When all is said and done, the decision for the 2012 presidential election will come down to this: Do you believe the President Obama created the current economic and political problems? The Republican campaign has hammered the theme that President Obama is responsible. On rare occasions they will reluctantly admit that things were not so great in the Bush administration and then go on to bash Obama for the problems. I believe that there is real data that can prove whether or not President Obama is responsible as I have demonstrated on my web site at www.mixermuse.com/blog. However, I realize that data and facts are not how most folks decide who to vote for. So, the question remains, did President Obama create the current problems ex nihilo (out of nothing)? Those that believe he did will not and cannot be convinced otherwise. However, if rationality matters we should pay attention to these facts. Even the most devout national Republicans admit that there were problems before President Obama took office. The economic crash became most apparent in 2008 after eight years of practiced and enacted Republican ideology in the Executive Branch with Bush, six years of Republican Legislative Branch control with the congress and a Supreme Court majority in the Judicial Branch. President Obama took office in January of 2009. Has Republican ideology about how to govern changed in the least? They are still supply side (trickle down economics), against regulation, favor the wealthy (what they call job creators), defense and war hawkish and cutting taxes (which is indisputably the largest contributor to the national debt to the present day) while increasing spending dramatically (Medicare, Part D and Defense to name a few). Their ideology has not changed one bit. Their reign precipitated the largest decrease in GDP since the Great Depression, the largest increase in the national debt and a huge real income separation from the wealthy and the middle class in this country. The decision that people need to make is, did President Obama create this or did he have to deal with the aftermath? If you think President Obama created this – show it with specific credible data (I have shown the contrary here). If you want to blame ‘Obamacare’ you will need to explain how something can affect something else BEFORE the fact – Obamacare does not go into effect until 2014. The decision to be made is should we try the ideology that created the mess in the first place? If you are convinced the ideology that created the mess is Democratic you will probably not be reading this. If you are undecided and care about facts and credible data then the decision will come down to, will Republican ideology produce a different result this time? IMO this notion is insane as it implies doing the same thing and expecting a different result.