Subject: U.S. Economic Confidence Index Holds at -14
From: Brent Budowsky <[email-masked]>
To: John Podesta <[email-masked]>, Roy Spence <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2015 07:59:28 -0400

Suggest a close look at Gallup's economic confidence chart linked here, from 2014
until today.  The low was initially reached in September 2014, right before Democrats
were slaughtered in the midterms, then the numbers went higher, now the numbers
on economic confidence are back at the lows, almost identical to September 2014.

At this moment, listening to Hillary and reading the WSJ Saturday about Biden,
both Hillary and Biden are praising Obama so effusively they become essentially
champions of Obama's third term  and champions of the status quo economically
with lip service to change.

By contrast Bernie, Trump, and the leading GOP candidates are all positioning 
themselves as the candidates of change which, politically, is the right place to be.

The change candidates have clearly identified policies and directions for the
change they want.  Voters absorb this.  If Biden runs as openly for Obama's
third term as the WSJ suggests, he takes votes from Hillary and the establishment
side and hugely helps Bernie.  Listening to Hillary's speech at the New Hampshire
Democratic Convention, it sounded like a state of the union address, nothing
wrong with it, nothing memorable about it, if our criteria is change versus status
quo her speech was a list of general statements.

Look at the chart below, the low economic confidence right before Democrats
were shellacked, then the rise, then the sinking return today to the lows of the
pre-2014 GOP landslide numbers.

Democrats should not criticize Obama, but if we present ourselves praising
everything he has done and wanting to continue it, the odds favor voting for
an alternative who is the candidate of change and the real battle is whether
the change is progressive (not centrist or moderate, which connote status
quo) or conservative.  These numbers are shouting at Democrats:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/185459/economic-confidence-index-holds.aspx?g_source=WWWV7HP&g_medium=topic&g_campaign=tiles

Sent from my iPad