Yep. And don't forget, by the summer of 1996, unemployment was approaching 5.40%, which is almost two full points lower than it was when Clinton took office. By that time, his approvals had substantively rebounded because the economy was really starting to heat up and we were approaching full employment.
Obama will have a different set of circumstances - a much worse set of circumstances - but I think there's nothing to keep him from running for a second term and nothing to keep him from gaining the Dem nomination. It's virtually impossible to lose the Dem nomination with 95% black support, and 75%+ Latino support - they're just too big to overcome for a challengers.
Good points. I am certainly not predicting that he will win. It is just that Republicans will not have as easy of a time as they did this year. This year Democrats were down to a strategy of blaming minority Republicans and characterize them by statements from a few nobodies. They are fighting a losing battle.
But next year republicans will have a Presidential primary that could get ugly, and Obama will hand congress the unpopular deficit commission recommendations, and the economy should improve some maybe. As I said from the beginning, Republicans need to make Obama own all the bad news to win like they did with Bush.
It's virtually impossible, but not impossible. Obama has lost the Democrat elites -- the people that finance democrat candidates. No money, no independent voters, no re-election. That's where I see this going.