Americans Know Who's to Blame for the Economy

Newsweek is out with new polling tonight which shows Barack Obama in positive territory (a 47 percent approval/45 percent disapproval spread) and the Democrats and Republicans tied at 45 percent apiece on the generic congressional ballot question (a far cry from the 10-point GOP lead Gallup found this week). But perhaps the most interesting data point from the survey comes from a question on blame for the nation's economic woes:

Which of the following do you think bears more responsibility for the country’s economic problems today…

The economic policies of President Obama: 19 percent
The economic policies of former President George W. Bush: 38 percent
Both equally? 36 percent

This ratio -- with twice as many Americans blaming George W. Bush than Barack Obama for the lagging economy -- is consistent with a similarly worded question from a July Quinnipiac poll, which also found Americans blaming the former President over the current President by about a 2-to-1 margin (there 53 percent to 25 percent, with no option presented for blaming both equally).

These numbers don't assure a Democratic advantage on the issue of the economy. While Americans blame Bush, they don't necessarily realize that the Republicans are seeking to pursue the exact same economic course of action as did Bush -- the set of policies they believe led to the economic downturn. This does not mean that the Democrats should simply run ads tying Republican candidates to George W. Bush, because that strategy does not appear to be terribly efficacious. However, the Democrats do need to sell the argument -- which it seems voters are open to buying -- that a return to Republican economics would yield the same kind of ruin that the eight years of George W. Bush wrought. And they need to do it quickly, because the midterms are coming up quickly.