I thought my tinfoil hat was askew when I'd hear things like "the economy is improving"... in Alabama, in Idaho, in Alaska... but things are pretty bleak in California, New York, Illinois, Michigan. As I started listening and applying "Red State"/"Blue State" to what I was hearing, things started making sense.
Well, maybe things are improving for enough of the economy to get Bush reinstalled in office, and articles like this tend to illustrate how that happens...
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101040329/nhomeland.html?cnn=yes