Well, as that article by Kevin Baker in Harpers that I keep harping on pointed out in July, 2009, Obama is really Hoover (which would make Bush Calvin Coolidge - the real architect of the problem, who seems to have wriggled off the hook), so Hoover was elected in 2008, not 2010.
Hoover wins!
December 2010
Media spin election as victory for austerity
by Jim Naureckas
Extra!
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)While we had to wait until Election Night to find out that
John Boehner eclipsed Nancy Pelosi, and that Harry Reid
withstood Sharron Angle, one politician's success was
pre-ordained by corporate media long before the votes were
cast: Herbert Hoover.
Although pundits rarely if ever named the long-dead former
president as a winner of the midterms, the way they framed
the election made it inevitable that his once-discredited
policy of responding to economic crisis with austerity would
come out on top on Election Day.
That framing was perhaps best summarized the day after the
election by the New York Times' Peter Baker (11/3/10): "Was
this the natural and unavoidable backlash in a time of
historic economic distress, or was it a repudiation of a
big-spending activist government?" The "left" pole of debate
is that bad economic times were something that just happened
to the Democrats, and there was nothing they could have done
to improve them.
Progressive economists, though, maintain there is plenty
more that could have been done to bolster the recovery-from
passing a bigger stimulus bill to "printing money" (Paul
Krugman, New York Times, 1/9/09; Dean Baker, Guardian,
10/12/10). As long as there is insufficient private demand
to make use of idle workers and factories, the Keynesian
thinking goes, government spending can increase employment
without sparking inflation-though many economists believe
that a slightly higher rate of inflation would benefit the
economy as well (Economist, 2/15/10).
Such solutions are unappealing to the business class that
owns and funds most U.S. media outlets, however; in the
simplest terms, policies that increase the money supply are
not in the interests of those who currently have plenty of
money. With notable exceptions like New York Times columnist
Krugman, the U.S. media discussion treated a left critique
of Obamanomics as beyond the pale, leaving the Tea Party's
calls for slashing "big government" as the sole proposal for
improving the dismal job situation.
Having thus truncated voters' options for action, pundits
and reporters frequently translated their concern about jobs
into concern about the deficit-even though the mechanism by
which cutting government spending in a recession would
reduce employment is necessarily unclear.
"The federal deficit has emerged as a chief concern for
voters," declared New York Times reporter Matt Bai
(6/17/10), who later (9/9/10) explained that the Obama
administration failed to invest in large-scale
infrastructure projects "largely because the public never
seemed open to the idea of huge new spending." The Times'
Jackie Calmes (10/26/10) wrote of "a midterm campaign that
has turned heavily on the issue of the mounting federal
debt."
A Washington Post story (5/19/10) likewise described "voters
up in arms over the mounting federal debt." The Post's Lori
Montgomery (6/19/10) acknowledged that many economists saw
additional stimulus as vital to the recovery, but countered
that "a competing threat-the exploding federal budget
deficit-seems to be resonating more powerfully in Congress
and among voters." The Post (10/10/10) later identified the
"overarching theme of election 2010" as a "question of how
big the government should be and how far it should reach
into people's lives."
Newsweek's Eleanor Clift wrote a piece (Newsweek.com,
10/15/10) with the subhead "How Did a Concept as Unsexy and
Complicated as the National Deficit Become the Galvanizing
Political Issue of the Day?" "Why is the deficit the top
issue in voters' minds?" asked Clift, answering herself:
"The deficit is really a symbol for the anger that people
feel about the amount of money that has been poured into the
economy, without any tangible returns that they can see in
their own pocketbooks."
But the assertion that the deficit is the voters' "top
issue" or a "chief concern" is contradicted by much of the
polling data. One Gallup survey (6/17/10), for example,
found that 60 percent of the public approved of "additional
government spending to create jobs and stimulate the
economy." Bloomberg (12/10/09) summarized one of its polls,
"Americans want their government to create jobs through
spending on public works, investments in alternative energy
or skills training for the jobless."
A New York Times story (9/16/10) on a poll taken at the
height of the election season observed, "The economy and
jobs are increasingly and overwhelmingly cited by Americans
as the most important problems facing the country, while the
federal budget deficit barely registers as a topic of
concern when survey respondents were asked to volunteer
their worries."
One of the few polls to ask people to choose between jobs
and the deficit directly (CBS/NYT, 4/5-12/10) found 50
percent agreeing that "the federal government should spend
money to create jobs, even if it means increasing the budget
deficit"; only 42 percent chose deficit reduction over
stimulus.
It's true that CNN's exit poll found slightly more voters
choosing "reducing deficit" (39 percent) than "spending to
create jobs" (37 percent) as the "highest priority for next
Congress." But exit polls reflect only the views of those
who have been motivated to vote; if the same electorate had
voted in 2008, CNN found, John McCain would have gotten the
same percentage of the vote as Barack Obama. While election
analysis tends to treat voters as the only citizens whose
views matter, the issues that turn voters into non-voters
can do as much or more to influence election outcomes.
Media analyses pointed to Obama's deficit commission as the
logical path to fulfilling the electorate's supposedly
fervent wish for deficit cutting. As USA Today (11/5/10)
editorialized after the vote:
At the end of this month, a presidential commission on the
deficit is expected to vote on recommendations for ending
Washington's red-ink addiction. Obama could take the
commission's ideas, regardless of whether they are backed by
the supermajority necessary to formally propose them to
Congress, and run with them.
While the group deliberately delayed its recommendations
until after the election, comments from the group made it
clear that Social Security would be a prime target of its
spending-reduction mission. In a piece published a week
before the election (10/27/10), the Washington Post's
Montgomery quoted commission member Judd Gregg, a
Republican senator from New Hampshire: "This is an election
that's going to have a very clear message: Do something
about the deficit and debt.. I think the American people are
going to send a very clear message."
It was clear, at any rate, what message corporate media were
going to hear-regardless of what signal voters intended to
send.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4200
--
I want to play in your town for you and 2 of your friends.
http://eventful.com/performers/matt-love-/P0-001-000156481-4/demands
