Professor says election is about Trump's response to pandemic

By Scott Benjamin

Gary Rose says the 2020 presidential campaign pits an incumbent who will largely be judged by his response to the pandemic and the size of the ensuing economic rebound against a challenger who is viewed even by opponents as a statesmen but doesn't boost cable news ratings and lacks the vast social media presence of the incumbent.

"It is a referendum on the pandemic and the economy - that is front and center," Rose, the chairman of the Government Department at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, said of the race between incumbent Republican Donald Trump and the apparent Democratic nominee, Joe Biden.

UCLA Political Science Professor Lynn Vavreck wrote in her 2009 book, "The Message Matters," (Princeton University Press, 232 pages) that presidential candidates usually get elected either by running "a clarifying campaign" in which they distinguish themselves as the best person to manage the economy - as Reagan did in 1980 and 1984 - or an "insurgent" campaign as Trump did in 2016 that was largely based on "identity issues" and "racialized economics" in middle America at a time when the economy was actually expanding.

Rose indicated it is possible that Trump could get a second term by running "a clarifying campaign."

"If Trump can lead the country out of the pandemic and the economy starts to rebound, it will be to his advantage," the professor said. "I do think that there could be more consumer activity in the next three months and there could be some rebound."

Wall Street Journal columnist Gerald Seib wrote recently that "one prominent Democratic strategist frets privately: 'I worry they will think they need a businessman to get us out of that.' Mr. Trump already is honing this argument: I led a roaring economy once, and I can do it again."

The economic expansion that ended this spring was the longest in the 244-year history of the country.

In February, before the pandemic, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote that the president had reframed the election around whether, "Capitalism is working or is it basically broken."

Brooks declared, "Trump can run on the proposition that it’s basically working. He has a lot of evidence on his side: The unemployment rate is the lowest in decades. Wages are rising. The typical family income is higher than it has ever been."

The economic expansion began under former Democratic President Barack Obama, and in early 2016 New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman wrote that the unemployment rate had gone below 5 percent, lower than it had ever been under Ronald Reagan. The 2017 C-SPAN poll of professors, historians and journalists rated Obama eighth in economic management among the 44 former presidents.

Rose remarked, "The economy was moving in the right direction under Obama, but I do give Trump a good amount of the credit. Among other things, he has increased deregulation that has let businesses prosper."

Yet, is it possible that the possible business excesses of the last four decades might lead to animosity toward the wealthy in 2020 election?

Black Monday, the savings & loan crisis, corporate raiding in the late 1980s, the dot.com stock market bubble burst in 2000, the Enron financial accounting scandal in 2002, the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, excessive CEO salaries and what former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate John Delaney has called the largest wealth gap in the country's history.

Said Rose, "I don't think that the wealth gap and what is happening with the top 1 percent of the wage earners is going to be a major issue in the campaign. We've seen [Vermont U.S. Sen.] Bernie Sanders make that a signature issue in two straight campaigns and he didn't win the Democratic nomination."

" I think that people are concerned about wealth concentration, but the pandemic and the restart of the economy will be much bigger issues," he added. "It isn't going to be as big an issue as Bernie [Sanders] has suggested."

Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote on February 13, "Joe Biden isn't the answer. The whole point of his campaign was that he can beat Donald Trump. He can't beat Pete Buttigieg. He's never been good at running for president; in three tries he hasn't won a primary."

Just 19 days later, Biden was considered the presumptive nominee following wins in South Carolina on February 29 and a majority of the Super Tuesday primaries on March 3.

Rose said, "Before South Carolina, he didn't seem like a major player. I was writing him off."

In contrast to Obama's campaign in 2008, people were not standing in line to get into overcrowded arenas to hear Biden speak.

Rose explained, "I think there is little doubt that the reason for him being the apparent nominee is the realization that the practical consideration was to nominate someone who had the experience and positions on the issues to defeat Trump. I think that, in particular, the older Democrats did not want to have a repeat of 1972 when George McGovern lost in a landslide."

Rose praised Biden for being "more accommodating than [2016 Democratic nominee] Hillary Clinton was in embracing his vanquished foes from the primary. I think the polling shows that 12 percent of Bernie Sanders' supporters made a protest vote and cast their ballots for Trump in 2016. I don't think your going to see that in this election."

If elected, between 36 years in the U.S. Senate and eight years as vice president, Biden might have the most impressive resume of any president.

"I think that Biden's experience does matter to some extent," said Rose. "He has the ability to navigate legislation and forge coalitions. He is someone who values compromise. But all of that may not be as important today in an environment where it is hyper-partisan and you get something done simply by having a majority of the Congress in your own party."

