"Socionomics is the study of social mood and its results in social actions. It studies how waves of endogenously regulated social mood in turn regulate changes in the economy, political preferences, financial markets, pop culture, etc."

I made a chart of the Dow that covers the last 100 years or so and marked where each President served. I also marked where each President that was popular was re-elected and also where each President who was not popular was not re-elected. If you click on the chart on the right, you can barely see the chart I made. It gets better if you put on your readers. It's a lot bigger than this so if you want to see it a little better, send me an email and I'll send it to you. (Or perhaps someone can suggest a public domain where I can upload the file so we can all see it properly.)

Consider the four popular Presidents of the last century: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton. Each was re-elected when the stock market was either topping or rallying, with the single exception of Roosevelt's 2nd re-election in 1940.

Were the leaders of these boom times necessarily good leaders or did the economic success of those periods make these Presidents seem like competent leaders.

Now consider the four most unpopular Presidents of the last century: Hoover, Johnson, Nixon and Carter. Hoover was ousted at the nadir of the worst economic crisis in the history of this country. Johnson never ran for re-election, possibly seeing that he wouldn't have been re-elected. Nixon was caught in the troubled economy of the '70s which led to his successor's defeat in 1976 and Carter was ousted after 4 years when interest rates hit 21% and unemployment was over 10%. Even George H.W. Bush was ousted after 4 years after the historically mild recession in 1991.

Were the leaders of these troubled times necessarily ineffective leaders or did the economic distress of those periods make these Presidents seem like incompetent Presidents?

Roosevelt's presidency is complicated but history judges all of these Presidents on the success/failure of their respective economies but perhaps a more careful and responsible study is warranted. Think about it - Presidents Reagan and Clinton could do no wrong and President Carter it seemed, couldn't do anything right. But really, were Reagan and Clinton extraordinary Presidents and Carter really a bumbling fool, or was there something else happening within the human psyche for which we weren't really aware?

The prevailing thought is that rising stock markets portend an ebullient social mood. However, Socionomics postulates the reverse: a falling social mood translates into falling markets and deteriorating social events.

We have never really accepted George Bush as our President. It seems his two victories were a selection of "the lesser of two evils." We have been divided as a country for most of the last 10 years and now we have an economic crisis that reflects that division. It is an economic condition that suggests a "throw the bums out" result for a Republican administration. Of course anything can happen between now and November 4th, but the prevailing social mood favors the challenger, Barrack Obama.

If our social mood doesn't improve in the next four years, then that too will forecast an Obama defeat in 2012. And if I'm right about the size of this crisis, it will be a tough 4 years for Obama.

The good news for Republicans is that with the size of this crisis, 2010 should be a "throw the bums out" congressional and gubernatorial event, since this economy will likely not improve by then. The bad news for Republicans is that two years is plenty of time to reshape this nation in the image of social Democrats. But rest assured, anything the government tries in order to deal with the economy will be doomed to failure, as it always is. For it isn't the effect of government programs that deems it to be a success or failure, it's how we feel about those effects that determines its success or failure, and we aren't feeling very well about much of anything these days.

History's Hidden Engine is a very good primer on the study of measurable social mood.