“a test of our collective memory,” SPOT-ON.

I feel a twinge of panic every time I think about this. We seem to have shorter-than-goldfish memories.

Scary stuff.

So the republicans are morons AND they're unoriginal. Good to know.

2000-2006: Growth, wealth, strong middle class

2006: All Democrat Congress. Beginning of slide.
2008: Obama. Unemployment heads to extremes.
2012: Waiting for savior.

You did a heckuva job distorting the last 12 years.

@5: You do not think it is at all unfair to blame Obama for unemployment beginning to shoot up in 2008 when he was elected in November of that year? Unemployment essentially peaked a mere 6 months after he was sworn in.

@5: yes, the GOP should mos def run on a return to the halcyon days of the 1st GWB term.

Unfortunately, when GDP growth is 4% or higher for the 2 quarters directly preceding an election, the incumbent wins - EVERY TIME. If not, they lose. This even held true with Nixon during the middle of The Watergate Scandal when he just absolutely handed McGovern his ass in an electoral trouncing.

@ 7, take EVERYTHING Bailo posts the same way you'd take a nuclear industry primer on the safety of nuclear energy.

@9: was that true for FDR's re-election in 1936?

Conservatism is based on the denial of reality. Just pretend the present isn't happening.

@5 Dates matter in history. The Dems took control of congress in 2007, after the 2006 elections, just as the housing bubble that had been propping up the economy came apart. Obama took office in February of 2009, just as the unemployment rate hit 8.3%. A year before that it had been at 4.9%. The 2009 budget had already been signed by Bush.

The budgets (in billions) George W. Bush signed and unemployment rate in February of that year
2002: 2,010; 5.7%
2003: 2,159; 5.9%
2004: 2,292; 5.6%
2005: 2,472; 5.4%
2006: 2,655; 4.8%
2007: 2,728; 4.5%
2008: 2,982; 4.9%
2009: 3,517; 8.3%
The budgets (in billions) Barack Obama signed and unemployment rate in February of that year
2010: 3,456; 9.9%
2011: 3,603; 9.0%
2012: 3,796; 8.3%
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS140000…
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/budg…

Saviors don't exist, just like free lunches or trickle-down economies.

@11

sorry, I forgot to note this is in the modern age, post WW2. I didn't chart out pre-1945 when I looked into this (for fun...'cause I'm that kind of loser), so I don't know, but my guess to your question is no.

I also think there are presidents, like Ike, who could have bucked the trend, since they were so universally loved by both sides, but this election, in my estimation, will be determined by which side hates the other guy the least, and Democrats seem to hate Romney less than Republicans hate Obama.

Well, duh. Pundits and the thinktanks that fund them CREATE history, they don't just tell it.

@14 I wouldn't say democrats hate Romney, it's more that they dislike him and think he'd be a shit president. Republicans on the other hand do hate Obama and because of that hate will never admit his successes and have quagmired us all just to spite him. Somehow they've conflated all the people and things that make them uncomfortable or that hints that they're mistaken of into the guise of one man to focus their fear and hate towards.
The RP of the last 20yrs is at it's noxious, bilious core a party driven by hate.

@16

Obama has placed himself in a quagmire. I enthusiastically voted for him in '08 (seven times...don't ask), but the only way he was gonna get my vote this time was if Santorum was the GOP nominee.

He assassinated an American Citizen (well, not him, but he called for the hit). He's a felon and he should be prosecuted, but since that will never happen, people should at least recognize that he has further eroded our civil rights as president, and not restored them (ironic for the 1st black president, no?).

I don't hate either of them, though I can't see a whole lot of difference between the two since Romney would blow a guy on TV if the polls showed he would get elected by doing so, and I'm not sure Obama would go quite as far, but I would like to see Obama brought to justice for his crimes (right along with Bush, though Bush was never dumb enough to admit to them...he had scapegoats for that.)

(**and, that's the problem, and it's why, among other reasons, Obama is going to be a 1-term president - Democrats just aren't offended enough by the idea of a Romney Presidency, and neither are they terribly excited by the idea of an Obama 2nd term)

@17,
So you're not going to vote for anyone then?

And what should the U.S. have done instead of killing al-Awlaki? Ignore him? What would you have done?

@18

The US should have done what the US should always do if it suspects someone is a criminal and has the evidence to back it up. Arrest them, detain them, and try them in a court of law. If you've not read the Bill of Rights, it refers to the 1st 10 amendments to the US Constitution. It's made up of only a couple hundred words. Give it a read some time if you're bored.

