President Obama ran a successful campaign in 2008 against George W. Bush. Yes, yes, John McCain’s name was on the ballot, but that was a detail. Obama campaigned against Bush. McCain even laughed about it at the Alfred E. Smith dinner, joking that Obama’s “pet name for me” is “George Bush.”

The president is hoping to reprise the same race in 2012. Speaking in Iowa last month, he said of Republicans: “They either want to do nothing at all or they want to double down on the same failed policies that got us into this mess.”