Unemployment 5.5% /Oil 131+ = Media - Depression & Obama Wins

[dex]

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

Expect the media reporting to go from bad to worse - a lot of the use of the words recession & depression - housinig, autos

Sen. Obama will win with news like this. He will be able to hit the republicans on being for big business and insensitive to the poor - the usual

Sen. McCain had a chance if the economy was OK.

[brewer12345]

Kind of looks like 1992/1993 all over again, doesn't it?

[dex]

Originally Posted by brewer12345

Kind of looks like 1992/1993 all over again, doesn't it?

Very much so with a little of Clinton/Dole thrown in.

+++
Also, add to the above the dollar falling - it was up after Benerke said he was concerned about inflation. It is getting sold with the unemployment info.

[Independent]

Professor Ray Fair at Yale has the best known model for predicting presidential elections using economic factors. You can enter your own values for the key variables if you like. You can even input values which are different from the official statistics, but more in line with your estimate of public perceptions.

Presidential Vote Equation---2004 Update

[samclem]

The economy (or, rather, voters' perception of it) will almost certainly be the main factor in the election, just as it usually is. Overall, the economy right now is not bad at all in historical terms, but that matters a lot less than the perception.

The most significant other wildcard affecting the election would be national security. A significant upsurge in violence in Iraq (even if the US/Iraqi govt is doing the "violencing" on folks that need it), or a terrorist attack on the US would probably affect the election. Still, it's difficult to say which candidate would "benefit" in the aftermath of an attack on the US.
-If we blame ourselves for ineffective security measures, then the Republican administration, and McCain by extension, would probably suffer, though some in Congress who nixed stronger security laws would also pay.
- If we blame ourselves and see the attack as a result of our foreign policy/entanglements, then Obama will have a great issue to exploit. He'd be on very thin ice, and those who tried this last time got pilloried.
- If we blame the terrorists for the terrorist attack, then there would probably be an increase in hawkishness that would help McCain.

I'm not trying to drag this into the whole debate about Iraq and fighting terrorism, just saying that there are events outside of the economy that could affect who gets elected.