The "malaise" election

In other words, the issue isn’t just the recession that began in December 2007, or President Barack Obama’s obvious difficulty in pulling the nation out of it. It’s the fact that the American economy hasn’t been a robust producer of growth and jobs for a long time, beginning well before the recession.

Americans sense this, which is why polls show they fear for their future and that of their kids. The party that creates some confidence that it can fix this underlying growth problem is the one that will have the real advantage.

Here’s a simple way to grasp the sluggishness of the American jobs machine. In the 1980s and 1990s, under presidents of both parties, the country enjoyed four years of economic growth above 4% in each of those two decades.

Since then, it has had exactly one year of 4% growth—the first year of the last decade, 2000. Heading into next year’s campaign, America likely will have endured 11 straight years with sub-4% economic growth.