I see a lot of this coming from the right, lately, and I expect we'll see a lot more. It's a bet hedging technique. If McCain gets elected and he does a good job, it will be because he's a Republican. If he screws up his term (even perhaps through no fault of his own) it will be because he's not the correct KIND of Republican. Save the phenomenon.

The Democrats, on the other hand, appear to be putting all their eggs in one basket. If Obama wins, and he has a good Presidency, we'll get a lot of "I told you so's". If his administration is a catatstophe, again, whether it's his fault or not, it will be "It was all Bush's fault." Hey, it's what the Reps used on Clinton, right? It didn't really work, but it reassured the faithful.

In either case, no matter how the term plays out, both sides will paint the President as an unmitigated disaster if he is from the other party. The big difference is that the country is in a lot more trouble going into this election than it was going into the first Clinton term, or coming out of his last one. That's the only asymmetry I can see in the usual partisan cycle. I see trouble ahead, and it isn't necessarily going to be the President's fault, no matter who he is, how good he is, or whether he gets blamed for it or not.