BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from The Hill

“It’s the economy, stupid.” That was the battle cry from Bill Clinton’s crack campaign team in the months leading up to the 1992 election.

And the conventional wisdom continues to be that Americans vote their pocketbooks when deciding whom to support in presidential elections. But it would be a mistake to conclude that only economic factors play in to how voters will decide this election.

The unemployment rate is at 8.3 percent, on the high end of the historical average, which should be bad for Barack Obama. But it is trending the right way, which is usually a good sign for the incumbent.

Mitt Romney, the likely Republican standard-bearer, has run his whole campaign on the argument that he can run the economy better than Obama because he has deep experience as a CEO. But CEOs are about as popular as the Congress, so that theory might be a bit flawed.

Here are some other factors that will play an outsized role in this campaign. Continue reading →