Bloomberg BusinessWeek piece that makes the compelling point that income growth—or the lack thereof—is the best predictor of change in looming elections. On a longer-term scale, this is Benjamin Friedman’s argument in his book, “The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth”: rising income makes a happy polity and a happy polity tends to beget a generous legislature (i.e., more Dem).
The bad news for Obama: disposable income has remained stagnant since Jan 09, so the underlying sense of his administration for most people is, no progress in their lives but rather treading water at best.
I would argue the same thing could be said in foreign policy: balls kept juggled all right, but no obvious sense of progress.
So you get the same effect in both realms: people’s sense of anxiety is no longer rising, but it’s not falling either.
One might call it a malaise.
For the record, average per capita disposable income today is roughly what it was in mid-2007 ($32,600), with a drop-spike-drop-spike-drop-inching up pattern since then.