Like A Lamb To The PR Slaughter

Ten days ago we looked at an Irwin Stelzer piece in the Weekly Standard that took President Bush to task for actively fleeing credit for the booming economy his supply-side policies have unleashed. Yesterday Larry Kudlow echoed those sentiments:

Why President Bush seemingly gets no credit for the strong economy is one of the enduring political mysteries of our time. Some call it the “Goldilocks economy” — a term widely used to describe the low-inflation growth of the second half of the 1990s. More accurately, it’s a non-inflationary boom where the economy is hitting on all cylinders and the outlook for the coming years is bright. In view of the ravages of the 2000-02 stock market plunge, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and skyrocketing energy prices, the Bush boom stands as even more of a great achievement.

But still he gets no credit. Most polls show the President’s economic approval rating around 40% or even less. Scott Rasmussen, who does extensive consumer and investor polling, shows that the confidence ratings of both are about 15% lower than in late 2003.

This ain't no mystery. Sure, you can blame part of it on the rabidly hostile Extreme Media, which is indefatiguable in its relentless efforts to construct a mass delusion of Great Depression - the latest whipping posts have been high gas prices and the supposed "housing bubble" - but even if they still had a monopoly on the dissemination of information, that still wouldn't account for the whole of the problem. It is the President himself whose indifference to his own popularity level leaves him wide open for the public relations shafting that should not be happening. That it is happening constitutes political negligence of appalling proportions.

Indeed, it scarcely even seems possible:

With comparable economic numbers in 1983 and 1984, President Reagan enjoyed a tremendous “morning in America” popularity that won him a 49 state landslide. Similarly, the economic boom of the late 1990s helped President Clinton withstand the political slings and arrows of impeachment. But for some reason this economy is not working for Bush.

Most pundits blame rising gas prices and Iraqi war difficulties for Bush’s slump. While these are involved, they’re not the whole story. The unwillingness of the Bushies to communicate and market an economic-recovery message is also to blame.

Ah, let us count the ways:

Politics is a lot like 12-step programs, where recovery comes through daily
repetition. But on the Friday of an unexpected 207,000 jobs increase, President Bush was nowhere to be seen. Instead of a 10 a.m. news briefing in Crawford, Texas, the news vacuum was filled by blathering Wall Street pundits who turned good news on jobs into bad news on rate-hikes from the Fed. Bush did mention jobs in his radio address the next day, but who in steamy mid-August was listening?

This is the basic marketing problem of our MBA president.

It is said that too much self-righteousness is never a good thing, but a little bit to cover one's scruples and principles is a necessity. The same goes for boastfulness in politics. God knows Bill Clinton took it to obscene excess, but Dubya has fled to the opposite extreme, leaving his enemies free to bury his accomplishments and hang around his neck all their Edwardsian half-truths and falsehoods.

Kudlow also adds the growing public dissatisfaction with runaway federal spending - an ominous trend for the Republicans with the '06 midterm elections looming a year and change from now.

Since the parallel with the Gipper has been raised again, allow me to point out the most obvious difference between him and GDub: Ronald Reagan was indellibly identified with tax-cutting and fiscal discipline (among a number of other prominent issues) because he had spent years and years prominently speaking and writing in favor of them. By (and given) the time he was elected president and started implementing his supply-side solutions, he didn't have to go out of his way to take credit after they ignited a huge burst of prosperity because his economic stances were already part of his "brand."

George W. Bush did not enter office with an ideological reputation, even though he has, in almost every meaningful way, carried on the Reagan legacy. Consequently it is necessary for him to actively boast about his economic accomplishments to a degree that was never necessary for Dutch.

Think of it like selling a house. You can find a buyer, solicit a bid, get the seller to accept it, but the house still isn't sold until the deal closes in escrow. In PR terms, that last step is what the President has utterly neglected.

Consequently, instead of hitching his poll numbers to the roaring economy that his own policies have helped to create, Mr. Bush is, for the fifth consecutive year, getting excoriated for taking his annual month-long sabbatical at his Crawford, Texas ranch.

Maybe it's easy to tune out all the hostile press and opposition attacks after all this time, but (and I don't know how many times this is going to have to be repeated before the Bushies understand and accept it) any message will become the public perception of reality if it isn't actively and aggressively countered.

Ten days ago I concluded, "[I]f Dubya doesn't start doing some belated chest-thumping in the not-too-distant future, the impact could be adversely felt on GOP fortunes next year and beyond."

Kudlow's version was, "Bush has a good story to tell, but he must tell it."

Time for him to read a success story to the whole country - and keep doing it until January 20th, 2009.

And I don't mean My Pet Goat.