1936: President Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected for a second term by a massive majority. He wins every state but Virginia and Maine. Congress is 80% Democrat. Roosevelt's unprecedented victory depends upon a big swing in the black voting population from the Republicans to the Democrats.

1987: Ronald Reagan is serving his second term in office. He had been reelected in 1984 by the greatest Republican landslide in U.S. history, having won in forty-nine states. Nonetheless, during his seventh year in office he attracts severe criticism for his involvement in the Iran-Contra Affair and his veto of the Clean Water Act.

Today: President Bill Clinton was reelected to office in November, 1996, with 49% of the vote, the first Democrat since Roosevelt to be reelected. However, his second term in office is marred by the Whitewater investigation and the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

1936: Eight million people are unemployed and the...