Daily Finance takes a look at the only question that usually matters when reelecting an incumbent: Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Along the way, they also discuss the work of economics professor Ray C. Fair, who says that the economy predicts a strong showing for President Obama:
As the professor explains, there’s a strong correlation between GDP growth in the nine months preceding a presidential election and the incumbent’s share of the popular vote. If GDP growth exceeds a certain level during that time, the incumbent gets re-elected; if not, Americans elect a new president. As I’ve written previously on DailyFinance, Fair predicts 3.69% GDP growth in the nine months preceding the election and 55.9% of the popular vote for Obama.
I guess it sounds more likely a scenario than the taller-candidate-wins hypothesis.
I didn’t think my opinion about the intelligence of human beings could get any lower, but I was wrong.
Easy way to get reelected – end the Two Wars of Republican Adventure in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That will suddenly cut the deficit and everyone will be happy again.
I understand the 2000 election had special cicumstances, but the economy was doing very well thanks to the Clinton administration and based on that theory, Gore should have won and not by a hair, but by a landslide.
I’m not any better off, but I blame Bush for that, not Obama.
Wow, really surprised you linked to this. The bottom line quote you posted makes it sound like the article is somehow praising Obama for GDP growth. In reality, the bulk of the article points out how Obama might as well have been a third term Bush and how political contributions from big corporate “winners” will continue to ensure a shrinking middle class and corrupt corporatist system. Could this be the cycle The Stranger wakes up to third parties?
@6 lol, you Owlies never give up, do you?
still stuck on stupid.
@7 – What’s an Owlie?
All of which is simply one more reason why the GOP will do whatever it takes to put more of the middle-class out on the street; because, if you shit-can tens, nay hundreds of thousands of public sector employees, not only will THEY not have the ability to purchase goods and services – since we all know that consumer spending is the main driver of our economic engine – but the providers of those goods and services will in turn see revenues fall as there are fewer people able to purchase them. And who will get the blame? No, not the party that put all those people out of work, but the party of the guy who happens to be sitting in the Oval Office when they do, because: “whydidn’tyoustopthemeventhoughwekeepvotingintheguyswhocontinuallyscrewusover?”
In short, the GOP is more than willing to throw the entire American middle-class under a bus, if it means it will give them even the slightest edge in the next election cycle. Because, it’s all about winning elections in their mind, and if they can do that, serve their corporate masters AND convince the workers to vote against their own best interests, well, so much the better for them, and screw the rest of us.
@7:
An old WA state semi-faceteous fringe party from the ’80’s Their motto was: “Out With Logic! On With Lunacy!”, i.e. “OWL”.
@8 wow. so you never took civics in WA state, huh?
@11 Obama got us universal healthcare?
Of course Obama will get re-elected. Who out there could beat him? Donald Trump? The “stars” of the republican party are all whacked out religious freaks who pray for the end of the world. Honestly – Obama HAS NO COMPETITION ! Fucking Kim Kardashian has a better chance of becoming President than Palin, Huckleberry, Poolenty, Grinch and the rest of the ‘Tards of the Right.
@14:
While that may be true, the problem is that a bunch of people who think just like all those wing-nuts you cite WILL probably get elected to Congress, unless Republicans can be relied upon to continue fucking things up to the extent they’re doing now in WI, OH, NJ, MA, et al – and even then I’m not all that confident the rubes in the electorate won’t continue to vote for them anyway.
Damn, forgot to close that html tag…
Good thing you closed the tag.
Had me worried about it.
Hey, don’t pick on his highness. He’s just doing his job.
Lookit the Repuglican party. Look at the people they’re fronting to be candidates next year. Look at the America-killing proposals they’re fielding. Could a group of scheming aliens from outer space do a better job at ruining the Earth than the plans these garden trolls concoct?
They’re completely ruined. Job half done. Now his highness is finishing the job by completely despiriting and jaundicing the Democrats until they, too, go completely insane, and start agreeing with the TP’s.
Empire. Someone’s got to end it.
On who gets elected: When I was young; a science fiction
Writer (James Tiptree jr.) wrote an absurdist story which
Features a throwaway line about Ronald Reagan for president.
It was a whole lot less funny 20 years later.
Ever since, I have not been able to dismiss
Clown shoe candidates from any party as
Unelectable.
@20:
There was also a line in the 1967 James Coburn film “In Like Flint” wherein a major plot point revolves around an actor impersonating the POTUS. Upon discovering the imposter, Flint stares directly at the camera and delivers the line, “An actor? As President?”, then gives a little shudder of dread at the thought. It is of note of course that Reagan won the CA Governor’s race in 1966 while the film was being shot, and there is some evidence to suggest the line was inserted as a specific dig at the former Screen Actors’ Guild President, whose political ambitions were not exactly a guarded secret at the time.