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not saying that the financial crisis bailout didnt hurt real bad, it did. But Iraq, high gas prices, the crash, the debt are all tied together in many voters minds.

Again, no. - Although I understand the overarching point that you are making.

All of those were simple excuses, projected as rational reasons, when the underlying dynamic was opined plainly and simply in 2004

“Anyone but Bush.”

It has simply morphed back into the more generic “Anyone but any republican.”

And Thats the way it is.

You can't beat a democrat nobody with a GOP nobody. - Period.

My point is that Bush was at the helm during many bad things, bad times. Some can be directly associated to him, some can indirectly, and some he gets the blame for just for being president with his own congress for 5-6 years. It was more than enough for democrats to put together to create a small set of narratives, the most effective one was “Bush was an idiot” and by 2007 with amnesty even I was repeating it. Bush while seen by many conservatives as a good person had some major character flaws.

His TARP bailout was the final wakeup for me, one of many. I finally understood that Sept 11 was a gift from God to Bush, and to some degree republicans. For a short time everyone turned to Bush for protection and leadership. He had a blank check. At this point he decided that HE knew things others didn't, that he was really special and he showed arrogance in many statements (That his fans saw as strength, longing for a hero, including me.) But that arrogance was a flaw, not a strength. And God, or fate, has a way of making us pay for for arrogance. The democrats set his sites on him for 5 years with outright hatred, and when things started to go badly the public, who was never enthused about Iraq to begin with ,and trusted him on it, were in democrats hands and turned sharply against him. Eventually Bush became more than an object of hatred but a gift to democrats, and a curse to us. And then.. your last post sums it up.