Does a Bad Economy Matter

Jon Henke makes an interesting point about those who believe the economy is terrible:

Yet those who have become extremely concerned about the economy since last fall show no significant difference from everyone else in backing a presidential candidate. Both groups divide about evenly between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, and between McCain and the other Democrat, Hillary Rodham Clinton. In addition, those who expressed most concern about their personal financial situations have done just what those less concerned have done – they are a bit likelier to back McCain now than they were to prefer a Republican candidate in last November’s AP-Yahoo News poll.

Henke cautions that we should probably not read too much into these very early findings, and he’s right to do so. While past performance is not a prediction of future behavior, exit polls for the last three presidential elections show the Democratic candidate doing much better than the Republican among voters most concerned about the economy. The reverse has been true among voters concerned about taxes. Right now however, taxes don’t even appear on the list of voters’ top worries. McCain will have to raise awareness of Obama’s plan to raise taxes between now and November. Note that Jon Henke’s post appears on the excellent new site ‘The Next Right,’ where he writes with Patrick Ruffini and Soren Dayton. You should bookmark the site and read it regularly for excellent analysis of Republican politics and the presidential race.

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