The economy? It’s still Bush’s fault
By Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake, Published: January 17 | Updated: Wednesday, January 18, 3:30 AM
A majority of Americans believe that former President George W. Bush is more responsible than President Obama for the current economic problems in the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Fifty-four percent of respondents said that Bush was more to blame while 29 percent put the blame on Obama; 9 percent said both men deserved blame while 6 percent said neither did. Among registered voters, the numbers are almost identical; 54 percent blame Bush, while 30 percent blame Obama.
Independents, widely considered the most critical voting bloc this fall, continue to blame Bush far more than Obama for the economic troubles. Fifty-seven percent of unaffiliated voters put the blame on the former Republican president, while 25 percent believe the blame rests more with Obama.
Heck, even one in five Republicans say Bush is more responsible than Obama for the state of the economy!
The economic blame game numbers are somewhat remarkable given that Obama is in the third year of his presidency, a tenure defined by the continued economic distress in the country.
We’ve written for quite some time that the longer Obama is in office (and the longer Bush is out of it), the more likely it is that blame for the economy would shift toward him. But, these numbers suggest — gasp! — we were wrong.
Early in his presidency, Obama spent considerable rhetorical time and energy making sure people knew the economic difficulties he had inherited from Bush.
Republicans criticized that backward-looking approach, arguing that whatever had happened in the past, it was up to Obama to make things better in the future.
(Interestingly, just 15 percent of respondents in the Post-ABC poll said they were better off now than at the start of the Obama presidency, while 30 percent said they were not as well off and 54 percent said they were in about the same shape. So while Bush may have started it, people by and large think it has gotten worse under Obama.)
In recent months, Obama rarely if ever mentions Bush when he talks about the economy. But these numbers suggest that maybe he should, since a majority of Americans still lay the economic problems in the country at the Republican president’s feet.
Obviously, we are still 10 months from the election — months that will be filled with Republican attempts to convince voters that Obama is deserving of blame for the financial struggles gripping the country. And every election in which the country is in dire economic times is, in one way or another, centered on the “Are you better off than you were four years ago” question.
Still, that the baseline in the economic blame game still favors Obama over Bush suggests that Republicans’ attempt to use the economy to drag the incumbent down won’t be as simple as some in the party might think.
washingtonpost.com |
