Based on his actions, it seems he's just one of those people who crave power. Unfortunately, this means that he'll never legalize or deregulate anything of importance (outside exceptional key election issues, like Obamacare), because that will be a reduction in his power.

And you get back to why I am not as optimistic as you.  What I see the GOP doing is running candidates who shift further and further out of the mainstream, to get the nomination, and then build product they are marketing, which most people won't be happy with, or excited about.  It is, "Well the Democrats are bad, so need ANY option".  This shift Romney has made, got him the nomination, but risks not getting him the election.  It puts him in the same category as John Kerry as being a flip-flopper.  And the policies he proposes aren't really different from what GW Bush had at all.   Romney is also a a loser, the way McCain was.  Both lost the last primary, but then built political base that enabled them to roll off key states.  The candidates, in other words, aren't the top choices of the GOP, but the ones who lost prior.

And Obama seems to be a candidate to facilitate the sliding further and further out of the mainstream. Obama's proposals are right out of the GOP playbook, like individual mandates, and tax cuts for the middle class.  The GOP ends up opposing policies they had.  The are becoming less and less mainstream.  And then Obama runs wiht Bush foreign policy, and also infringing upon civil liberties the way GW did.

Obama has been a better President in all respects than Bush Jr. However, many people don't like Obama because of all the propaganda the Right Wing media has put out against him starting the morning after Election Day 2008 ( and that has been helped out by the fact that he's an African American. They couldn't have slammed a white guy with the same policies the same way).

If Obama's made some mistakes they were largely due to the fact that he didn't push his agenda through when he had a Democratic Congress thus giving people ample time to fall in love with his plans before the 2010 elections.

I think in some ways he tried to govern from the center and be a great compromiser even when his opponents were fewer in number which hurt too.

It's clear that no Republican who plays politics (that is, pretty much all Republicans except Congressman Paul) would want to compete in 2008 (coming off George Bush) or 2012 (competing against Obama), so what they had was the bottom of the barrel... I don't think this will be the case in 2016. Lots of great candidates for the GOP. Depending on how Obama's second term goes, we'll see either good or bad candidates from the DNC (if Obama's second term goes well, people will be willing to come off his hightails).

It's like Dole against Clinton, or Kerry against Bush.

Or, you know, it could just be an agreement between the parties, to not seriously gun for office during re-election.

I think that's unfair to John Kerry.  I mean, John Kerry's flipflopping I think could of eaisly been explained as legitamitly changing his mind... unlike say Romney changing his mind on practically every position he had simlatniously, or Obama and his devolving-reevolving view on marriage.

I mean "I was for it before I was against it" could of been better put "I voted for it at first because I wanted out troops to be prepared for the dangers they faced, but then I realized unless changes were made our troops would be in that danger for far longer then they needed to be... and that we as congressmen should be able to craft a compromise that would keep our troops safe both in the present, AND the future."

It's just that John Kerry had both the Charisma and looks of the douchebag doctor in Reanimator. 

So he accidently blurted out "I voted for it before i voted against it"  botched the election, and was shortly beheaded

Or maybe that was the guy from the Reanimtor.

Bush saved millions of lives in Africa. And created the largest marine preservation zone. He also never assassinated any us citizens.

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-01-15/politics/frist.bush_1_antiretrovirals-hiv-george-bush?_s=PM:POLITICS

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,476584,00.html

Edit: A few more things. 

Obama came down on whistleblowers, and pot growers more than Bush ever did. 

Bush has done a lot of things better than Obama. But all around, both of them were terribad presidents 

What I discuss isn't about fair or unfair, it is about how one is perceived politically.  Mitt has the same political baggage as Kerry did, even if Mitt's is arguably worse.  It doesn't matter if Kerry could of explained it away, the fact is it is baggage.  I believe it likely comes from Mass. being what it is.  Anyone from there would have views that are too liberal to be accepted in America at this point in time.  

In the case of Romney, he ends up looking too polished and arguably too rich.  He doesn't look like anyone the average person can associate with.  He looks too good, and is too refined, and thrown in him taking every possible stand and it doesn't look.  Good looks plus not appearing genuine with one's views, and you end up looking fake.

I am curious about your definition of a fact?

I'm interested in what Obama's second term (if he gets re-elected, which seems likely) will be like. Generally second terms seem to be when presidents get the most done, it'll be interesting to see what happens if he gets handed a majority in congress again.

Latest predictions is that Democrats will likely lose even more seats in the house, and have a chance for the GOP to take over, or at least have more seats than the Democrats in the Senate. With the Independents, the GOP doesn't get a majority vote.  Obama isn't likely to get any help.