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 And some are striking a sympathetic tone with lower-income workers
in a way that contrasts with four years ago when Mitt Romney
struggled to overcome perceptions that he was largely the candidate
of the wealthiest Americans. Then, Republican nominee Romney had the
luxury of being able to hammer President Barack Obama with an
unemployment rate of more than 8 percent.
Now, with the jobless rate at 5.5 percent, the 18 Republican White
House hopefuls who gathered this weekend in the key early primary
state of New Hampshire faced the challenge of arguing the country
needs new economic stewardship even as the worst of the downtown has
passed.
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said that simply blasting Obama’s
economic policies would not suffice. “We will not win if we just
complain about how bad things are,” he told a crowd at a hotel
ballroom.
Bush, who has yet to formally announce his candidacy, tried to build
a message around moving the economy to a firmer standing, arguing
that many Americans still feel financially insecure. Economic
growth, he said, needs to be at a rate “where people no longer
believe that the end is near, that their children will have more
opportunities than they have, that they’re willing to take risks
again.”
Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Bush and other contenders are
taking the right tack.
“We do not have the full-time jobs we once had. We do not have the
upwardly mobile economy that we once had,” Luntz told Reuters. “The
public is still afraid that we are one bump in the road away from a
serious recession.”
The U.S. economy grew by 2.4 percent last year, the largest increase
since the depths of the recession in 2010. Bush would like to see
the economy hum at closer to 4 percent and frequently points out
that the rate of new business formation has dropped steadily since
the 1980s and that business deaths now eclipse starts.
MIDDLE-CLASS UNCERTAINTY
Even as the economy steadily added jobs, wages have remained flat.
Earnings grew just 1.7 percent in 2014, according to U.S. government
data, well below the 3.5 percent that economists say is needed to
reap the benefits of an expanded economy.
The public mood remains sour. Sixty percent of Americans in March
said the economy was on the wrong track, according to Reuters/IPSOS
polling data, although that was an improvement from 71 percent in
May 2014.
With New Hampshire’s primary still nine months away, the weekend
provided an early glimpse at economic ideas that have had little
chance to be fully formed. Most of the campaigns have yet to bring
on extensive policy staffs.
But there is some urgency: In the first days of her candidacy last
week, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton made it clear that she
will make the plight of the middle class central to her campaign.
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Some Republicans at the gathering tried to address concern about
rising income inequality and the struggles of the nation’s middle
class to keep pace with the cost of living.
Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry contended that it was unfair that
“large corporations don’t pay taxes but single moms working two jobs
do.”
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said millions of Americans no longer
believe they can achieve financial success.
“They’re living paycheck to paycheck. They have what was a great job
10 years ago, but now it doesn't go far enough,” he said. “They
literally live one unexpected expense away from disaster.”
Rubio, who announced his run for the White House earlier this month,
went the furthest in trying to reach voters who aren’t benefiting
from the recovery. He talked of the importance of vocational
training programs and suggested that college isn’t the right path
for all students, especially given the enormous debt load than many
end up carrying.
He invoked images of less affluent Americans: Not only his father,
who worked for years as a bartender, but a person using free Wi-Fi
at a cafe to launch a business, or another taking two buses to get
to a job. Rubio has proposed a tax plan that he says would make it
easier for those of modest means to improve their lives, “so a
receptionist making $9 an hour can become a paralegal making $60,000
a year.”
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has proposed a federal flat tax rate
and creating “economic freedom” zones for distressed areas such as
Detroit and Appalachia, said Republicans had to do more to reach
working-class voters.
“If you want to win elections, you’ve got to get the people who work
for the people who own businesses,” he told the crowd.
(Editing by Stuart Grudgings)
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