OK I was reading CNNs front page and one of the headlines was “It’s the jobs, stupid”
Obviously this is not a new phrase… It’s the economy, stupid. It’s the oil, stupid. It’s the chicks, stupid. It’s whatever the heck it is, stupid.
What I can’t figure out is where the phrase originated. What was the first thing that “it” was? I have certainly heard a variation on the phrase many, many times, but I can’t seem to find out how long it’s been around, who may have coined it and when.
Possibly less factually, I don’t understand out how it caught on. Maybe it’s just me but, I detest the word stupid in relation to a person. I refuse to call any person “stupid” but I suspect that’s just my own little idiosyncracy. But stupid is just… I don’t know, to me, using the word stupid in reference to another person is second grade material. So how did it become the political catch phrase that it is?
I’m sure the phrase has been around for longer, but the first significant political use I remember is during the 1992 presidential campaign when Clinton supporters displayed signs at George H.W. Bush speeches saying “It’s the economy, stupid!”
The implication then is that Bush was trying to run on his record as a successful military leader but the issue he should have been addressing was the recession.
I don’t think Clinton himself ever used the phrase – even I, a die-hard Democrat, would have thought it unseemly to address a sitting president as “stupid,” although I might describe his policies as such.
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/TheWarRoom-1047463/about.php
The first I ever heard of this was from “War Room”, the documentary abou the first Clinton presidential campaign.
And remember that the slogan was originally just an office sign that James Carville made up for himself and his troops. They’re weren’t calling other people stupid; they were reminding themselves never to get fancy, never to get off topic, never to forget that the economy would be the overriding issue of the campaign and not to ignore that to go off on other seemingly attractive tangents.
How other people adopt the slogan is not his fault.
Thanks, everyone. Armed with that info I did some more digging and all info seems to indicate that James Carville did indeed coin the phrase (or at least, is the one who is credited for coining it).