Professor John Sides writes for the Washington Post that Republicans are being too gloomy about their chances at winning the presidency in 2016. His predictive model says that, if the economy is no better in 2016 than it is now and Obama's popularity numbers remain low, the GOP's presidential chances are on the order of 63% ... no slam dunk but very decent odds.
Sides' main point is that only once in the past 60+ years has a single party held the presidency for more than two consecutive terms, Reagan followed by Bush 41. Apparently 8 years is normally long enough to convince Americans a party is not doing the job.
