Campaign messaging from the 1992 Bill Clinton Presidential campaign may be more applicable than ever.
I was pumped up to vote for President for the first time. It was 1992 and it was Clinton vs. Bush vs. Perot. It was the moment before the dawn of the internet. It was corded phones, square TV screens, bulky computers, CDs and CNN.
I voted. It mattered. I watched the inauguration on TV. I was happy to move beyond the Reagan/Bush era, because that was all I really knew from the White House. My grandparents were Teamsters. I knew my politics before I knew multiplication.
It was not until years later, maybe in 1996, that I watched “The War Room,” the documentary that peeled back the onion on the Clinton campaign machine leading up to the 1992 victory. James Carville, Clinton’s campaign manager, was lighting; the ragin’ cajun. Infectious stare, Bayou drawl and whiplash energy. All in one. I wanted to be him.
Carville had a lot to say about everything. Had an answer to every attack. He was full of buzzwords and could fire-off simple, sharp responses to every question. He kept the campaign on the tracks, despite the constant fear that Bill Clinton could rerail everything.
Part of the Carville’s genius as a strategist was his centering of the campaign on three basic messaging points that served to frame the debate, keep everyone on message and create aspiration. Those points, created thirty years ago, are incredibly relevant today: “change vs. more of the same,” “the economy, stupid” and “don't forget health care.”
As the economy may be bending towards recession, “the economy, stupid,” continues to become a siren of what may be the bigger issue facing voters and campaigns in 2022. In a lot of ways, we are heading towards the same economic conditions of the early 1990s. Campaigns in this era need to refocus back on the local economics. Gas prices. Food. Wages. Housing. Infrastructure. All fundamental needs.
Hitched along with the economy is the reckoning that workers, including families and young people, find themselves facing a pile of student debt, low wages and thinning healthcare benefits while corporate profits soared during the recession.
UC Berkeley’s recent study of California voters suggests the same, that 64% voters feel income taxes on the State and Federal level are too high. While taxes may always be considered too high by most, coupled with inflation, we are heading to a place where local elected officials will be accountable for Federal politics.
Each campaign and jurisdiction have different constituents, goals, strategies and messaging. That being said, one of the bigger issues that will loom over the 2022 election cycle is certainly the the economy. Closely connected to the economy is police funding, homelessness, housing , COVID aftermath and the climate disaster that is upon us, yikes!
It may benefit these same campaigns to reach back into the campaign time machine and reflect on whether or not it’s still “the economy, stupid.” I think it is. I think James Carville is right now, just as he was 30 years ago.
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