I took a break during the home stretch of the election season -- discussing the economy by that time would only have been divisive and a distraction from the more important work of the election effort. Now that it's over, this Google trends result for the phrase 'double dip recession is the single graphic that shows why the democrats got "shellacked:"
Half a year ago, I wrote that The November elections will turn on Jobs, Income -- and the price of Oil, in which I highlighted an article by James Surowiecki. Surowiecki cited research that refined the maxim, "It's the Economy, Stupid" to a more precise metric -- how were incomes growing in the second and third quarter of the election year? As we will see below, that is the single worst metric by which the economy could have been judged this year, and economic fears were highest at the worst possible time. Last Tuesday the voters held the democrats responsible.
More below the fold.