When US political strategist James Carville, then a senior aide to presidential candidate Bill Clinton, declared that one of the keys to winning the 1992 election was “the economy, stupid”, he was stating one of politics’ most fundamental truths.
Dozens of elections over several decades had reliably shown that voters don’t react well to economic woes and will punish the incumbent party, while a government that leaves the electorate feeling richer stands a good chance of fending off a challenge.
But if Carville had given the same advice to any of Clinton’s successors as Democratic presidential candidate, both its veracity and effectiveness would have been much less clear.