Popular Vote
2004 - Bush got 50.7%.
2012 - Obama got 50.6%
2004 - Bush got 62,040,610 votes.
2012 - Obama got 62,156,980 votes.
Margin of victory
2004 - Bush got 2.47% more than Kerry.
2012 - Obama got 2.7% more than Romney.
2004 - Bush got 3,012,171 more votes than Kerry.
2012 - Obama got 3,351,920 more votes than Romney.
It was also a similar situation.
One on side, an incumbent president with moderate approval ratings seeking re-election. On the other side, a challenger who people support only because there was nobody better.
Who knows, maybe Obama leaves office with a 20% approval rating like Bush did. Then the Republicans get huge momentum for the 2016 election.
Very dissimilar. Dubya had been elected in an election in which he lost the popular vote; one has to be a complete nut to deny that Barack Obama won fair and square in 2008. Dubya had two wars going on and they had yet to prove as unpopular as they would be. Dubya entered in an economic recession; Obama entered office as the economy was in a meltdown. Dubya had huge scandals about to break. One of the big differences was that Dubya bungled a natural disaster, but that would not show up until 2005. Sandy may not be a perfect analogue to Katrina, but the difference in response and political consequences could hardly be more different.
The more fitting analogue to the likely end of the Obama Presidency could be 1960. Barack Obama is more a liberal version of Dwight Eisenhower but without the military record and fifteen years younger. There is hope with that analogue -- Barack Obama is probably an above-average President as was Ike, and JFK -- not Nixon -- followed Eisenhower. Dubya may have been the worst President in American history.
