Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Why Mitt Romney Lost the U.S. Presidential Election

Politics / US Presidential Election 2012 Nov 08, 2012 - 03:00 AM GMT

By: Ian_Fletcher

Politics

If Romney had won, I'd be saying it was because Americans have a long, long history of booting incumbents who preside over high unemployment and economic weakness.

This much is true. In fact, I think Romney counted on it all too much. In the end, his case against Obama came down to “Your economy sucks.”


I guess he figured it worked for Reagan.

But no, actually, it didn't. Reagan's case against Jimmy Carter in 1980 wasn’t merely a negative one, but backed up by a well developed and then-new alternative philosophy of economics.

You can disagree with that philosophy, in whole or in part, and question how new under the sun it was, but there's no question that there was a “there” there. Tax cuts, deregulation, laissez faire, supply side economics, and the Laffer curve amounted to something substantial.

Reagan had a positive vision, and that makes all the difference. What matters in politics isn't what you're against, it's what you're for.

What did Romney have? A thin “five point plan” with less substance than Ronald Reagan's offhand remarks. The same old Republican orthodoxy, and thus only of interest to orthodox Republicans. Tax cuts that weren't irresponsible because tax increases would make up for them--so they weren't really tax cuts, just changes.

None of this was inevitable. The political space exists for a new rightist vision of the economy. It's called economic nationalism.

This position says that America's economy has been getting sick from uncontrolled globalization for years now, and that the answer is to reassert our original economic tradition, which goes back to Hamilton, of running our economy explicitly in the national interest, not in mere deference to the supposed benevolence of free markets.

Its first big policy would be repudiating free trade. (This I support.)

Its second big policy would be cutting mass immigration. (I take no position here, but it’s a natural part of the package.)

If Romney had been serious about these policies, he could have offered the American people a real alternative to Obama. Both these policies are popular with the voting public, and even more so with the rightist and centrist voters Romney needed to win.

Romney did make some noises about cracking down on China’s abusive trade relationship with the United States. He did take positions on immigration (especially illegal) that were more opposed than Obama. I even thought for a while that he was really going to ride these issues.

But he didn’t. He took the positions best for him, but never really used them. His campaign, in the end, was all “Your economy sucks.”

I don't know why he did this. Perhaps he didn't understand his need to offer a serious alternative and a positive agenda. Technocrats like Romney and Michael Dukakis can be shallow in that way. Perhaps he thought he could win without them. Perhaps his shadowy backers waved him off.

In any case, Al Gore is no longer America's only presidential “nearly man.” And I remain convinced Republicans must turn to economic nationalism if they are to have any future at all.

Ian Fletcher is the author of the new book Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It and Why (USBIC, $24.95)  He is an Adjunct Fellow at the San Francisco office of the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a Washington think tank founded in 1933.  He was previously an economist in private practice, mostly serving hedge funds and private equity firms. He may be contacted at ian.fletcher@usbic.net.

© 2012 Copyright  Ian Fletcher - All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in