It was better in 2004, but no picnic, and Dems gearing up for the election in '03 planned to run against Bushs till-then awful economic record of disasters like:

The dotcom bubble bursting,

Enron, Worldcom and the Wall Street accounting firms that knowingly hid their fraud and, of course,

The stock crash after a federal government that knew Al Qaeda agents were in the US, learning to fly jets and targeting the WTC (again) could not connect the LINE, much less dots. Inconsequential to the lives of Americans? Really?

All the economic disasters so horrible they had to be blamed on Clinton even after Bush had been in office three years. It got better BY COMPARISON in 2004 and took the issue away from Kerry, only to completely collapse shortly afterward (though that obviously did not influence the '04 campaign.)

By that standard, Obama should be re-elected on similar improvement. The Dow is about double what it was the day he was inaugurated; you should be dancing in the streets, because I recall no president who witnessed similar gains in four years, especially during a decade long double-dip recession. The second half of that dip hit about a month before the election, so unemployment hit 10% before Obama had been in office a year; it is down 2% since. If small but real improvement on enduring recession justifies re-election, well, four more years.

Nah, this is just another filthy rich MA waffle against a charismatic but incompetent/uncommitted incumbent. If Bushs economic accomplishments to this point were even marginally greater than Obamas (doubtful,) that must be offset by killing bin Laden and getting out of Iraq. A month ago I could not see any real difference between Obama, Romney OR Bush, but after a week or two of Republicans demanding SS and Medicares abolition to give Romney a tax cut, a constitutional abortion ban with no exceptions, suddenly Dems are noticeable distinct from Republicans again.