Paul Krugman: Desperately Seeking Seriousness; Why the economic crisis worked to Obama's advantage

[DeepModem Mom]

Desperately Seeking Seriousness
Published: October 26, 2008

Maybe the polls and the conventional wisdom are all wrong, and John McCain will pull off a stunning upset. But right now the election looks like a blue sweep: a solid victory, maybe even a landslide, for Barack Obama; large Democratic gains in the Senate, possibly even enough to produce a filibuster-proof majority; and big Democratic gains in the House, too.

Yet just six weeks ago the presidential race seemed close, with Mr. McCain if anything a bit ahead. The turning point was the middle of September, coinciding precisely with the sudden intensification of the financial crisis after the failure of Lehman Brothers. But why has the growing financial and economic crisis worked so overwhelmingly to the Democrats’ advantage?

As someone who’s spent a lot of time arguing against conservative economic dogma, I’d like to believe that the bad news convinced many Americans, once and for all, that the right’s economic ideas are wrong and progressive ideas are right. And there’s certainly something to that. These days, with even Alan Greenspan admitting that he was wrong to believe that the financial industry could regulate itself, Reaganesque rhetoric about the magic of the marketplace and the evils of government intervention sounds ridiculous.

In addition, Mr. McCain seems spectacularly unable to talk about economics as if it matters. He has attempted to pin the blame for the crisis on his pet grievance, Congressional budget earmarks — which leaves economists scratching their heads in puzzlement. In the immediate aftermath of the Lehman failure, he declared that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong,” seemingly unaware that he was closely echoing what Herbert Hoover said after the 1929 crash.

But I suspect that the main reason for the dramatic swing in the polls is something less concrete and more meta than the fact that events have discredited free-market fundamentalism. As the economic scene has darkened, I’d argue, Americans have rediscovered the virtue of seriousness. And this has worked to Mr. Obama’s advantage, because his opponent has run a deeply unserious campaign....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/opinion/26krugman.html?hp

[Skittles]

1. except for the fact that I would not mind having a beer with Obama

Mr. Krugman is dead-on as usual

[snot]

2. actually i find Krugman as usual behind the curve; but at least he's honest.

pls don't get me wrong; i'm very glad he's out there. but it's tragically symptomatic that he's among the best we've got with any mainstream cred.

[Patiod]

3. but, but, but, he's a Bush - hater!

I heard some right-wing idiot try to discredit Krugman's Nobel win by saying "all he's ever done is hate Bush", and so those horrible Europeans are just trying to legitimize his Bush-hating. (as if Bush-hating were in any way irrational)

[Puzzler]

4. "... reality has a clear liberal bias."

What a great concluding quote!

[Autonomy]

5. reality has a clear liberal bias

And that’s bad for Mr. McCain and conservatives in general: right now, to paraphrase Rob Corddry, reality has a clear liberal bias.

I'M pretty sure it was Stephen Colbert who said that. He said it at the Washington Press dinner thingie back in spring, 2006.