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WSJ: Americans prefer Dems to GOP in handling key economic issues


You read that right. From the Wall Street Journal, “GOP is Losing Grip On Core Business Vote: Deficit Hawks Defect As Social Issues Prevail; ‘The Party Left Me’”:

WSJ: Americans prefer Dems over GOP in handling economic issues

The most prominent sign of dissatisfaction has come from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, long a pillar of Republican Party economic thinking. He blasted the party’s fiscal record in a new book. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, he said: “The Republican Party, which ruled the House, the Senate and the presidency, I no longer recognize.”

Some well-known business leaders have openly changed allegiances. Morgan Stanley Chairman and Chief Executive John Mack, formerly a big Bush backer, now supports Democratic front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. John Canning Jr., chairman and chief executive of Madison Dearborn Partners, a large private-equity firm, now donates to Democrats after a lifetime as a Republican. Recently, he told one Democratic Party leader: “The Republican Party left me” — a twist on a line Ronald Reagan and his followers used when they abandoned the Democratic Party decades ago to protest its ’60s and ’70s-era liberalism.

However, here’s the crux of why they wrote the article:

…polling data confirm business support for Republicans is eroding. In the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in September, 37% of professionals and managers identify themselves as Republican or leaning Republican, down from 44% three years ago.

Ah, yes, numbers are our friends. Or your friends. Or whomever can manipulate them’s friends. I looked but couldn’t find a trace of the poll. Maybe it’s in the print version of the WSJ?

The article is very, very long. I hope Tom reads it and opine about it. It’s not really my bailiwick as they say. But it is fascinating.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 4:31 pm October 2nd, 2007 in Business, Congress, Elections, Government, Politics, WH2008 

Comments

One Response to “WSJ: Americans prefer Dems to GOP in handling key economic issues”

  1. 1 Paul on October 2nd, 2007 8:14 pm

    Jill:

    Coming from the corporate world, my sense is that business leaders support the party in power when things are going well, and the opposition party when things aren’t going so well. The motivation is purely profit driven, not philosophical.

    So if my theory is true, why are business leaders thinking things aren’t going well when the stock market is hitting record highs?

    Could be that corporate profitability and share prices aren’t really linked as tightly as some would think. The crazy days of IPOs and executive stock options creating overnight zillionaires is over for this cycle, and at the same time, access to debt funding is more difficult with all the whacks the financial industry is taking with the mortgage fiasco.

    So to keep your company going and make your bonus, you actually need to make a profit so you can fund your business from operations. That’s hard work. So hard that it must be someone else’s fault that the economy is in this situation.

    Must be the guys in charge in Washington.

    Throw the bums out.

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