Every time people “vote their pocketbooks” - a Democrat wins. Why is that? Why, given that the Republicans always claim to have the better economic policies, are the Democrats the ones that usually get the economy moving? Why do the Democrats so often benefit from poor economies?

You assume, had the economy been better, that McCain would have won. I don’t necessarily believe that - not with Palin as his pick, not with the way he ran the campaign. If he runs more like he did in 2000, with a strong economic-minded VP, then I think he wins. But given how he played it - I doubt he would have won.

You can’t act as if the economic meltdown happened in a vacuum. In 2000 the R’s claimed they would have the majority forever. It lasted less than one term. They claimed they had all the solutions, they had full control of the government - and things fell apart all around them anyway. I had to bite my tongue because it was necessary to see if they were right, if they really did have the answers and that the country really was shifting definitively right of center.

That, clearly, is not what happened. So lets see what the Dems do with the keys now.

People voted their pocketbooks and Obama was given his mandate because of economics. One reason that Obama was elected, according to the polls, was economics. If the timing had been off you would have still had to bite your tongue, as you apparently have been doing for the past two terms. How long would you have to be biting your tongue for what you want to say not to be true?