Can the Economy Save Mitt Romney?

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Anxiety Attack
The question Romney faces now is whether to stick to his new economic message as the race heads south — and whether it has any purchase outside of Michigan.

Knowing what to say to voters about the economy used to be an easy enough proposition for Republicans. "In the 1970s, it was inflation, and other than that, it's been jobs," says former Congressman Vin Weber, the Romney campaign's policy chairman. "Everybody learned their lines about the economy from a pretty simple script." So long as economic growth was somewhere north of 3%, unemployment under 5% and inflation contained at 3% or lower, Weber says, "we'd all look at them and say, 'That's all you need to know.'"

It's not that straightforward anymore. Voters see the larger forces at work. More and more economists are declaring the country to be on the verge of a recession, if not in one already, thanks to the collapse of the housing industry. There are trouble signs in just about every economic indicator: tapped-out consumers spending less and unemployment and inflation creeping up. All this is layered on top of worries over rising health-care costs, oil prices that have the typical household spending $1,300 more on gasoline a year than it did five years ago. Then there is the growing realization that globalization has given China and India some control over America's economic destiny, which means the future might feel uncertain even to voters who are doing just fine now.

But the precise nature of the economic anxiety that is keeping Americans awake at night can be very different, depending on who they are and where they live. Job losses are dragging down real estate prices in industrial-belt states like Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. But the reverse is true in states like California, Florida and Nevada, where the collapse of a speculative real estate market is threatening jobs. In the Northeast, voters are more concerned about the impact of soaring energy prices on the cost of their home heating oil. That makes it harder for presidential candidates to wrap their arms around the issue, even as voters are demanding that they do. "It is one of those periods where there is a lot of unevenness," says former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who is an adviser to the McCain campaign.

Democrats have always had an advantage when it comes to connecting with anxious and angry voters during bad economic times. The leading Democratic candidates have rushed forward in recent weeks with proposals for stimulus packages: one-time jolts designed to put government money quickly into the pockets of consumers. But they are largely academic exercises, given the fact that by the time the next President is inaugurated, it would probably be too late for any of them to do any good. What they are designed to do is signal to voters what kind of reflexes these candidates would have if they were facing this set of circumstances from the Oval Office.

Each candidate's proposal reflects the overall thrust of his or her campaign: John Edwards, who was first to release an economic-stimulus plan, has the most populist approach, focusing on such measures as assistance to unemployed workers and weatherizing homes. Hillary Clinton unveiled a detailed proposal shortly after her New Hampshire primary victory that showed off her economic expertise by putting more emphasis on the mortgage-lending crisis. And Barack Obama's solution was the most broad-based of the three, relying heavily on tax cuts and rebates to try to jump-start the economy.

That Republicans are even talking about the economy's woes at all is a relatively new development. As recently as October, in their debate in Dearborn, Mich., the candidates were content to point to positive job-growth numbers and downplay any problems as being the effect of local conditions that could be solved with the standard-issue G.O.P. economic prescriptions of tax cuts and less regulation.

Even now, most of them still haven't figured out how to address the economic concerns of voters. Says Romney adviser Weber: "Republicans are having a harder time finding their voice in this changed economic environment." When McCain was asked at the most recent Fox News debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C., what he might offer as a short-term, immediate fix to stave off a recession, he replied, "The first thing we need to do is stop the out-of-control spending." While curbing government spending is a good idea as a matter of policy, and a sure-fire applause line with Republicans, it is precisely the opposite of what many economists would prescribe for giving the economy an immediate boost.

One Republican abandoning the usual G.O.P. talking points has been Huckabee, who has sounded a more populist tone. "One thing a presidential candidate ought to be doing is acknowledging the 800-lb. gorilla that's in the room with us," he says. "It's astonishing to me when I hear the people in our party just act as if the economy is doing superb, and there's no issue to worry about. Too many Americans potentially could go into foreclosure on their homes. That has a rippling effect on the economy." Huckabee's prescriptions for giving the economy a quick boost, however, are hardly detailed or groundbreaking. The most he has done is issue a set of five principles that he calls "family, fed, fight, fuel, fair" and that sum up positions he had previously taken.

That sounds more like a bumper sticker than a platform, and it's not likely to be enough as the primary season heads forward into more states where voters are looking for real answers. It's still the economy, and no one can afford to be stupid.