Would Bush have been remembered better if he lost in 2004?

[panda_priest]

I think Bush would have gone down better in history as a one-termer and as the 9/11 president. Kerry would inherit Iraq and historians would have judged him for the war's outcome.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Not really the right forum but to answer: Undoubtedly.

[TheGlobalizer]

Of course.  -4 > -8.

[Politico]

Definitely. And Kerry would currently be headed towards a disastrous loss in his re-election bid.

[nclib]

Likely, though hopefully with time, America would realize how big of a fool he was.

[Wakie]

Absolutely.  If conditions were the same as today then the ticket of Jeb Bush/Condi Rice would probably be leading Kerry/Edwards by about 15 pts.  Republicans would blame the economy and the lack of progress in Iraq on Kerry.  Throw in the Edwards affair and the map would look something like this ...

[Erc]

The Edwards affair happened post-2004...while it's certainly possible something similar might have happened given his proclivities, the sitting VP of the United States would be far less tempted than an out-of-work Senator.

[Psychic Octopus]

McCain, if he won the nomination, +Iraq, +Recession, would have destroyed Kerry.

I will present 3 scenarios:

McCain wins 436-102

Giuliani Wins 478-60

Fmr. President Bush wins 381-157

[Robespierre's Jaw]

Giuliani Wins 478-60

Rudy Giuliani, nor any Republican presidential candidate would have been able to win the state of New York and her 31 Electoral College votes. There is the possibility that Giuliani, had he indeed have been the Republican nominee in 2008, if John Kerry won in 2004, that he would have done one to two percent better than his fellow Republicans. But saying that, I'm probably being too generous to the man.

[phk]

Definitely. And Kerry would currently be headed towards a disastrous loss in his re-election bid.

[Jeff from NC]

I think Bush would have gone down better in history as a one-termer and as the 9/11 president.

Undoubtedly.  Many of his biggest failures came in his second term - Katrina, selling the port authority to Dubai, Social Security reform, the uptick in violence in Baghdad.  However, that wouldn't erase the fact that the groundwork for the failure in Iraq was laid in the planning (or lack thereof) and in the policies of the early months.  In addition, his first-term economic policies obviously weren't so hot.

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I think Kerry would be constrained by a Republican Congress and probably would not have been seen as legitimate unless he won the popular vote.  It's not really clear how he would have handled Iraq.  On the one hand, he probably wouldn't have done the surge.  On the other hand, there are plenty of well-informed people who don't think the surge is responsible for the stabilization of Iraq.  I do think the economic crisis would weigh heavily in any Democrat's favor, and he would be narrowly reelected.

EDIT: I had accidentally included myself among the "well-informed people."  That is definitely not the case.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Certainly. He had a ~50% approval rating at the end of his first term.

[they don't love you like i love you]

His reputation would probably basically be the same as his father's actually.

[Beet]

Not really. Yeah he would have had better approval ratings going out, but he'd only be a 1-term President. He would have been poorly remembered because he would have been seen as the "accidental President" who did some bold things in Iraq but never really had a popular mandate and didn't belong in the White House to begin with.