Out of my comfort zone

I confess to being confused about this election. I have been writing about them, and participating in them, federal and state, for nearly 50 years but have not come across anything like this one.  My experience tells me that first-term governments don't lose when economic conditions are basically good. Yet, a first-term government in good economic times that sacks its leaders on the eve of the campaign and then welcomes the vanquished back to campaign on his record? What are the public going to make of that? Frankly, I just don't know. If there is ever going to be an election that a government loses because of its own stupidity, this is it.

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