The economy requires whoever is US president to take decisions which will be unpopular. The recovery might have come before the next election, but a lot of Americans will still feel retty sore from the recession - and right or wrong, Obama will get a lot of the blame.
Yes best guess is that Obama will be a one term president. But plenty of time for events to change any prediction.
And we could well have a parallel process in the UK. Cameron may well be next prime minister after the next election - but faced with an economy carrying far too much debt and a need for unpopular measures (which the present government should be taking now). In six years time it is quite possible that the UK will again vote socialist because Cameron will be blamed for high texes, reduced spending and probably the weather as well.
