In the wake of Democratic senator Barack Obama's historic rise to the ranks of United States President, it's difficult not to acknowledge his predecessor George W. Bush's precipitous fall from that very position.
Fact is, public opinion of Bush has undergone one of the most radical about faces in recent memory: From first-term "Cowboy" with the highest approval rating in the Gallup Poll's entire 70-year history -- TO -- second-term whipping boy with a record-low approval rating of 27%.
In the words of one November 5, 2008 Wall Street Journal: "It seems no matter what Mr. Bush does, he is blamed for everything." And, according to the experts, "W" will undoubtedly go down in the book as the "Worst President Ever."
Contrary to popular belief(s), according to socionomics – the new science of history and social prediction based on the Elliott Wave Principle – the REAL reason behind Bush's fall from grace is not "policy" (say the leftists), "scapegoating" (say the rightists), or a "breakdown of bipartisanship" (say the middle-ists). It is: A downturn in mass social mood, as reflected by the bear market decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
In his 2002 best-selling book Conquer the Crash, Robert Prechter, Executive Director of the Socionomics Institute, addressed the one pre-condition for Presidential popularity and wrote:
"U.S. electoral history shows that when the stock market is rising, reflecting a positive social mood trend, voters tend to maintain the incumbent leader. When stock markets collapse, the leader is thrown out in a landslide or by other means. There are no exceptions to this rule."
(Presidential Popularity AND Stock Prices: Mass social mood alone determines whether a leader leaves the White House a hero, or a disgrace. The November 2008 Financial Forecast Service reveals whether Bush's bear will be Obama's legacy. Act Now to Find Out.)
The moderate gain in the market averages in the three years leading up to Election Day in 2004 indicated a small margin in Bush's favor, and that's the way the election turned out. On that very day, the November 2004 Bob Prechter's Elliott Wave Theorist warned: Bush's victory would be short-lived. An excerpt from that EWT painted this startling picture:
"This is bad news for Republicans, who will rue the day they won the election in 2004. The large degree of the bear market that is underway is likely to wreak havoc with Bush's second term… He will probably experience something very like Nixon's second term but worse: A bigger slide in the stock market, a drop to lower levels of popularity, and ultimately ousting by some method. If he makes it through all four years, the next Republican candidate will probably lose the 2008 election by a huge margin. The downhill course of this presidency will pave the way for the Democratic candidate to become president in 2008."
Note: The November 2004 EWT's prediction came BEFORE the Bush administration was marred by the bursting of the real estate bubble, the subprime mortgage implosion, the Hurricane Katrina levy debacle, the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp controversy, the credit crisis, and the across-the-board meltdown of all asset classes in the U.S. economy.
The wheels of a downturn in social mood had already started to turn. Our team of expert analysts foresaw that its reversal would take down every pillar of the former bull market glory, including the President (and his party) – AND determine the outcome of the 2008 election long before the November 4 votes were tallied.
Socionomically speaking, Barack Obama's campaign slogan of "Change" was pure genius. Change is exactly what social mood had undergone AND exactly what it would demand of its new leader.