Democrats' Pocketbook Campaign Comes Up Empty

Blowing an Advantage

To some degree, Democrats have blown a potential advantage. "Since a Republican is president and the economy is not particularly good, the expectation would be that Democrats could benefit. Normally that's what happens in midterm elections, which, after all, are a midterm report card" on the party in power, said Larry Sabato, an election analyst and government professor at the University of Virginia.

Democrats have had trouble winning attention, with the media lately preoccupied with a potential war in Iraq and the pursuit for the Washington, D.C.-area (allegedly now apprehended) sniper, he added.

Democrats also may have confused voters by failing to offer a coherent alternative to Republican ideas -- even cribbing economic strategies from their opponents. House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) recently offered a proposal for $75 billion in tax cuts, prompting a leading Republican to suggest he'd copied from the GOP playbook. The proposal was at odds with other Democrats' calls to balance the budget.

But it fits with the party's gradual movement toward more free-market, GOP-style economic orthodoxies. It was a movement characterized by the Clinton Administration of the '90s, which stole Republicans' thunder by pushing through a balanced budget and welfare-to-work legislation. The two parties today "are standing so close together, in many cases it's hard to tell them apart," said Donald Straszheim, the former chief economist at Merrill Lynch who runs his own economic research firm.

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In any case, Republicans are clearly gloating over the Democrats' failure to capitalize on pocketbook issues. "For weeks now the Democrats have been arguing that voters would receive their 401(k), IRA and other investment fund reports, see the carnage and blame Republicans," said a recent report from Republican polling firm Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates. Fat chance, the firm said, pointing to polls it conducted in several dozen Congressional districts.

The polling outfit found that more than two-thirds of likely voters in battleground districts own a 401(k) or IRA -- but far from blaming the GOP administration for the slumping market, the poll showed equity owners lean solidly Republican, with the typical likely voters supporting generic GOP candidates by 51% to 36%.

The 'Downturn Divide'

Meanwhile, Democratic candidates prevailed only among the relatively small group of voters who rate both the economy and their own financial position as lousy. Fabrizio Vice President Robert Moran said the results showcase what he calls the "downturn divide": While the macroeconomy has suffered, most voters are actually doing reasonably well.

"Democrats have been hoping this was going to be like 1982, when Reagan was in office and the economy washed out a bunch of Republicans," said Moran. "But back then we had something like 10% unemployment. Now it's something closer to 5%. The underlying economic conditions aren't nearly as bad as some examples of when Democrats have actually won elections based on the economy."