"The economy, stupid" is a phrase that was coined by

James Carville Chester James Carville Jr. (born October 25, 1944) is an American political consultant, author, and occasional actor who has strategized for candidates for public office in the United States and in at least 23 nations abroad. A Democrat, he is an ...

in 1992. It is often quoted from a televised quip by Carville as "It’s the economy, stupid." Carville was a strategist in

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

's successful 1992 presidential campaign against incumbent

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

. His phrase was directed at the campaign's workers and intended as one of three messages for them to focus on. The others were "Change vs. more of the same" and "Don't forget health care." Clinton's campaign advantageously used the then-prevailing recession in the United States as one of the campaign's means to successfully unseat George H. W. Bush. In March 1991, days after the ground war in Kuwait, 90% of polled Americans approved of President Bush's job performance.Agiesta, Jennifer
Approval Highs and Lows
. ''The Washington Post''. 2007-07-24. But during the following year, Americans' opinions turned sharply; 64% of polled Americans disapproved of Bush's job performance in August 1992.

History

In order to keep the campaign on message, Carville hung a sign in Bill Clinton's

Little Rock ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...

campaign headquarters that read: #Change vs. more of the same. #The economy, stupid #Don't forget health care. Although the sign was intended for an internal audience of campaign workers, the second phrase became a ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with ''de jure'' ("by la ...

'' slogan for the Clinton

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

campaign.

Legacy

The phrase has become a

snowclone A snowclone is a cliché and phrasal template that can be used and recognized in multiple variants. The term was coined as a neologism in 2004, derived from Journalese, journalistic clichés that referred to the number of Inuit words for snow. H ...

repeated often in American political culture, usually starting with the word "it's" and with commentators sometimes using a different word in place of "economy". Examples include "It's the deficit, stupid!" "It's the corporation, stupid!" "It's the math, stupid!", and "It's the voters, stupid!""It's the Voters, Stupid"
''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' 2008-01-21

References

{{reflist, 30em 1992 United States presidential election American political catchphrases Snowclones Bill Clinton 1992 neologisms

History

Legacy

See also

References