One of the most important things Republicans will have to do, as they rebuild, is to explain why the last 20 years are not proof positive that Democratic administrations are better for the economy than Republican ones.

It will not do to simply count on the Obama years failing to bring recovery. It’s always a bad thing, on many levels, to find oneself rooting for bad news for political purposes; and also recall that, however bad things got after 1932, the Democrats successfully blamed Hoover for, what, 20? 30? 40 years?

The Carter vs. Reagan example won’t be much help, no matter how large it still looms in many of our minds. For the great mass of voters, that’s simply too far in the past to be part of the picture now.

Explaining that control of Congress is an important part of the picture, and getting into any number of other non-White House-centric macroeconomic arguments, will also be tough sells. Your humble Blog Goliard has long argued that as far as mid- to low-information voters (who are the overwhelming majority of swing voters) are concerned, our economic situation depends on who is President, pure and simple.

You’ll notice that Sen. Obama never had to offer much detail when he railed against the “failed Bush economic policies”. Swing voters didn’t need to know what policies those might be and why they were wrong. All they needed to know was: we have an economic crisis, and George W. Bush is President. So obviously, the former is caused by the latter doing it wrong. QED.

As mentioned in the post below, it’s almost as if they imagine there’s a master control panel in the White House, resembling the cockpit of a 747. If the President spends enough time at the controls, and operates all the buttons and dials and switches correctly, we have good economic times; if not, we risk recession. It all boils down to his dedication and skill at “running the economy”.

With persuadable voters bringing this half-formed mental picture to the table, all Democrats have to do is point to two President Bushes (three terms, three recessions, big deficits) and contrast to one President Clinton (two terms, no recessions, explosive stock market growth, budget brought under control). And poof there goes Republican standing on economic matters.

Unless Republicans can figure out how to put together an equally compelling counter-narrative, it’s going to be a long eight to twelve years. Because, again, hard times under Obama can’t be counted on to help. Messiah excesses notwithstanding, most Obama voters are already on board with the idea that that idiot-chimp-devil Bush—the worstest President ever!!!—did it so wrong that it may well take more than one term for even The One to get us out of the deep hole his predecessor dug.