We've seen the pattern before. A candidate storms into office kicking out the opposing party in the midst of woeful economic times. The economy continues to get worse and the new president gets massacred in the midterm elections. However, by the time re-election rolls around the economy has improved somewhat and the president rolls to a relatively easy victory.
Example 1: In 1980, with unemployment inching up to 7.5%, Reagan handily defeats incumbent president Jimmy Carter. Unemployment continued to rise and reached a high of 10.8% in November of 1982. This resulted in the Democrats getting a bigger foothold in Congress with a gain of 27 seats in the House. By November 1984 unemployment had fallen to 7.2%, barely lower than what Reagan inherited from his predecessor. However, the sign of progress was enough to convince voters and Reagan's "Morning in America" campaign led to a landslide victory.
Example 2: In 1992 unemployment rocketed back up into the 7% range after being in the 5-6% range for most of the 2nd half of the 80s. This resulted in the relatively unknown Bill Clinton coming from nowhere with a campaign focusing completely on the economy and winning the presidency. By 1994, unemployment had actually fallen, but there was dissatisfaction with Clinton's attempts to overhaul healthcare abd the Democrats lost control of congress in a landslide midterm election. By November 1996, unemployment was now so low (5.2%) that voters no longer cared about anything else. Clinton was able to run a re-election focused solely on the economy and won an easy victory.
Obama's story has many similarities to these two examples. He didn't defeat an incumbent but successfuly tied his opponent to the former President's miserable economic record (Unemployment rose from 4.2% to 8.2% under Bush's watch) and won a campaign based on an economic message. The economy continued to get worse and reached 9.8% by November 2010. This resulted in a stinging defeat for Obama's party in the midterm elections. Since then, unemployment has fallen to the current level of 9.1%.
Does this mean victory is a certainty for Obama? Not at all. There are many things that could happen between now and November 2012. Who knows what candidate the GOP will pick. Unemployment could go back up to the 10% range. Obama could commit a major gaffe in the campaign or there could be some sort of foreign policy disaster. The likeliness of any of those events are up for debate. I just mention this to show that the conditions aren't quite as bad as they may seem. In fact, Obama's current approval rating (46%) is higher than Reagan (45%) and Clinton (37%) at the same point in their presidencies. Couple that with the GOP's tendency to overreach lately (Christine O' Donnell, Sharron Angle) and Obama could be in position for an easy re-election victory that would surprise people who don't remember their history.
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