Not the economy, stupid!

When the economy is doing well, governments win elections. When the economy is doing badly, governments get thrown out of office.

This simple rule works much of the time. And I remain convinced that the economy will be the deciding factor in the American presidential election on 4 November.

Americans can be broken down into various demographic groups: male, female, black, white, Hispanic, Protestant, Catholic, hockey moms etc. But all these groups have one thing in common: they need jobs and incomes.

So the financial crisis and rising unemployment will favour opposition candidate Barack Obama. Despite an uncertain performance in the first presidential debate last Friday, Obama is likely to become America's first black president. (If you want to choose the US president, go here.)

But economics doesn't always decide elections. That was seen clearly last Sunday in the southern German Land of Bavaria.

Despite more or less full employment and years of high-tech economic success, the ruling Christian Social Union (CSU) saw its share of the vote fall in the state election from 60.7 to just 43.4 per cent. The party of "Laptops and Lederhosen" lost its absolute majority for the first time since 1966.

Why did voters punish a successful party so dramatically? Simple. The CSU made three fatal mistakes:

• It had weak, uncharismatic leaders: Tweedledum and Tweedledee (who are both now gone).
• It annoyed its core voters, for example by introducing a complete ban on smoking in pubs and restaurants, unlike the more relaxed rules in many other German Länder. (Personally, I think the ban is a good thing, but many CSU voters didn't.)
• It had become arrogant after years of ruling alone.

The Bavarian result is good for democracy. But it won't produce a dramatic change in politics. The CSU will form a coalition with a like-minded party, such as the free-market FDP.

And just as the economy didn't affect the election, the election won't affect the economy. Bavaria's success, of which Spotlight Verlag is a small part, will simply continue.