http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/obama-economy-midwest-governors-116205.html#.VQsol9LF9A0excerpted from POLITICO.com
These governors are claiming the resurgences as their own in narratives that don’t mention Obama or the federal government, except as impediments. Yet economists say they are able to call the state of their states “strong” in large part because of the policies Obama muscled through to strengthen the safety net and prevent collapse on both Wall Street and Main Street. To paraphrase Texas populist Jim Hightower’s famous quip about George H.W. Bush at the 1988 Democratic convention: These governors were born on third base and they’re claiming credit for hitting triples.
The irony is rich given that Obama confronted a solid wall of GOP opposition to most of the steps he took, not least from Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, then in Congress. And it is not lost on Obama. He tweaked Republicans on Wednesday for predicting that his policies would “crush jobs and explode deficits and destroy the economy forever,” when the opposite has happened. On top of that, three of the governors potentially eyeing his job—Walker, John Kasich in Ohio and Rick Snyder in Michigan—rode in on the conservative 2010 wave fueled by anger at Obama, the economy and the Affordable Care Act. Obama’s efforts may have helped produce both a Republican ticket and the record for it to run on.
