President Joe Biden and his designated message-deliverers just got some crucial, last-minute insights — from a most unlikely source — Wednesday night. It made clear how they should be talking about the only issue that almost half of Americans say they really care about in this all-over-the-lot midterm campaign.
Yep, we are talking today about the issue you assumed Democratic strategist James Carville made unforgettable with his famous 1992 campaign warning: “It’s the economy, stupid.” And you probably assumed that even today’s change-resistant pols in high places would shift into rethink after a recent New York Times poll showed us that old campaign cockroach is still bugging us, big-time. Economy/Inflation was cited as the prime concern of whopping 44% of the poll’s respondents. (Comparison alert: Every other issue that has been massively covered by our news media was mentioned as the major concern by a mere 5% or fewer respondents.)
On Wednesday night, a welcome insight on how to handle that economy/inflation issue was served up on CNN by a sharp and assertive conservative Republican, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, who of course never intended to help the Democrats. But it slipped by unnoticed and got quickly lost in the nightly gush that pours out of our Great News Funnels.
