Timing and blame: A history lesson
In any case, in the 1894 midterm elections, most voters thought they knew whom to shoot. Republicans made an astounding gain of 130 seats in the House -- more than doubling their numbers of two years before. This was the largest GOP gain in history.
The Crash of 1929 occurred less than eight months after Herbert Hoover was inaugurated, during a decade overwhelmingly dominated by the Republican Party and its policies. Voters had to wait three terrible years of almost continual decline before they could “shoot” Hoover, and replace him with Franklin D. Roosevelt.Continue Reading
By the time FDR took office, 40 months after the Crash, no one had any doubt which party was responsible for the destruction of the economy. And they had not forgotten -- nor could they be persuaded otherwise -- when they voted in 1934.
The Crash of 2008 began roughly two months before the presidential election, and only five months before Barack Obama took office. Initially, most voters blamed the Republicans. But Obama took power so soon after the collapse that it became easy for skilled political strategists to get many people to forget whose policies produced the disaster -- and to start thinking that President Obama’s actions somehow caused what happened before he took office.
The numbers tell the story:
1894: Collapse occurs two months after the Democratic president takes office. Voters are clear about whom to blame --the new guys -- and they “shoot” the Democrats en masse.
1934: Collapse occurs 40 months before the Democratic president takes office. Voters are clear about whom to blame --the old guys -- and they “shoot” even more Republicans.
2010: Collapse occurs four months before the Democratic president takes office; voters are confused about whom to blame -- the old guys or the new guys -- and they shoot wildly at everyone in office. But more Democratic targets are available.
Forty months is long enough to establish a clear memory of who’s to blame.
It appears that four months may not be.
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Robert S. McElvaine