[BlackRazor]

Because these were the realities with which that particular President was dealing. Does anyone recall how the President did in his 1984 re-election bid?

There are two key points that put President Bush's re-election hopes in a more precarious position than President Reagan's.

1.) While Reagan's approval rating at this point in 1983 was at 48% (similar to Bush's in some recent polls), his rating had already been steadily rising for eight months. He had already hit his low in January, 1983 and was well into the ascent that culminated in a landslide re-election. By contrast, Bush is declining at the same point in time. We don't know whether he's bottomed out yet or not.

2.) I've done a lot of correlations between unemployment rates and re-election outcomes of presidents. I've found that the key component is the direction of the unemployment rate from the middle of the year before the election to the middle of the year of the election. Though unemployment was considerably higher during Reagan's first term compared to Bush's, the rate had dropped about 3 percentage points during the key time-frame I've cited. We'll just to wait and see how it will look for Bush next summer.

[Coop]

While I agree with your two points, I do not think it's possible to say that Bush is in a more precarious position. That will only come with hindsight, which was really the entire point of this thread. :-)

[Orbiting_Rosie's_Head]

There are two key points that put President Bush's re-election hopes in a more precarious position than President Reagan's.

Don't forget the obvious 3rd point: Reagan was a communicator par excellence that spoke directly to the Republican base. GWB spends his time slapping the base with the Rove strategy of pandering to the Illegal alien vote and ranting about "Islam is a religion of peace". Had the Gipper been in office during 9/11, Saudia Arabia would be territory of the USA, and the their oil revenues would be flowing into the US treasury as reparations.

[WOSG]

Right... it's about the dynamic -

Bush needs to show the economy is going in the RIGHT DIRECTION.
- Lower unemployment and big growth numbers for the next 12 months is key.

He needs to show that national security and war on terror is going in the RIGHT DIRECTION.
- Winning in Iraq and shutting down Al Qaeda also key.

It's that simple. IMHO, he will win by about 8 points since he is doing the right things in both areas and can make the case on both. Likely the Dems will try to hang WMDs and cost of Iraq on him, and drag out job losses etc. If Bush can get good economic #s to get over 50% on that issue, IMHO he will be unbeatable, since there is no way America will trust Democrats over Bush on the war on terror issue.
(Recall Clinton's "it's the economy stupid" - that was a way for CLinton to avoid making the 1992 about national security which Bush would have won in a landslide.)