I think Bush would have gone down better in history as a one-termer and as the 9/11 president.
Undoubtedly. Many of his biggest failures came in his second term - Katrina, selling the port authority to Dubai, Social Security reform, the uptick in violence in Baghdad. However, that wouldn't erase the fact that the groundwork for the failure in Iraq was laid in the planning (or lack thereof) and in the policies of the early months. In addition, his first-term economic policies obviously weren't so hot.
I think Kerry would be constrained by a Republican Congress and probably would not have been seen as legitimate unless he won the popular vote. It's not really clear how he would have handled Iraq. On the one hand, he probably wouldn't have done the surge. On the other hand, there are plenty of well-informed people who don't think the surge is responsible for the stabilization of Iraq. I do think the economic crisis would weigh heavily in any Democrat's favor, and he would be narrowly reelected.
EDIT: I had accidentally included myself among the "well-informed people." That is definitely not the case.
