How George W. Bush Will Impact The 2012 Election

Bush's Ghost Haunts 2012 Race
In this April 12, 2011 photo, former president George W. Bush makes opening remarks at the The 4% Project, Driving Economic Growth conference at SMU in Dallas. Former President George W. Bush is skipping the Republican National Convention next month in Tampa, Fla., where presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney will officially become the party's standard-bearer.(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
In this April 12, 2011 photo, former president George W. Bush makes opening remarks at the The 4% Project, Driving Economic Growth conference at SMU in Dallas. Former President George W. Bush is skipping the Republican National Convention next month in Tampa, Fla., where presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney will officially become the party's standard-bearer.(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Conventional wisdom holds that elections are about the future. Or about the personalities of the candidates. Or at least about voters’ perceptions of the last four years. But a quick glance at history shows that’s not always so. Republicans won every election between 1868 and 1880—not because Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and James Garfield were such fabulous candidates, and not because their Democratic opponents were so awful.

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