I haven't heard anyone from the old MSM label Obama a socialist.
And no matter who the Republicans nominated, they would have been "Bush third term" or "Bush light" or worse. There doesn't seem to be a threshold for using this label, either. This is just business (politics), don't take it personally, as Don Corlone would say.

That small 2% you speak of represents a 10% increase in the size of the government/tax increase. Seems a bit bigger when you characterize it that way. If the economy were growing at a 2% rate faster THAT would be a big deal. Surely they showed you in math class how to make your case stronger by fooling around with the baseline when you graphed data.

Many on the right are not happy that Bush seemed as eager as the Democrats to create new entitlements--the Medicare drug benefit, in particular.