William Kristol of The Weekly Standard has been wondering why Obama is doing so well in such a lousy economy. Obviously he is not alone.
In his Sept 16th column, he quotes two other analysts wondering the same thing. Then he answers his own question.
In short, Kristol admits that the stink of George W. Bush's economy has stuck to the shoe of the GOP.
In which Kristol admits the GOP is stained by Bush.
"Galston and Barnes suggest various explanations for the voters' disinclination to turn against Obama as strongly as might have been expected. Many of those explanations are reasonable. But here's one reason neither discusses: George W. Bush.
The recession began in late 2007—under George W. Bush. The financial crisis happened in the fall of 2008—under George W. Bush. The very sluggish recovery, to be sure, has happened under Barack Obama—and he's paid a political price for that. But one reason the price hasn't been much higher is surely that voters remember which party had the White House—and had controlled Congress for most of the recent past—when the troubles began.
This is where the historical and political science models may break down. We don't have recent experience of, in effect, a five-year recession. We don't have recent experience of a reelection campaign happening in a bad economy for which there is what might be called ambiguous causality. But given that ambiguous causality, it shouldn't be surprising that voters are hesitating to drop the hammer on Obama.
Guess what his remedy is for the Romney campaign....Can you guess????
Focus on foreign policy. Bwaaaa haaa haaa!!!!