The Ordinary President

I think that Dan Mitchell is asking the wrong questions in his musings over President Obama’s economic legacy:

I’m not a big fan of Obamanomics. We’re going through the weakest recovery since the Great Depression. Income and wages have been stagnant, particularly when compared to previous expansions. And while the unemployment rate has finally come down, that’s in part a consequence of people dropping out of the labor force.

The net result is that our nation’s output is far lower than it would be if economic performance had simply matched the average for previous business cycles. And that translates into foregone income for American households.

You don’t judge a president by the events that occur on his watch but by what he or someday, possibly, she does. I don’t give President Obama as much credit as he or his supporters do for saving the economy for several reasons. First, it’s not entirely clear to me that the economy has been saved and, secondly, he’s largely continued his predecessor’s policies. I won’t give Bush credit for saving the economy and consequently I can’t give Obama credit for doing the same things Bush was doing. After all TARP, Keynesian pump-priming, and saving GM were all Bush policies, too. Like it or not Keynesian pump-priming is the prevailing wisdom in Washington. Under Bush (or McCain) it would undoubtedly have taken a slightly different form but it would have been essentially the same policy. What part of economy policy belongs uniquely to Obama? “Cash for Clunkers” which I think we should all agree was an error.

The ordinary president does what his predecessor or opponent would have done under the same circumstances. The extraordinary president does something different. Something, well, extraordinary. I gave Franklin Roosevelt credit for his actions during the Great Depression of the 1930s because he worked tirelessly, ceaselessly, and ineluctably trying different strategies. That’s what the American people saw at the time and that’s why they elected him to the presidency four times. He was extraordinary.

Excluding that he has been the U. S.’s first mixed race president, the most extraordinary thing about him has been just how ordinary he his. Despite the fulminations of his political opponents a big reason that Mitt Romney was unable to prevail against him was that they were largely espousing the same policies. They were both pretty ordinary as far as mainstream American politicians go and all other things being equal Americans tend to re-elect their presidents.

I agree with Michael Moore to this extent. I think that, barring some catastrophe over the next year and a half, 100 years hence Barack Obama will be remembered as the first mixed race president, a harbinger of things to come in a country that is largely mixed race.