well, no, look, for thirty years, forty years, Republicans were the party of Hoover. They were the party who could manage the economy. They were the party who brought us the Great Depression. Jack Kemp is the man who changed the character of the Republican Party, along with Ronald Reagan, and made it the party of tax cuts. Reagan had a boom that at least by the 1880's, Republicans had more credibility on the economy than the Democrats. Now that's really up in the air.
DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: The other thing that's split within the Republican Party is that for years, the moderate to the liberal side of the Republican Party was for accepting the consensus of the New Deal and it worked. It worked for Eisenhower, Nixon. Even Reagan didn't try to dismantle the New Deal. Where Gingrich went wrong was he tried to tear it down, and the country didn't want to do that. So that's the split line in the Republican Party too.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, we're going to split right now. We'll be back though.
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