Mishpacha’s experts predict the year ahead
Anybody who says he knows with certainty who will win the 2024 presidential election must be new to American politics. There are too many variables, too many things that can shift decisively.
But I believe there are six factors that will be pivotal. James A. Baker III, now the oldest living former secretary of state after the death of Henry Kissinger, saw these factors at work from his vantagepoint in four presidential elections. He managed the campaigns of Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush; and he served as a senior advisor to George W. Bush in 2000. Baker saw winners, losers, decisive victories, and complete collapses. Here are six factors that were instrumental in those races.
An incumbent’s reelection chances will be helped by a booming economy. He will be perceived as a wise steward of prosperity who fattens everyone’s pocketbooks.
James Baker was well aware of this when he served as President Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff. He once met with Paul Volcker, then chairman of the Federal Reserve, in the leadup to Reagan’s 1984 reelection. The economy was showing signs of picking up, but Volcker, concerned about inflation, was considering raising interest rates, which would have slowed the economy.
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