“Get the growth choice right, and we’ll be ok. Get it wrong and your kids will be talking Australia emigration.”

Daniel Henninger of the WSJ

Right now, with growth stuck below 2%, we’re toast. With strong growth at 3% or better, there will be jobs. With long-term growth, Medicare, debt and the rest of the horribles that keep worrywarts awake at night are solvable. With strong growth, the U.S. will not have to cede world leadership prematurely to whichever Chinese functionary slugs his way to the top of their heap. With strong growth, your college graduate can move out of the house. With normal American growth, Europe may be irrelevant but it won’t die, and a U.S. president won’t look oddly small talking to the Vladimir Putins of the world.Mr. Obama was exactly right in Cleveland when he said economic growth “is the defining issue of our time,” that his and his opponents’ views on growth are fundamentally different and “this election is your chance to break that stalemate.” This he gets. Only the most obtuse “pragmatists” persist in believing the solution lies in a mystical center somehow combining elements from this ideological oil and water.

Put differently, this is a substance election. It’s not about whether one “likes” Barack Obama or can’t warm to Mitt Romney. Voters have to pick two competing growth models, which means paying attention to what the candidates are saying about economic growth.