50 Years of Data in One Simple Chart

[Scuba]

[burnodo]

1. Somehow or another

This stark data never breaks through the bubble

[valerief]

7. You mean the 1%er-owned media bubble? Yeah, never does. Weiner's weiner is more important. nt

[zipplewrath]

2. Interesting time frame

"50 years" would take you back to LBJ. The GOP would complain that this excludes Ike and the GOP congress of the '50s. Taking back to FDR also might undermine the numbers a bit because of all of the economic changes/challenges of that time.

[rufus dog]

3. The only way you can make it look good for repukes is to cherry pick data

If you go back 100 years it is even worse. They get Ike AND Coolidge.

[zipplewrath]

5. Not to mention Hoover

FDR is often represented as the beginning of the "modern" presidency. That probably doesn't really start until about 1939 though. I always thought that technically one probably ought to start with Truman's first term as the elected president, roughly 1948. It takes WWII out of it entirely, and is the beginning of the post war boom. So they'll get Ike, but Truman's gonna look okay too. That would also give the dems Kennedy as well (which '63 basically excludes).

If ya wanna really piss 'em off, "start" with Reagan, because they'll look like absolute crap. The really big decline started with Ronnie.

[BlueMTexpat]

6. +1000!

[SomeGuyInEagan]

8. God, that's sad ... when Nixon is your party's golden boy ...

... unless it is Ford, who might be the "best" Republican* President of my lifetime.


(* - Ran on the Republican ticket)

[rufus dog]

15. A couple of years ago I actually charted each President on 14 economic indicators

Went back through Kennedy. The I graded them all on a curve. Carter was the lowest Dem with a C, I believe Reagan was a B-, Nixon a C, GHB and Ford a D, and GWB got the F. Johnson got th A, Clinton B plus, Kennedy B.

Now there are a lot of factors that come into play, but what was amazing was the worst Dem was within points of the "best" repuke.

For fun I offset the analysis by one year, so the incoming President didn't get credit/blame for his predecessor, in that analysis the repukes faired even worse.

[SCantiGOP]

21. "best" Republican

in my lifetime in my opinion was either Eisenhower or G H W Bush. He did a tremendous job in engaging Gorbachev when communism collapsed. Allowed them to have some dignity rather than rubbing it in, and saw to it that all of the SSRs were allowed their independence. They could have easily had a military coup and be much worse than they are now.
I shudder to think what Cheney/Bush would have done. A victory dance while massing US troops on their border in case we had to go in and seize their nuclear arsenal. Could have turned out much worse.
Also, Bush Sr had the sense to abandon his ridiculous 'no new taxes' pledge when it became obvious it was in the country's best interest, even though it would cost him re-election.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

24. I always felt the Rs abandoned Bush, Sr., before the election

To me, it was like they decided it was fine to let him take the hit for the economy hitting the skids and just pulled support. In hindsight, I think they actually pulled support to punish him for wising up and abandoning the no new tax pledge to send the message to the party that taxes which hit the upper classes will never be tolerated, even if people suffer.

My issues with him - aside from his progeny - is the whole Iraq invasion. I seem to recall that Iraq said that they would invade Kuwait and the administration basically said, "Yeah, ok, fine. We (the US) are not concerned with Arab-Arab conflicts." And then the Bush administration used that invasion of Kuwait as the reason to create the coalition to invade Iraq. Hussain and Iraq were our bestest buddies for quite a while ... until they weren't.

I will give him credit for coalition building, though.

[Sherman A1]

12. Precisely

[Segami]

4. K&R! Love the chart!

[benld74]

9. How about another column - Increase in personal wealth while in Congress or Senate?

[JackRiddler]

10. Methodology, please. On years especially.

How does the year after an election (the first year of a new incumbent, where the old one goes out on Jan. 20) count in all this? Is it reckoned strictly by time in office to the day?

[rufus dog]

16. See my post 15 above

I ran numbers a few years back and when you offset by one year the repukes numbers are significantly worse.

You will have to trust me, ....... But if you are a betting person I have $1,000 to bet. Will take a few hours to recreate the data but for a grand it will be worth it.

[JackRiddler]

18. Oh no, I believe you.

I wasn't thinking it would be different, but the question remembers.

[srican69]

11. highly suspect .. if the stats were taken directly from years the particular party was in office

then remember one thing

Correlation is not the same as causation ... Democrats could be lucky , or may be reaping the benefits of the Republican policies put in place earlier ..

bottom line is that these things are complex

[Hissyspit]

13. "reaping the benefits of the Republican policies put in place earlier..."

Um, no. How do I know? I'm 50 years old. I remember it all.

Yeah, it's a Facebook graphic, so typically oversimplistic, but what you say works the other way around, too.

[Bunnahabhain]

14. We don't need your stinking complexity!

Next thing you know you'll be telling us that it is specious to think economic trends could be granularized into discrete arbitrary time periods such as a presidential term!

[rufus dog]

17. But in fact the opposite is true

Pubs are lucky and reaping the benefits of Dem policies. I will make the same $1,000 bet with you that by offsetting by one year, repukes will look worse.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

23. You mean like Bush turning Clinton's surpluses into huge deficits?

[tecelote]

19. Democrates plant. Republicans harvest.

Heard that years ago.

[Lee-Lee]

20. Nice- off to my FB with this n/t

[Berlum]

22. The Republicans & their FAIL & FEAR have disqualified themselves

No one trusts them. No one respects them. And the only things they are good at are FEAR & FAIL.