I see that a lot of the folks over at The Next Right like attacking Barack Obama by tying him to Jimmy Carter. One of the foremost problems with this is that half of today's voters are too young to get the reference. The median voter is 46 years old, meaning that they were 17 when Carter left office, and presumably not paying too much attention to macroeconomic phenomena.
And the late 70s weren't all that bad for ordinary folks -- the unemployment rate during the Carter years was well below the worst numbers of the Reagan era. Of course, the combination of stagnant asset values and inflation made it a terrible time to be an investor, so tying Obama to Carter will probably resonate with the voter who had a large stock portfolio during the Carter days. McCain is welcome to make those folks the focus of his messaging, just as I'm sure he'll be welcome to visit Barack Obama in the White House next year.
And the late 70s weren't all that bad for ordinary folks -- the unemployment rate during the Carter years was well below the worst numbers of the Reagan era. Of course, the combination of stagnant asset values and inflation made it a terrible time to be an investor, so tying Obama to Carter will probably resonate with the voter who had a large stock portfolio during the Carter days. McCain is welcome to make those folks the focus of his messaging, just as I'm sure he'll be welcome to visit Barack Obama in the White House next year.
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