As far as voting goes, I am either going to abstain from the Presidential vote (though not voting, period) or, if a third party candidate who shares my values has the ability to make it to the threshold for federal funding in 2016, and my vote will help to assure this, I'm going to vote for that person (that money is a pretty big deal to a small party candidate...I think we need at least one more party in this country, so I am going to use my vote to help that process along, if possible)

@5
2000-2006: Growth, wealth, strong middle class

First correction: that should be 2001, not 2000, if you want to talk about Bush's legacy and you're not just playing fast and loose with dates to make Obama look worse. (You're not, are you? Surely you would never do that!)

When Bush took office, the Internet/stock bubble was about to collapse, which it did in 2001, with particular rapidity following 9/11.

There was a recession. Nobody tried to deny it was a recession. In fact, Bush used the recession as an excuse to pass the massive trickle-up tax package that we continue to labor under today.

Following the recession, there was a recovery which was both 1. Jobless (so says the Economist in this article from May 8th 2003: http://www.economist.com/node/1772963) and 2. Fueled by what nobody is bothering any longer to deny was a massive real estate/asset bubble.

Bush doesn't take all the blame for the bubble -- it was worldwide. But he was certainly an enthusiastic enabler (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/busine…)

When the recovery ended in 2007, the level of poverty was deeper and the median income of working-age people was lower, at the end than at the beginning. (according to Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/14c…)

I know it won't change your mind, but I wanted to set the record straight. Bush's economic legacy is debt, debt, and more debt, all to purchase a tepid recovery fueled by an investment bubble that exploded before he left office.

@18- Keeping al-Awlaki under surveillance would have done more for US security than killing him, and wouldn't have been state sponsored murder.

Malcommxy is exactly why the Democrats need to get a fucking spine and stop their long drift Right. Being the party that's not as bad as the Republicans does not create voter turnout.

@21

word. (though, I think they've become too corrupted to be saved at this point and it's time to kill The Whig Party and start over with The Republican Party, except substitute Democrat for Whig and whatever the next party is for Republican...ya know...modern remake of the same old story...The Wheel in the Sky Keeps On Turning...)

Oh, and please tell the teacher that my homework will be Phils', just updated...

@19,
Well, I do hope you vote for someone, even if it's just a throwaway write in candidate (Buster Keaton, perhaps?). Not voting at all is inexcusable. It's essentially telling the country that you're fine letting everyone else decide who will govern for you. Definitely not the way to enact change.

Anyway, I would absolutely welcome multiple parties to compete with the R's and D's. Unfortunately, with our single winner voting method, I believe we'll be stuck with two parties no matter what. Ideally, we should move to a more proportional system. But that also would take a lot of effort and work and we still haven't even switched to the fucking metric system yet.

@19 & 21,
That said, Obama and the dems can't afford to shift more to the left any more than Romney and the repubs could afford to shift more to the right. If they did, they'd lose. This country elects moderates, not exemplars. Not at the presidential level anyway. The two parties are going to continue to essentially represent mirror images of each other, with minute differences thrown in here and there. That's their only chance of success - and they know it.

You guys think Romney is extremely conservative and Obama isn't liberal enough, just like your polar opposites on some conservative rag think Obama is a radical leftist and Romney's not conservative enough. There's too many people in this country for anyone to be satisfied. Our next president... our next 10 presidents... are going to be moderates, whoever he/she are.

I like your sleestak avatar as well.

I disagree with you about not voting in select positions on the ballot, though. I often abstain from voting for judge positions on which I've failed to do my research, and I sometimes abstain from voting for an unopposed candidate with whom I disagree as well.

I probably will vote for someone at the top of the ballot, but I might not. In the first case I mentioned (my personal ignorance), I think it is actually pretty good of me to allow others to choose the winner of those elections. I suppose most other people aren't quite as gracious as I am, in these cases, but that's their problem, not mine.

I've voted for less Republican candidates in my entire lifetime than I have fingers on one hand, but I always look into their records and try to determine if they are, in fact, the best candidate (they're just usually not). I'm just sick and tired of voting for the lesser of two evils, and in the end, I don't care if you rep an ass or some fat leathery bitch with a big nose. I just want someone who loves his/her country and also obeys the law. I used to think that wasn't too much to ask for in a candidate, but now I'm not so sure.