One factor favoring President Obama's re-election, according to a recent article by political scientist Alan Lichtman, is the absence of scandal in his administration.

Lichtman may have spoken too soon.

The reason can be capsulized in a single word: Solyndra.

That's the name of a company that manufactured solar panels in Fremont, Calif. (which voted 71 percent for Obama in 2008).

Solyndra was the first company to receive a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy as part of the 2009 stimulus package. This wasn't small potatoes. The loan guarantee was for $535 million.

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