Santorum Talks Economics, But It Doesn’t Matter

In every presidential election there are always two issues at the forefront: jobs and the economy. There is an established rule of thumb based on these issues. If the economy is good and the supply for jobs is higher than the demand, the current president will be re-elected. If this is not true, the current president cannot expect a second term without a fight.

          According to Voice of America (voanews.com), during the final quarter of 2004 “the U.S. economy registered stronger than expected growth in the final three months of the year, taking the 2004 growth rate to 4.4 percent, the best showing in five years.” This is consistent with the rule of thumb. According to Kiplinger (http://www.kiplinger.com), the US economy is expected to grow by 2.3%, which is greater than the 1.7% trod in 2011.If this holds true and the rule of thumb holds, the current presidential incumbent may see an easy re-election. However nothing is free nowadays, so the fight as previously mentioned comes down to two important issues: economy and job outlook.

It is becoming more apparent that Romney and Santorum will become the last Republican candidates standing, before a final one is chosen to represent the Republican Party. The table below highlights this assumption by showing the latest stats on the Republic primaries are provided by the Huffington Post (http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/) with updates provided every five minutes.

	Romney	Santorum	Gringrich	Paul
States Won	4	4	1	0
Delegates	123	72	32	19
Votes	1,183,384	569,830	836,885	337,787
GOP Endorsements	100	3	12	4
Fundraising	$63,650,764	$6,698,440	$18,320,430	$31,083,281
PAC Support	$2,217,278	$3,611,937	$7,562,619	$3,683,027
PAC Attacks	$5,557,001	$2,535,187	$17,411,757	$133,332

Michigan has become a battle ground for these two potential candidates, while Paul and Gringrich’s appearances in Michigan remain with little or no mention in the media. An article from Pennlive.com discussed Rick Santorum’s visited Muskegon to talk about economics. He promised to “revive manufacturing, cut taxes, and shrink government.” Everyone applauded but this is not that statement’s first time in the election road show. If the current economy and job outlook will play the most important role in the election, it doesn’t matter which candidate will be selected as the Republican candidate or what their economic plan is. According to a quote from the New York Times article “Through an Economic Lens, an Election Too Close to Call” written by Jeff Sommer, C. Fair - the Yale economics professor – predicts Obama can expect “50.17 percent of the vote, giving him a margin so small that it falls within the 2.5 percent “standard error” of the equations.’
"Interpreting the Predictive Uncertainty of Elections" published in the Journal of Politics serves as a forecast for how political parties should spend their money. The article operates with the assumption that” ranking assumption concerning dependencies across U.S. states.” This assumption was tested and proved valid in the 2004 Presidential election and the 2006 Senate election. If valid, the political parties should focus all of their money on a few states. This was done in the 2004 election.

Michigan ranks 8^th concerning the number of electorate votes the state holds, but Michigan happens to have voted Democratic consistently since 1992. Discussions surrounding the other candidates’ lack of presence in Michigan have begun to rise in the local news. If the theories asserted by "Interpreting the Predictive Uncertainty of Elections" and “Through an Economic Lens, an Election Too Close to Call” hold true, the update from Pennlive.com is essentially a waste of time. Despite the role of the economy and job outlook, all the the pre-candidates should focus advertising dollars in Michigan. Michigan is considered to be a medium sized state but it can be a competitive state. Prior to 1992, Michigan was a Republican state for a few years. More importantly, no Republican candidate will win if the economy holds steady. So, the campaigns are sure to be negative in the upcoming months if the economy remains healthy.


Inspiration for this blog is from the MLive article "Presidential Hopeful Rick Santorum, in Muskegon, Outlines Differences with Obama, Romney. (www.mlive.com). Photo credit is also given to the source.