Roger Altman, a former deputy Treasury secretary and a co-founder of the investment firm Evercore partners, thinks the U.S. economy could be on the verge of an unexpected boom. …

Is he right? I have no idea. But you don’t have to be wildly optimistic about the American economy to expect the next four years to be much stronger than the last four. As I’ve argued previously, that makes the outcome of this election unusually important, as the winner – and his policy platform, and his party – stands to reap the gains of being in office when the economy finally recovers, no matter whether he or his policies actually deserve the credit.

The thought of Romney winning in November and the GOP taking the credit for the recovery is almost unbearably depressing.