Oct 30th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Economist for Obama
The Economist endorses Barack Obama. Of course, as commenters were pointing out yesterday The Economist’s pattern is to always endorse the non-incumbent party. Thus Clinton, Dole, Bush, Kerry, Obama. So it hardly qualifies as a huge surprise.
28 Responses to “Economist for Obama”
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October 30th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Did I ever mention what a truly awesome and uncannily insightful and prescient magazine The Economist is?
October 30th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I guess the question is… why?
October 30th, 2008 at 11:51 am
You’ll also notice (oddly, I think) that Andrew Sullivan has the exact same endorsement record of always backing the challenging party. Matt, I believe you said:
Turns out that you already have.
October 30th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Maybe Obama will finally get rid of those damned Corn Laws.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
That’s a nice picture. I’m really looking forward to looking at Obama’s mug for the next four to eight years. I’m looking forward to listening to him. I’m looking forward to not being embarassed about him. I’m looking forward to not shouting obscentities at my radio or television during State of the Union addresses. I’m looking forward to thinking of the occupant of the oval office as “my president.” I’m looking forward to thinking of the President as a fellow citizen, instead of a fifth columnist.
I hope I feel this good in a week…
October 30th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
all Serious people read the nonpartisan Economist.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
You’ll also notice (oddly, I think) that Andrew Sullivan has the exact same endorsement record of always backing the challenging party. Matt, I believe you said:
If you can identify any actual human beings who exhibited this voting pattern, I’d be fascinated to talk to them.
Turns out that you already have.
I don’t think Andrew Sullivan can vote in US elections.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
wait, does this mean the Economist has gone socialist???? WFT?
October 30th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
The Economist’s pattern is to always endorse the non-incumbent party.
I think someone in the previous thread pointed out a much more likely scenario: The Economist always by default supports the conservative candidate, until conservatives become such abysmal fuck-ups that they feel compelled to support the liberal opposition. Since this is always true of modern conservatives, the Economist will always end up supporting a Democrat when conservatives are in power but always take a gamble on supporting the conservative when a Democrat is in power in the hope that this time, maybe Republicans won’t be as big screwups as they’ve historically been.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
The Economist’s pattern is to always endorse the non-incumbent party.
I guess the question is… why?
Because The Economist is a Maverick.
But seriously, folks. It fits them to have always endorsed the out-party because they are comfortable with multiple questions always having the same answer. The answer is usually, ‘more trade, less regulation’.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
sullivan also supported reagan in both 1980 and 1984, and i think there’s little doubt he’ll endorse obama in 2012. Fancrushes over consistency.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
That Obama can “bring people together” is no platitude but turns out to be true in some of the most obvious ways.
For example, I’m a progressive and disagree with Andrew Sullivan, _The Economist_, and the staff of the _Financial Times_ about a number of things (indeed, about most things). And yet we can all agree that Obama is without doubt the better candidate for president. In this case excellence becomes a criterion that trumps many ideological differences.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I like the Economist because it truly gives me a world view. I too am looking forward to civility in government and a return to intelligence in the White House. I am mortally tired of cowboys, mavericks and oil men. If the Economist backs Obama, well that’s just good news. Won’t it be wonderful when “Liberal” is no longer an epithet?
October 30th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
I wonder if Sarah Palin will cancel her subscription when she reads this.
October 30th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
McCain had the economist’s endorsement in the bag. In the primaries it seemed that McCain was preferred to Obama by a somewhat substantial margin. But instead of moving to the center McCain went crazy and stupid and dishonest and mean and dumb. McCain could have run a typical campaign. He could have pointed his service to his country, Obama’s inexperience, and called for centrist responsibility. He could have been the McCain he spent 10 years pretending to be. He probably still would have lost but he would have gotten the economist’s nod he would have still had a solid reputation and he would have made things a lot closer.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
This is a bit of an eleventh hour endorsement for this magazine. Up until last week’s issue they “preferred” McCain because Obama, they say, favors protectionist economic policies and regulating trade and banking.
October 30th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
“The Economist’s pattern is to always endorse the non-incumbent party.”
Which is directly connected to their tendency to parrot the lame conventional wisdom on just about everything in American politics. It’s a small kind of fun to hear different parties being endorsed in your newsmagazine from cycle to cycle, but I hope no one in the world is paying for the Economist for their coverage of *American* politics.
“He could have been the McCain he spent 10 years pretending to be. He probably still would have lost but he would have gotten the economist’s nod he would have still had a solid reputation and he would have made things a lot closer.”
Yes! Although, we should not therefore conclude that McCain made the wrong choice. Sure, his campaign has been kind of insulting. But you don’t take command of the efforts, resources and hopes of millions of conservatives just so that you can deliberately run a close, dignified, losing campaign.
October 30th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
The economist is rather annoying about this. They were unbelievably Pro-Bush in 2003 and 2004, then backed Kerry in the last issue before the election. They’ve been essentially pro-McBush until now. The latest issue has an article about what McBush needs to do to win. I’d like to see the number of times the word “Obama” came up in the last 6 months versus “McCain”.
I canceled my subscription to the economist for quite a while. Well, at least until I found a way to get it for $48/yr. Not worth getting a magazine for $100/yr when you cannot read any of the editorials.
October 30th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Yes, Colatina. The Economist is consistently and laughably bad on American politics. I think it has a lot to do with their subscriber base in the US – Center-Right. And yes, they loved the putative ‘other’ McCain (remember their cover story a few months back called ‘Bring Back the Real McCain’?). They either can’t or don’t dare acknowledge that there is only one McCain, and this is he.
October 30th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
First, note that the Economist commissioned a survey of professional economists, and the results strongly favored Obama
http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?STORY_ID=12342127
More generally, I think the Economist is a great magazine for the depth to which the cover international affairs. Their coverage of American politics is actually quite sparse and doesn’t contribute a whole lot — I thank them for that.
They’ve been strongly critical of Bush for a while now. A few months ago, they ran an editorial saying that Iraq is looking good, but the war still wasn’t worthwhile (even though they had initially supported it). They initially liked both McCain and Obama, but have been critical over McCain’s inflammatory campaigning and other pandering to the right.
October 30th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Dear god, people — read the endorsement before snarking. They praise Obama’s calm and belittle McCain’s mercurial actions and sleaze during this campaign. In 2004 they backed Kerry because they were fed up with Bush’s incompetence. It isn’t simple contrarianism.
October 31st, 2008 at 11:16 am
In 2004 they backed Kerry because they were fed up with Bush’s incompetence. It isn’t simple contrarianism.
In 2004 they backed Kerry, but did so with much hand-wringing, and said the decision was very close. It was a tortured decision on their part, by their own admission. Now, it’s one thing to have been ambivalent in 2000, but quite another to have been so in 2004. I wouldn’t call them ‘contrarian’ so much as simply fatuous. Their coverage of US politics is not to be taken seriously. They are a very elaborate single-issue cohort.
Their coverage of news in the rest of the world is worth reading sometimes so long as you stay aware of their libertarian bias (with which there is nothing wrong, since they are forthright about it). I don’t share their simplistic political worldview, but that doesn’t make their copious reporting worthless by any means. On the other hand, there are plenty of other ready sources for world news these days, so….who really needs them anymore, at least for that? BTW, I think their book reviews and science news are the best parts of the magazine.
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