When recession Presidents get reelected

An interesting thought about electoral politics occurred to me today.

In my lifetime, EVERY President of the U.S. and A. who's been reelected has done so during a recession. Every single one. That's 3 times, for those of you who are counting.

Reagan was reelected in '84 during the recession he caused. Clinton was reelected in '96 during what turned out to be the early stage of the recession that Bush later worsened. Dictator Bush even won in '04! All 3 elections were won by a guy who had some role in causing or worsening the recession - though Clinton's role was defined largely by him caving to everything Congress wanted and paying heed to unreliable pollsters and self-serving consultants. It's hard to say the same of Obama, because his stimulus package created more jobs in 2 years than were created in the previous 14 years.

A more worrisome difference is that The Media generally denied there was a recession in 1996 and 2004. These days, they're making damn sure we know there is one - as if we can't figure it out ourselves. Fact is, however, that things are better in America now than they were 3 years ago.

Surely, Obama is beatable - but I think he'll win again. I won't guarantee it, of course. And after the polls were so far off in 2010, I can't place even a speck of faith in them even if they had him ahead by 30%. But the Republican field is uproariously weak. Every major candidate the GOP has is a known quantity, and people don't like them. With the Republicans lately bonded by their intent to place the government in default, they're just digging themselves in deeper. Regardless of electoral performance, the truth of the matter is that the Republicans have not gained actual public support in years. You know it as well as I do, so let's not kid ourselves here.

I don't know how that will affect elections in 2012. With the Citizens United ruling still not repealed, it's questionable whether we even have free and fair elections. And there's lots of politicians who have very little actual support, but they still get elected. Isn't that right, Geoff Davis?

I also don't know what effect the current media scandals - such as Fox's hacking of 9/11 victims' phones - will have. The Media likes to build narratives to favor Republicans, but I can't imagine that the News Corp scandal would actually help their cause.

The biggest enemy might not be the GOP nominee - but The Media.