From Huff-Po's front page...

It is an article of faith among the right wing punditocracy that the Democrats are bad for business, bad for the markets, and bad for the economy. The numbers, though, tell a completely different story. And yet, we Democrats seem powerless to counter this right-wing narrative. Rather than tout our accomplishments we seem to prefer to empathize with those still suffering.

Let's take, just for fun, one of the most widely regarded metrics -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average. If we look at how the markets have performed in the first 21 months of various administrations, it turns out, the markets love Democrats generally, and that in fact, in the first half of his term, Obama has presided over the biggest market rally of any newly elected president in more than 45 years. But do we tout this huge improvement? Oddly no.



Here's the breakdown with the actual DJIA historical data...


UNDER RONALD REGAN:

DOW BEGAN: 970.99
DOW ENDED: 824.01
For a LOSS of 17.8 PERCENT



UNDER GEORGE H.W. BUSH

DOW BEGAN 2,239.11
DOW ENDED 2,427.48
For a moderate GAIN of 7.8 PERCENT





BILL CLINTON:

DOW BEGAN: 3,241.95
DOW ENDED 3,878.18
For a GAIN of 16.8 PERCENT





GEORGE W. BUSH

DOW BEGAN 10,581.90
DOW ENDED 7,698.81
For a whopping LOSS of 37.4%



And finally...

OBAMA

DOW BEGAN 7,949.17
DOW ENDED: 10,819.31
For a GAIN of 26.5%




Ok, so let's all agree to just trust the actual numbers which make clear that Democratic presidents have been great for the market, and that that Obama in particular has been wildly effective in shepherding in a massive recovery So from now on, instead of whining about how much better we need to do, let's try, just for once crowing about the biggest market rally in the first half of a new president's term in more than 45 years.