For George W. Bush, the race has begun to escape comparisons to Herbert Hoover.

With more than 2 million jobs having disappeared since Bush took office in January 2001, he finds himself in danger of becoming the first president since Hoover to oversee a decline in the country's employment.

Economists disagree on how much blame, if any, Bush deserves for the long slump, but even White House aides view the economy as one of the only big threats to his re-election campaign.

...

Even if the economy merely adds jobs at the average rate of the last 50 years, he will rank roughly in the middle of modern Republican presidents, who have held office during weaker periods of job growth than Democrats.

But the length of the economic slowdown has surprised almost all economists, and some have begun to say that there is a significant chance that the economy will not erase its jobs deficit by the end of 2004.

Among the nation's three best-known forecasting firms, Economy.com puts the chance at about 33 percent, Global Insight at 25 percent and Macroeconomic Advisers at about 20 percent. Employment gains would have to average about 120,000 a month for the nation's work force to return to its January 2001 size by the end of next year.