Economy Could Yet Cast The Final Vote

The first (and maybe most decisive) news of the day came not from New York or California, not from Georgia or West Virginia, but from the Institute for Supply Management.

The Institute tracks business purchasing of everything from toilet paper to laptop computers. On Super-Duper Tuesday, it reported that the service sector of the U.S. economy had contracted for the first time in nearly five years. Many economists interpreted this news as proof that the U.S. economy is indeed entering a recession. If the U.S. does downshift from the economic anxiety of this winter to outright economic distress, that change may matter fully as much as any outcome of Tuesday's primaries, and state conventions.

Bad economic news is good news for Hillary Clinton, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney -- but dangerous news for Barack Obama and John Mc-Cain. Here's why.

Democrats first. It is often said that the Democratic party is split between beer drinkers and wine drinkers.

Or rather, between the guys in union jackets and the professors in tweed jackets.

Hillary Clinton has artfully positioned herself as the beer candidate, winning much more union support than Barack Obama. If Obama specializes in soaring rhetoric, Hillary offers detailed policy prescriptions -- and nostalgia for the prosperous 1990s. And in tough times, Obama's grandiosity may sound less inspirational than Hillary's practical knowledge.

On the Republican side, John McCain acknowledged last November to David Brooks of The New York Times that he was not really "well-grounded in economics." He said something similar to a reporter covering the New Hampshire primary: "I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." If 2008 turns into a recession year, McCain's uncertainty on pocketbook issues will contrast painfully with Mitt Romney's virtuosity.

Exit polls suggested unexpectedly good news for the good-times candidates, Obama and McCain. If those results are born out by the final returns, both men may have cause to be grateful that this year's primaries came so early: Super Tuesday used to occur in March, by which time the U.S. economy may be more visibly troubled -- and candidates not well grounded in economics may discover themselves in less demand. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 370 points yesterday. Exit polls in 10 major battleground states found a majority of Republicans describing the economy as either poor or not so good.

These glowering economic tidings foreshadow trouble for the incumbent party. But you don't have to wait for November to hear the bad news for the GOP. In the Iowa caucuses last month, twice as many people participated on the Democratic side as on the Republican.

In New Hampshire, Democrats cast 45,000 more ballots than Republicans. In Michigan, barely half as many people participated in the Republican contest in 2008 as participated in 2004.

Democratic turnout in South Carolina -- South Carolina! -- was 20% higher than Republican. If these trends persist, they tell us something big and important: What may matter most in November is not the candidates, but the parties.

The strong voter preference for Democrats over Republicans visible in opinion polls is carrying over to actual voter behaviour. It is turnout more than results that reveal most about the mind of the American voter in 2008. That mind is pessimistic, hungry for change and preoccupied with domestic rather than foreign concerns.

It's not impossible for the Democrats to waste their advantages of course. The humour magazine The Onion recently ran a headline in which Democratic candidates pledged to give "hopelessness a chance." But if nothing is certain, the odds are clear. Whichever Republican emerges from yesterday's contest will enjoy only for an instant the status of a "winner." As soon as the confetti has hit the ground, he will revert to the status of the underdog.

That will be a comfortable situation for John McCain, at least -- for he is always happiest when battling against the odds. The Democratic winner, by contrast, will enjoy all the glamour and attention of a president-in-waiting.

If it's Obama, expect a surge of commentary about post-racial America. If it's Hillary -- brace yourself for a burst of stories about how exactly Bill Clinton has been spending the past eight years. One of the first of those stories hit the front page of The New York Times last week: It described how Bill Clinton helped a Canadian mining promoter to win a uranium concession in Kazakhstan in 2005, after which Clinton collected a US$31-million contribution to his private foundation. There will be more such stories --lots more.

As Americans grapple with their continuing political choices, they will have to begin to weigh considerations more serious than Hillary's tears and Obama's rhetoric; more immediately relevant than Romney's faith and McCain's heroic war record.