“The next president, whoever he is, will enjoy a ‘recovery presidency,’ and so too will his party. If Romney wins the presidency and the economy begins to rebound, Republicans will argue, and America’s experience will seem to show, that they were right all along: The stimulus was useless and the regulatory uncertainty the Obama administration created with its health-care plan and its talk of cap-and-trade and all the rest kept businesses from investing. Of course, if Obama keeps the office, that argument will be largely discredited, and he’ll be able to make the case that he and his party steered the country through incredible choppy waters despite relentless obstructionism from the Republicans. Whichever party wins the White House in 2012 is likely to get the credit [for the recovery], and so too will its policy agenda. That makes the 2012 election really, really important.”
Ezra Klein in WashingtonPost.com
