“Well, I’ve always thought so,” Democratic strategist James Carville, who coined the phrase, said when asked during a recent CNN appearance whether he still believed the political philosophy for which he’ll be remembered.
“I’m starting to doubt myself a little bit, because this economy is quite good. Maybe it will kick in. And sometimes it takes a while for people to feel it,” he said.
In a follow-up interview with The Hill, the longtime adviser to former President Bill Clinton maintained he still believes “it’s the economy, stupid.” But he also voiced frustration with the president’s low approval ratings, despite some of the good economic news Democrats have seized on in recent weeks.
“The economic bounce back, it was had by any measure … but, for whatever reason, people are not connecting this, [they] don’t think that economy’s that good,” Carville told The Hill. “To the extent they think it’s good, they’re not giving the president’s policies very much credit for it.”
“I can understand how these guys are disheartened,” he said of the White House. “So you wonder, well, why this disconnect?”
Bruce Mehlman, a former assistant secretary at the Commerce Department under President George W. Bush, said the economy seems less of a factor today than it once did.
“Over the past two decades, traditional economic metrics have increasingly detached from presidential approval numbers and right-track or wrong-track sentiment, with the 2022 midterms the ultimate example,” said Mehlman, a founding partner at Mehlman Consulting. “The data screamed ‘giant wave,’ but many anxious voters preferred known incumbents over frightening disruptors.”
The Hill’s Alex Gangitano has more here.
