Why didn't the Democrats run more aggressively on the economy this year?

[Adam Griffin]

Real median household income is still considerably lower than it was prior to the Recession. Things are slowly improving, but the average household (well, the median household, but you get the expression) is still poorer that it was before the crisis:

The Dems could try to argue that the recession would've been much worse without the stimulus etc (but that's old news so I doubt it would get them many votes) but trying to spin the current situation as a time of prosperity for most people would not go over well.

You're right about the energy boom, but can Obama really be credited with that? To be fair, no President can (or at least, no President should) be directly credited with economic developments of this nature but many people perceive Obama as an anti-oil/gas guy and a Dem advertising campaign stressing the energy boom probably wouldn't work too well since the don't really have any specific policies to attribute the boom to and it'd be pretty hard for them to beat the GOP at their own game in regard to energy.

Yeah, that's the status quo argument that's been getting used for years and is why Democrats are still getting hammered. Right-wing policies drove the country off of a cliff. The argument shouldn't be "is the economy better in every metric than it was before the Recession started?"; it should be "How much better is the economy now when compared to where it was after conservatives ran it off a cliff?".

Because while the economy is growing, the lower and middle classes aren't feeling it.  Most of the growth is happening to the already very wealthy.

Wages are stagnant and most of the new jobs are poor, low paying ones.  Saying that the economy's doing well would be pretty insensitive.

I'm going to say something, and before I get attacked, understand that I'm a white Southern working-class male who's 26 and still have yet to complete my Bachelor's, so everyone will hopefully withhold their own privilege when/if disagreeing.

That narrative (the "we're growing but people aren't feeling it yet") is because the economy has completely changed and the middle/working class has not adapted with it. We've been hearing it for years (since 2011 at least); Obama in part got re-elected by using this narrative. It's a nicety that politicians are still telling people who have become set in their ways, and I think it's actually detrimental to continue stating it.

You have tens of millions of people who think that they're still going to be able to find good-paying jobs and a steady future with nothing more than a HS degree. You have tens of millions of people who still aren't willing in many cases to learn a new skill set or go back to school. There are millions of good-paying jobs available in this country right now that can't be filled (which ultimately impedes working class hiring), but we have too many 20th century workers and not enough 21st century workers. This aspect of our economic malaise really doesn't have anything to do with the Recession, either; the Recession certainly sped up the process - like a strong wind prematurely dislodging dying leaves on a tree that were going to fall next week anyway - but this was coming one way or another. You can't blame Obama, Democrats, or (as much as I hate to say it) even Republicans, unless you want to go after them for blocking massive public works, training and education programs that were/are needed post-2008. Still, one has to ask: if all of the economic malaise and recession hasn't forced people to act on their own in these cases, would a public program really be embraced by all that many of these folk?

Obviously, this type of argument would be least effective with the exact and aforementioned group of people it applies to the most ("how dare you insult good ol' salt-of-the-earth, hardworking Americans!"), and simple minds are going to continue to blame one party or another. A combination of the Democratic Party and time have delivered everything that can be given the obstruction and political atmosphere right now - the economy's fundamentals at this point are strong, especially when isolating just the past 12 months. If you are still suffering in this economy but were prospering before the Recession, it is almost invariably your own fault for not going back to school, learning a new trade, or adapting in some other facet. Of course, that's not the line for interviews.

[Adam Griffin]

C'mon Griff, you know better than to suggest that a politician run against things that happened 5+ years ago. Let me guess, you think Carter should have spent the 1980 election talking about Watergate

We're not talking about Watergate - we're talking about a series of policies and actions that created consequences of a magnitude felt once per century. It is not a thing; it is the thing. With respect to your Watergate example: I mean, the notion works for the Right, no? ACA was passed five years ago, yet they're still getting plenty of mileage out of saying they're going to repeal it. It wasn't that long ago that we were still catching flak over the stimulus. Part of Obama's re-election was cemented on the notion of "Remember GWB? Remember those guys who crashed it all?". As long as Republicans want to equate Democrats to Obama and his policies, we should be more than willing to return the favor and equate them to Bush and his policies.

There are millions of good-paying jobs available in this country right now that can't be filled (which ultimately impedes working class hiring), but we have too many 20th century workers and not enough 21st century workers.

Before we really get into it, can you clarify what you mean by "20th century" as opposed to "21st century" workers?

Broadly speaking, the type of job where you could earn $15/hour or more in today's terms with nothing more than a HS degree. The difference between a protectionist economy and a globalized one.  The difference between an economy where only white males had to compete for work and one where everybody is competing against one another.

I probably should clarify that I mean "we have too many people with a 20th century working mindset", as many of these people either are working in 21st century jobs (the minimum wage ones or those that pay only slightly better) or not working at all post-recession.