The race between the two presidential candidates, Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama was very tight till about the middle of September. McCain, the maverick, scored highly on national security while Obama, the voice for change, was considered strong on the economy. Then the economic climate deteriorated around Sep 15th when news of the likes of Lehman Brothers and AIG hit the wires. The markets reacted and the Dow dropped more than 500 points in the first day of the economic setback.
The facts did not bode well for McCain. There are three jobseekers for every 1 job opening. As per MSNBC’s poll, 79% felt the country is headed in the wrong direction. This coupled with the fact that the current president, George Bush’s approval ratings are down to 28% hurt McCain’s chances tremendously. The parallels to the Bill Clinton’s successful campaign are so strong that one can not help but be reminded of the time when Bush Sr.’s approval ratings were down to about 30% and the economy had undergone a recession. And that’s when James Carville, Clinton’s campaign strategist coined this phrase.
But despite the bleak economic conditions, McCain seemed to be the only one who believed “the fundamentals of the economy are strong”. That was the death knell of the McCain campaign and the surge of the Obama campaign. After all, “it’s the economy, stupid.”
The facts did not bode well for McCain. There are three jobseekers for every 1 job opening. As per MSNBC’s poll, 79% felt the country is headed in the wrong direction. This coupled with the fact that the current president, George Bush’s approval ratings are down to 28% hurt McCain’s chances tremendously. The parallels to the Bill Clinton’s successful campaign are so strong that one can not help but be reminded of the time when Bush Sr.’s approval ratings were down to about 30% and the economy had undergone a recession. And that’s when James Carville, Clinton’s campaign strategist coined this phrase.
But despite the bleak economic conditions, McCain seemed to be the only one who believed “the fundamentals of the economy are strong”. That was the death knell of the McCain campaign and the surge of the Obama campaign. After all, “it’s the economy, stupid.”
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