When things finally started turning around in Iraq, post-surge, Democrats who had opposed the surge had to explain themselves. Barack Obama said it wasn't the surge, per se, but the generally excellent performance of our armed forces. (He didn't explain how or why our armed forces had gotten more excellent at the exact same time the surge occurred.) Other Democrats said the turnaround in Iraq was not due to the surge, but to the "Sunni awakening."
Republicans may soon find themselves in a similar position on the economy. There have been encouraging jobs reports in the past couple of months, along with a drop in the unemployment rate. President Obama will claim credit for this.* Republicans will attempt to deny him credit, attributing the return to growth to other factors.
But what other factors can they cite? More to the point, what other factors can they cite that will cause voters to deny President Obama credit? None, most likely...
*This is pretty ridiculous, of course, but it's less ridiculous than Republicans/conservatives referring to the 1983 through 1999 era of growth as the "Reagan boom." I mean, there were two other presidents in there, and a whole bunch of Congresses, and dramatic changes in technology, and...
