The ghost of Ronald Reagan is about to haunt President Obama. If Mitt Romney has any political savvy at all, he will begin channeling the late president and introduce his ghost into the economic debate forthwith.

Back in July of 1980, when Reagan was challenging President Jimmy Carter, the unemployment rate in America was 7.8 percent — close to what it is now. But the inflation rate was more than 13 percent, and that was eroding American wealth at a frightening clip. Reagan seized on the economic turmoil to hammer Carter as an incompetent, and that won the election for the former actor and governor of California.