RALEIGH — The chattering classes are exercising their mandibles about the California recall and its many political implications. Gleeful Republicans see their fortunes returning in the biggest political prize in the country and stressing the effectiveness of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s message on taxes and wasteful spending. Democrats are spinning the result as an anti-incumbent hissy fit by a public tired of economic stagnation, and say that the same fate could well befall President George W. Bush in next year’s national elections.
Actually, there’s something to both of these propositions. But not much. Primarily, the California result was an idiosynchratic one that stemmed from Gray Davis’ pander-fest, the state’s constitutional recall process, the celebrity culture, and last-minute issues (such as the driver’s license bill for illegal immigrants).
But there is at least one additional lesson that might be relevant outside of California. When a state’s voters are mad, they are likely to take it out on a governor — who is often the only public official with whom they are even passingly familiar.
Closer to home, Gov. Mike Easley and his aides have certainly been watching. Already preparing to defend his unattractive economic record by blaming President Bush and free-trade policies, Raleigh’s Teamo Supremo now have an even-more-salient reason to scramble and scurry.
Sunday’s Winston-Salem Journal provided further evidence of how Easley is planning to play this issue during the coming political season. Pressed by one of the GOP candidates for governor, Bill Cobey, to list what he had done to rejuvenate North Carolina’s economy, Easley’s staff pointed to his many letters and statements blaming national and international trends. Gambling that Bush’s recent fall back down to earth in public-opinion polls is due to electoral gravity, not precipitating events that will fade by November 2004, they are hoping to shift voters’ anger away from the politician they sort of know in Raleigh to the one they think they know in Washington.
It could well be the best political call they can make. But that doesn’t mean it will work. Voters may well recall who is in charge — if they can recall exactly who is in charge.
Consider what happened last fall. With a weak economy recovery and many voters citing economic issues to be their number-one concern, Bush and the candidates for whom he campaigned did quite well. Republicans retook the U.S. Senate and solidified their lead in the U.S. House. But many politicians did pay the price for the voters’ disaffection about the economy. These politicians resided in governors’ mansions from the Northeast to the Southwest. About half of the top jobs available changed hands from Democrat to Republican or vice versa. It didn’t much matter how talented the incumbents were — or, in open seats, how talented was the candidate defending the seat for his or her party. And it didn’t much matter whether the challenge had more money or better campaign ads. If he or she was at least credible and had enough of a profile for voters to notice, the foundations for victory were laid. Now, with California (belatedly) following suit and tossing out its incumbent, the pattern is unmistakable.
Governors are more personally identified with their own states’ economies than those running for legislative offices. Of course, the same thing is true for president vis-a-vis members of Congress.
The political question in 2004 will be whether North Carolinians believe that Bush or Easley bears the most responsibility for the girth of their pocketbooks. It would be impossible to hazard an educated guess about this, as it depends on intervening events foreign and domestic. Let’s put it this way, though: Easley doesn’t have history on his side.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.