He said that he believes that Biden would be more effective with Congress than Obama, who was rated 39th out of the 44 former presidents in relations with Congress in the 2017 C-SPAN poll.

"I think that Obama partly picked him as his running-mate because of his foreign policy experience," said the professor, who in 2019 wrote, "Connecticut In Crisis," (Academica Press, 302 pages) on the 2018 gubernatorial race and the state's declining economy.

Regarding Biden's choice of a vice presidential running mate, Rose said that U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) "would be the best selection."

"I think she has a similar policy perspective to Biden's and she would help him in some Midwest states that he will probably need to win," he explained.

However, Rachel Bitecofer, an assistant forecaster and senior fellow at the Niskanen Center wrote in the New York Times that, "A centrist, ticket-complementing candidate [such as Klobuchar] will likely bring diminishing returns."

She wrote that Hillary Clinton failed to carry independents with Tim Kaine as her "do no harm" choice. She wrote that the Democratic progressive flank was vulnerable.

Bitecofer stated that U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams would be among the better choices.

Rose said that Trump brings valuable assets into the general election campaign.

Jamie Dean of World Magazine wrote in May that Trump has "15 times as many followers on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as Biden."

Rose said, "This is not to say that Biden can't catch up," in his social media outreach. "But the president is very effective on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram."

"Trump has an enthusiastic base that will turnout for him at the polls," Rose added. "That is a problem for Biden. He doesn't have an enthusiastic base. People who don't like the system, who embrace outsiders are willing to go an vote for Trump."

Seib wrote in The Wall Street Journal that, "One of the secrets to the president's success is that people don't have to like him to vote for him." He stated that he won the unpopularity contest against Hillary Clinton and although it won't be as easy to "demonize" Biden his campaign is starting to try to do that.

Rose said, "People who are swing voters don't dislike Biden the same way some of them disliked Hillary Clinton - some see him as an elder statesman - but Trump may still be able to win over a number of those voters."

The late Louis Koenig, the presidential scholar at New York University wrote in his 1975 book "The Chief Executive," (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 452 pages) that there are three presidential categories - the literalists, such as William Taft who have a "chief obedience to the letter of the constitution" - the strong presidents, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, who are "precedent-makers" and "precedent-breakers" - and the middle ground, which are presidents who embody parts of those two other categories. Koenig wrote that many presidents are middle ground.

Rose said Trump " is in the category of a strong presidents. He definitely is not a literalist and he certainly is not middle ground."

Rose said he agrees with Victor Davis Hanson of the Herbert Hoover Institute at Stanford University who wrote in his 2019 book, "The Case For Trump," (Basic Books, 400 Pages) that, "So far Trump has proved to be one of the rare presidents who has attempted to do what he said he would."

Hanson's list includes a vibrant economy with the lowest unemployment in 50 years, a recalibration of trade, restoring America's deference with Russia and China, two U.S. Supreme Court justices confirmed and the approval of a slew of other federal judges.

Rose said Trump has annexed victories legislatively - through the congressional approval of the 2017 tax reform - and through executive orders in changing direction on the 2015 Iran weapons agreement and the Paris Climate Change pact.

"He made promises in 2016 and he has largely kept those promises, which has solidified his base," Rose said.

However, the professor said the electorate is still largely polarized.

Matthew Continetti wrote recently in the Washington Free Beacon that, "There has been no shift" in the polls since the pandemic began.

Remarked Rose, "It is almost a case of tribal politics."

He said there also is "a real potential" that Trump could be elected to a second term without winning the popular vote, as was the case in 2016, since the political map is divided in a way in which Biden could amass a popular vote victory from his popularity on the geographic coasts but lose the electoral college as Trump wins many flyover states.

"If it happens then I think there is going to be more discussion over the value of the electoral college," Rose said.

Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report has said that Trump could lose by five million votes and still take the electoral college.

On another topic, Matthew Garrahan of The Financial Times wrote in his 2018 New York Times review of former Obama White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer's book, "Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter and Trump," (Twelve, 304 pages) that, "The unsayable is now regularly said, and often by the commander in chief himself."

Garrahan added, "None of the books I've read since the [2016] election have considered what this means or says about America in 2018."

Rose explained, "This probably comes back to the hyper-partisanship. You are willing to overlook the negative traits of a candidate if you agree strongly with his positions. You accept what would have usually been unacceptable. In an earlier time, if Trump had publicly criticized John McCain's war record, he would have been out of the race."