Beware of the small business voting bloc
Historically, mid-term elections during a second term of any U.S. president have been unfavorable for his party. But in 1998, an embattled President Clinton went against conventional political wisdom and history. During his second mid-term election, Democrats slightly increased their majority in Congress, producing a political and moral victory for him.
Going into Tuesday’s elections, President Obama could either brace for the curse of the second mid-term or imagine America’s first black president could pull off a Clinton miracle. So when he declared that his policies were on the ballots, even if his name wasn’t, we were left to assume Obama dreamed of a Clinton repeat.
Apparently voters agreed with the president about one thing: his policies were on their minds in the voting booth. Indeed, GOP gains were too pervasive to lay blame to just the Democrats on the ballot. Republicans gained the majority in the Senate, increased their majority in the House, increased governorships by three—including in four deep blue states, plus a net pickup of eight state legislative chambers. Talk about the wrong kind of coattails.
We wanted to know how small business owners were feeling about this election, so in a pre-election online poll we asked them which party they favored. Only 12% said Democrat. Most small business owners consider Obama’s ideology, policies and rhetoric to be anti-business. Here’s a short list of their issues with this president:
- The worst economic recovery in history
- Obamacare, the mother of all uncertainties
- His environmental policies negatively impact job creation and energy prices
- His fealty to unions is anti-employer
- The exponential growth of regulations—the stealth tax
- His plan to relinquish U.S. control of the Internet
- Small business owners don’t like hearing, “You didn’t build your businesses”
There are approximately 100 million potential voters in Small Business America, including owners and employees. Considering the economic uncertainty and financial damage small businesses have experienced for the past six years, it’s reasonable to attribute much of the election outcome to these voters.
As a lame-duck president, it may be too late to redeem Mr. Obama. But the political class should heed the prophetic wisdom of the late Massachusetts Democrat Senator Paul Tsongas, who told his party in 1992, “You can’t be pro-jobs and anti-business at the same time. You cannot love employment and hate employers.”
Write this on a rock … Beware the small business voting bloc.
