E. J. Dionne: How Obama Can Make Americans Feel Pride About The Economy

[babylonsister]

http://www.nationalmemo.com/how-obama-can-make-american-feel-pride-about-the-economy/

How Obama Can Make Americans Feel Pride About The Economy
July 8th, 2012 8:00 pm
E. J. Dionne


snip//


Bennet sees one overriding question in American politics: “How do we re-couple economic growth with job growth and wage growth?” Note that Bennet focuses not just on growth in general or even job growth. He adds the essential component of wage growth, as important in Ohio’s blue-collar neighborhoods as it is in Colorado’s suburban office parks.

Bennet’s emphasis on ending wage stagnation and decline is what distinguishes progressive economics — however moderate and pragmatic in form — from conservative economics, which sees business growth alone as solving our problems.

snip//

Both Bennet and Hickenlooper stress education reform as central to any jobs agenda, and Hickenlooper sees this as an Obama advantage this fall. “No president has been more aggressive in trying to change the culture of public schools,” says Hicklenlooper. He goes on to make the moderate’s case for Obama by praising his “all of the above” approach to energy policy and the “collaborative pragmatism” of his Cabinet on energy, environmental, transportation and urban development issues.

But the governor of a state with limited exposure to automobile manufacturing also spontaneously mentions the rescue of the auto industry as another Obama asset, arguing that “there was a level of pride” in American car companies that “was largely dissipated.” Now, because of the “risk” Obama took, there’s a new sense of confidence. “These companies are back,” he said.

None of this surprises Sen. Brown, a proud pro-union liberal who campaigned with Obama in Ohio last week. Brown notes that Obama has gained ground in his state both by being tough in enforcing trade rules on behalf of American companies and by pursuing a “high-end manufacturing strategy” that appeals to the nation’s “historical pride in manufacturing, and in making things.”

snip//

The candidate who speaks to voters like Brown’s Zanesville worker — and to his white-collar equivalent in Colorado — is likely to win the election. Mitt Romney hopes the national unemployment rate will get them to vote Republican. Obama’s challenge is to offer an economics of national pride and renewal that answers the sense of betrayal these voters began feeling long before he took office.