When Barack Obama won 44 percent of the Lancaster County vote in 2008, it was the highest percentage for a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson swamped Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964.

The vote affirmed Obama's campaign of hope and change. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who served under President George W. Bush, had endorsed Obama, calling him a transformative figure in American politics. He has been that — although critics portray that transformation in a negative light.

It is unlikely that Obama will do as well in Lancaster County in 2012. The state of the economy and his passage of the Affordable Care Act suggest he will have difficulty getting anywhere close to that mark.

So why vote for Obama in 2012? Because his bailout helped stave off a financial disaster, because he delivered on a promise to make health insurance available for everyone and because his approach to dealing with the deficit — a combination of spending cuts and revenue increases — is the only path that will work.

The nation's economy was in free-fall in 2008 when Bush put in place the Troubled Assets Relief Program. That slowed the fall but when Obama took office, the economy was still spiraling downward. His stimulus bill saved Detroit's auto industry and kept hundreds of thousands of workers employed.

Republican candidate Mitt Romney had suggested allowing auto companies to restructure through bankruptcy — a plan most economists agree would have led to plant closings and extended the recession.

What did the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act do for us here? It brought an estimated $1 billion to Lancaster County in infrastructural improvements and job, cost and tax savings. Talmage got new sewage lines. Lancaster city got sewer station upgrades. The Lancaster City Housing Authority was able to replace aging elevators and retrofit windows in senior citizen highrises. It made funds available for research into high-tech magnets in Landisville and weatherization upgrades for low-income homeowners. In short, the stimulus did what it was supposed to do: It created and preserved jobs.

The president then signed into law the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare, for short — that required insurers to accept customers with pre-existing conditions, enabled young adults to remain on their parents' health care plans through age 26 and extended health insurance to 45 million Americans currently without insurance.

Democrats were distressed because the plan didn't go far enough. Republicans oppposed it because it went too far.

Yet, the plan is modeled on Romney's Massachusetts plan — a plan that has been highly successful, yet one he chose to walk away from during the Republican primary season because it was seen as too moderate.

Finally, Obama has endorsed a deficit reduction plan that includes both spending cuts and revenue increases. Central to his plan is a proposal to increase tax rates on incomes in excess of $250,000. His proposal to raise revenue by $1 for every $10 in cuts was panned by House Republicans.

Contrast that with Romney's proposal to cut taxes to create jobs and to reverse the economic decline. Left unsaid are what deductions — mortgages, taxes, charitiable giving — Romney would eliminate in search of revenue.

The Republican mantra has been to run to the right in the primary season, then to the center in the general election.

That worked for George W. Bush. But in Romney's case, it has created confusion. Is he the tea party candidate clothed as a moderate, or is it the other way around?

Is he the corporate manager who, though mergers and buyouts, outsourced jobs, or the candidate who will go after America's biggest trading partner, China, for unjust trade practices?

Is he concerned for the 47 percent of Americans who receive some form of government assistance, or is he contemptuous of them?

Does he believe, as he did when serving as Massachusetts' governor, that all Americans deserve health insurance, or is this solely a job for the states?

The economy has yet to fully recover and, in usual circumstances, that's enough to oust the incumbent.

But the Great Recession has been far different than anything this nation has endured since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

President Obama has worked to help the nation through these troubled times. He has done so at a time when the United States has faced immense global challenges — from terrorism to Russian and Chinese recalcitrance to Third World manufacturing competition.

He brought the nation through four of the most difficult years any president could face.

The economy is beginning to get back on track; U.S. military forces are coming home; the nation is again moving forward.

He deserves four more years to finish his task.