One of my intentions was to point out that the Democrats have often been extraordinarily fortunate to have followed GOP administrations which were turned out because Americans believed they had mismanaged the economy. Witness the uncanny good luck of high-tax proponent Clinton taking office just as the economy was entering the greatest boom of the century, no credit to him. Whether caused by a cycle or by fiscal policies, the onset of upturns and downturns, often resulting from tax policies, seem to lag behind their cause at a slow enough tempo to usually insure a Democratic president a successful economy during his tenure purely by chance. OTOH, a downturn, usually caused by some destructive Democratic policy, seems to always lag sufficiently to insure the downturn occurs at some point in a GOP administration, usually around election time. Call it lucky timing I suppose. The Carter and Reagan presidencies were both exceptions to the broad rule.
One of my reasons for assigning considerable importance to the cyclical nature of national economies is the Clinton administration's exceptional run of good fortune in the 1990s. There were no significant tax cuts during his tenure that I remember after his first year major tax increase, yet the economy continued to expand dramatically for another seven years afterward until the cycle caught up to it in his last year. Or did the "lag" between his tax hike and an inevitable result account for his good fortune? I'm not sure, but seven years seems like a longer than normal lag.
Let's see, huge tax hike enacted during a period of slow but increasing economic growth, followed 6-7 years later by downturn, right? Well, OK, maybe I'm giving too much importance to the business cycle phenomenon, but I still think it's an important factor.