Reason No. 2: Obama  has reminded the nation repeatedly this year that the economic climate was horrendous when he arrived in the White House, after the 2008 housing  meltdown and the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns.

Some Democrats will certainly call a Romney victory just one more consequence of that crisis.

Obama. of course, took charge during very difficult times, as the country entered a long and painful recession.

Obama has pointed to signs of life in the economy — an incrementally dipping unemployment rate, a revived auto sector — to argue that his policies have been effective, if not as robust as some voters would like.

Former President Bill Clinton bolstered Obama's case at the Democratic National Convention, saying that no one — not Clinton and not any previous president — could have fixed all that ailed the nation in four years.

But Republicans argue in response that Obama had four years of his own to change course, and they have a point.

That won't stop Democrats from arguing, however, that the damage Bush did to the economy was so deep, so lasting and so insurmountable that perhaps nothing at all could have saved Obama politically.