Is this what you paid a fortune for, Mr. Murdoch? To see this appear in your media empire?
Donald Luskin: Democratic claims are true: Since 1948, the Standard & Poor's 500 total [nominal] return (capital gains plus dividends) has averaged 15.6% when a Democrat was in the White House and only 11.1% when a Republican was in the White House. You get a similar result if you look at growth in real gross domestic product. Under Democratic presidents, the average since 1948 has been 4.2%. Under Republican presidents it has been only 2.8%.
But it's not so simple when you study that "study." First, not all Democrats act like Democrats, and not all Republicans act like Republicans. John F. Kennedy, for example, was an enthusiastic supply-side tax cutter, and George H.W. Bush raised taxes. Bill Clinton promoted free trade, and Richard Nixon imposed wage and price controls. If you assign those four presidents to the opposite party based on that -- make the two Democrats into Republicans and the two Republicans into Democrats -- the numbers completely reverse...
If I understand this, I think it is an endorsement of Obama: it's advice that you should vote for the Democrat because he is more likely to act like a growth-promoting Republican than the Republican is. With Obama's chief economic advisor being University of Chicago Professor Austan Goolsbee, and McCain's being bureaucratic oligopolistic corporate establishment figure ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina, the proper path is clear.
