Obama or McCain: Who will be better for the economy?

With the stock market down another 5% today and a recession looming, it is a good time to look at the effects of the election on what will happen with the economy in the next four years. In an earlier post, I showed how the stock market nearly tripled under Bill Clinton, while, as of today, it is down nearly 15% under GW Bush. Some people have suggested that this is not a normal pattern, so I looked for some more data....since 1901, the stock market has increased an average 12.07% under Democratic presidents, while only 8.11% under Republicans. Industrial production has increased by an average 5.43% under Democrats, while only 2.04% under Republican leaders. And almost every Democratic president has been more successful at creating jobs than almost every Republican president, for as far back as statistics are available (and this chart doesn't even include the Herbert Hoover years, which would make it even more dramatic:

Annual
Job
Growth………Party……………President
8.8%………….Democratic…….Roosevelt (pre-war)
3.5%…………..Democratic…….Johnson
3.3%…………..Democratic…….Carter
2.6%…………..Democratic…….Clinton
2.6%…………..Democratic…….Roosevelt (wartime)
2.4%…………..Democratic…….Truman
2.3%…………..Republican.…….Reagan
2.1%…………..Republican……..Nixon
2.1% …………..Democratic…….Kennedy
0.8%…………..Republican…….Ford
0.5%…………..Republican…….Eisenhower
0.4%…………..Republican…….Bush II
0.4%…………..Republican…….Bush I

So why is it that people think that Republicans are good for the economy?