[gojomo]

From a glance, his deficit and job growth assessments are likely sensitive to definitions -- what's the first year that counts for an administration? was Ford part of the Nixon administration? etc. -- and assumptions about lag effects. (Were the 70s a hangover from the 60s boom? The 00s from the 90s? How much of a ding should Obama, GWB, Reagan get for 09-10, 01-02, 81-82? Does Vietnam belong to Kennedy, Johnson, or Nixon?)

The reasoning about state-by-state indicators and presidential-party preferences is very bogus; you couldn't turn 'red' states into 'blue' states by adopting blue-state policy preferences; for one thing, the red states can't afford them! (Some of those preferences are luxuries purchased with wealth, rather than the original causes of wealth.)

Also consider the following: richer people lean Republican, but richer states lean Democrat. People with high school diplomas are more Republican than those without... but states with higher levels of high-school graduation are more Democratic. Same with undergraduate degrees.

These counterintuitive results for the aggregates are all examples of Simpson's Paradox:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox