The year was 1992. Incumbent President George H.W. Bush faced what would turn out to be an unbeatable challenge in young Arkansan upstart Bill Clinton, whose campaign has been remembered for its broad centrism as well as its ushering-in of a new generation and style of American presidential leadership. Clinton’s campaign manager, James Carville, was instrumental in framing Americans’ first national perception of their soon-to-be President. Carville’s philosophy on political strategy is incisive. In a lecture on the 1992 election in which he was so central, Carville states that ‘[his] view of politics is you have to stay basic, [focused], and disciplined.’ In the so-called ‘war room’, where Clinton’s campaign was headquartered, Carville hung a sign with three simple, important points for all campaign staffers to keep in mind:
“Change vs. more of the same.
The economy, stupid.
Don’t forget health care.”
Carville’s intuition on simplicity seems to have remained an important part of contemporary American politics; simple and pointed slogans, from ‘Yes, We Can,’ to ‘Make America Great Again,’ to ‘Build Back Better,’ have become campaign hallmarks and calling cards for particular epochs of American political history. Carville’s ‘The economy, stupid’ quip blew up in the 1992 election and thereafter, becoming an endlessly recycled (don’t forget to listen to the audio clip!) catchphrase to signify not only the predominant importance of economic issues to voters but also the ostensible objectivity of economic data.
Ironically though, in the same lecture, Carville tells us that ‘liars figure and figures lie,’ while explaining that economic data, though objective, can be presented in various ways and leveraged for partisan gamesmanship. Furthermore, though business and economic issues are and have historically been important to voters, recent research suggests that this decades-old axiom of democratic politics is changing somewhat; given hyperpartisanship in the US and elsewhere, voters now more than ever before seem to be more evenly prioritizing business and economic issues with social issues and issues of identity.
In such an environment, not only is it critically important to understand how “kitchen table” economic issues permeate every facet of our lives, identities, and society, but it is also critically important to acknowledge that such economic issues inherently transcend the kitchen table, deserving more background, contemplation, and attention than such issues could ever receive in the raucous frenzy that is an American presidential campaign.
The economy, stupid. is an attempt to do just that. Through longer-form, op-ed-style essays, I will go deep on business and economics headlines, highlighting points of interest and giving the issues facing the American economy and global economy the thought, research, and analysis they deserve.
I’m Arlen, a finance professional with degrees in business and global affairs. I’ve completed junior investment banking stints at a bulge bracket American bank (where I focused on financial institutions) and a boutique investment bank in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. I also freelance as a business copywriter and research analyst. In addition to English, I speak and regularly practice Mandarin Chinese. Among other things (and in no particular order), I love America, the world, capitalism, history, data, economics, the Internet, Wikipedia, writing, books (nonfiction especially), movies, music (live music and concerts especially), museums, art, and life more broadly. This project is an attempt for me to share some of my passions with you in an organized way – thank you for being interested in my passions.
In this video, embedded below, James Carville gives us another incisive lesson, but this time about something much more profound than political strategy. He tells us what happens when we combine labor and love. He tells us that ‘outside of a person’s love, the most sacred thing that they can give is their labor.’ I hope you learn as much from my passions and my writing – respectively my loves and my labor – as I do.