Now David Malpass weighs in on behalf of a strong dollar, just as I did last week. (As Wayne Jett also did last week.) Here’s what people are missing: Dollar strength is the biggest sleeping campaign issue this year!!! This is shaping up as another year in which the old Carville line, “It’s the economy, stupid!”, is accurate. Voters’ biggest concern is the economy. But voters don’t really understand economic cause and effect. They DO, however, have a sort of visceral sense, born of patriotism, that the dollar should be strong. They may not even know what that means, but they believe it. To call for a strong dollar, as a politician, is shorthand for calling for a restoration of stability, low prices, and economic supremacy. It’s a perfect subject for effective demagoguery — except that what sounds like demagoguery in this case would actually be based not on lies or half-truths, but on sound economics. Calling for a “strong dollar policy” is both good politics and good economics (and good government). The candidate who figures this out (if any of them do so) will be the candidate who wins at least the GOP nomination, and probably the presidency.
