So I finally got around to reading the roundup of comments on the election that appears in the current Nation, and this sentence, from Theda Skocpol, jumped out at me:

Ironically, the very fact that Bush has made a mess of Iraq probably helped him, because it kept security and war-related issues at the forefront of public discussion throughout the campaign.

That's it, really, isn't it? All through the campaign I heard that Bush wanted to "avoid the mistakes of his father" -- and now it seems clear that one of the "mistakes" made by the elder Bush, maybe the most important, was wrapping up a war and getting the troops home. In retrospect, isn't it obvious that Poppy would have won a second term if, like his son, he'd had the good sense keep Americans rallying 'round the flag by plunging the country into a quagmire, a bloodbath that persisted through Election Day?