The President should have visited Cairo this week – Cairo, Illinois that is.

A new Gallup poll confirms America’s “surging pessimism” about the job market coupled with an ongoing decline in consumer confidence. Strikingly, one in four Americans surveyed were worried that they or their spouses would lose their job in the next twelve months.

Yet another Gallup poll released this week finds that President Bush’s approval ratings remain consistently low across the entire range of domestic and foreign policy issues, with the glaring exception that the President’s approval ratings on the economy have plunged from 41 percent a year ago, to 35 percent in August of 2007, to a mere 27 percent today.

This “sharp deterioration” in the economic perceptions of Americans means one thing in this election year: It’s the Economy Stupid!

Howl at the moon if you like, but perception is becoming reality, my friends. That is, in the words of Anthony J. D’Angelo, “Reality doesn't bite, rather our perception of reality bites.”

And bite it will if Republicans ignore American perceptions. It is time to listen. After all, voters don’t care what we know; they only want to know we care. It may be trite, but it is the truth. It is always the truth at the ballot box. Bush can now ignore it, but McCain does so at his peril.

As Joshua Kurlantzick recently noted in his article entitled “Globalize This” published in the New Republic, “In the past, politicians sometimes were able to ignore middling support for free trade … But in an ever-tighter American political scene--one in which many voters increasingly blame trade for the insecurity of the modern workplace … no one can afford to lose votes.”

Now, let’s go back to Cairo, Illinois. Surely Obama has been there on the ground preaching “hope” in a town that has been decimated by free trade and globalization. You better believe that Obama has a hopeful platitude for displaced workers.

So, as many Americans are questioning the underlying premise that globalization is good for them, the task of educating the American public and letting them “know we care” falls squarely in the lap of the incumbent political party, especially as Hillary and Obama pander to organized labor.

As stated recently by U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab, “The forces of economic retrenchment and isolationism are rising on the winds of dubious economics and popular myths.” “No duh!” as my kids used to say.

How do we expect the average Joe from Cairo to understand that he benefits by shutting down the local factories that employed several hundred folks in his hometown, replacing them with about 30 new higher paying jobs in the ethanol plant to be built in Cairo?

Can the Republicans get by with saying, “Just get used to globalization”? I don’t think so.

The positive reality of globalization is obviously lost on folks in Cairo. Cato Institute scholar Daniel Griswold says it this way:

Many Americans worry about the impact of trade on jobs, wages, and manufacturing. Like technology, trade can dislocate workers and disrupt industries. But trade also delivers lower prices and more variety for millions of American families, makes U.S. companies more competitive, and opens markets abroad for U.S. exports. Trade has not caused U.S. manufacturing to shrink but rather to move up the value chain to produce more sophisticated products. Americans enjoy more freedom, prosperity, and influence in the world as we engage fully in the global economy….

As the presumptive Republican nominee, McCain inherits the task of advocating for free markets. He needs an optimistic message for the future. Sure, his expressed plans for retaining and assisting displaced workers through an overhaul of the unemployment compensation system tied to job training at community colleges are thoughtful – a message worthy of taking to Cairo.

So, on the economic front, as Tom Clancy said, “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” I suggest the Straight Talk Express hit the road to Cairo and make sense of the reality of globalization for the American voter before Obama makes sense of his fiction for them.