the debt ceiling, which didn t help. but they stop sounding like explanations and begin sounding like excuses. so president obama needs to be able to make the case that the economy is just worse. and there wasn t with a very bad hand, his policies did about what could have been expected, about as good as we have been have done. romney wants to make it sound like it was a set of bad policies that led to a slow and sluggish recovery. what about governor romney in terms of what his most challenging question is, the thing he s least looking forward to talking about? it s flip of that. if president obama needs to defend why the recovery hasn t been quicker, romney needs to explain why he would actually make it faster. this is where the obama campaign sees their opportunity. george w. bush, obviously, his prime economic policy was a set of very large tax cuts. they did not have a very positive effect on the economy, even before the recession. it was a very, very weak expansion. and so