Nate Silver posted an interesting critique yesterday of the predictive power of the unemployment rate on presidential elections. It's sure to generate some buzz today.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/on-the-maddeningly-inexact-relationship-between-unemployment-and-re-election/

It's a bit much to summarize fairly. An incomplete summary is that, although as you've undoubtedly heard no president since FDR has won re-election when the unemployment rate was above 7.2 percent, there are other factors that affected each of those elections. And why should FDR be excluded?

I've seen articles predicting that the 2012 election will be just like <insert year>. Barring something unexpected, such as a catastrophe, war or scandal, I believe the economy (or, more importantly, the public's perception of the economy) will be the most important factor. The two election years that seem most appropriate for comparison are 1984 and 1992. In both of those years, an incumbent was running for re-election and the economy was not strong. The average unemployment rate in both 1984 and 1992 was 7.5%. The year 2004 when Bush Jr. ran for re-election against Kerry is not a good comparison because the average unemployment rate in 2004 was just 5.5%.

1984: Ronald Reagan, running for re-election as the country was recovering from a recession, declared that it was "morning in America"[1] again. Mondale, his Democratic opponent, never caught on with voters. Reagan carried 49 states. Mondale carried only his home state of Minnesota (by less than 1%) and D.C.

1992: A year and a half before the election, pundits saw no way that anybody would beat incumbent Bush Sr. Although the economy was poor (but not as bad as it is likely to be in 2012), Bush was fairly popular, having successfully completed the first Iraq war at virtually no economic cost to taxpayers. Democrats did not seem to have a strong candidate. Then Clinton unexpectedly popped onto the scene and changed everything. Clinton carried 32 states and D.C. Bush carried 18 states.

Although it is dangerous to generalize in this way, I think the important differences between the two years were (a) Reagan made voters optimistic in 1984, while Clinton made them pessimistic[2] in 1992, and (b) people liked[3] the personality of the Republican more in 1984, but people liked the personality of the Democrat more in 1992.

When Haley Barbour decided not to run earlier this week, one of his reasons was that Obama would not, unlike Bush Sr. in 1992, face a third party challenger.[4] However, contrary to popular belief, Ross Perot did not change the outcome of the 1992 election.[5]

So in 2012, Obama wants to be like Reagan in 1984, and Republicans want to be like Clinton in 1992. Is there a Clinton hiding among the Republicans? Is there a Mondale?

Or maybe it's like the 1988 contest between Bush Sr. and Dukakis.[6]

- - - - -

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU-IBF8nwSY

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoBFL6iwid4

[3] Some say likability is imporant (http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/assessing-the-republican-presidential-field/); others say it is not (http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=04&year=2011&base_name=obamas_completely_irrelevant_l).

[4] http://swampland.time.com/2011/04/25/why-barbour-passed-on-a-presidential-run/

[5] http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/04/04/third_party_myth_easterbrook

[6] http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times/news_columnists/cracking-the-election-season-code/article_a6ba52db-10aa-5189-8c0c-dca94105356b.html

I tend to sort of agree, in that it will be the economic trend in 2012 that will be the biggest factor. If the economy improves from now till election day 2012, Obama will be re-elected. If we are sliding backwards in 2012, he won't be re-elected.

I think the best recent comparisons are the re-election campaigns of Clinton and Carter. Clinton's being during a good economy and Carter's during a bad one.

Kerl

Also, I think Ryan has shot any chance the Repubs had in the foot. People are actually clamoring to raise taxes now. Putting the top rate tax cuts in his budget bill was just stupid.

- Greminty