Obama owns economy, Bush owns bad economy, Hoover owned recession

[Cees Binkhorst]

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Een van de commentaren op dit stuk:
If Barack Obama and the democrats in Congress get health care through this
year, a huge saftey net as this crisis deepens, I have no doubt that
democrats will expand their majority in 2010 and Obama will win in 2012

Zoals het er naar uit ziet ontbreekt er enige leiding bij de Republikeinen.
Dus ziet er inderdaad uit alsof de situatie vlak na de crisis 1930
herhaald gaat worden, minder dan 20 zetels in Huis én in Senaat. Dus
hoeven niet eens te overleggen met Republikeinen!

Hebben wij nog een (2010) of drie (2012) jaar om na te denken of dat een
goede zaak is of niet.

Groet / Cees

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/04/obama_the_economy_and_polls.php

Apr 3 2009, 12:25 pm by Chris Good
Obama, the Economy, and Polls

People generally approve of President Obama's job performance, and they
view him favorably--Pollster.com averages show a 59.9 percent job approval
and a 61.7 percent favorability ratings. These numbers have slid
consistently since the excitement of his inauguration, but right
direction/wrong track responses are trending in his favor: "wrong track"
still wins by a margin of ~15 percentage points, but the gap has been
closing since Inauguration Day.

Everyone is waiting and wondering whether Obama's economic agenda will
succeed, once it's had time to kick into gear. But a new poll from the
Center for Economic and Entrepreneurial Literacy shows, as others have
suggested, that Americans expect the recession to last for a while: by far
the largest chunk of respondents (41 percent) said they expect the economy
won't recover for another one to three years. (1,002 people were polled;
margin of error +/- three percent.) The respondents to this poll, at
least, appear to have little faith that the stimulus and the bank plan
will bring the U.S. out of a recession soon.

Evidently Americans think Obama is doing the right things, but that the
recession will continue nonetheless. Or, perhaps, they're waiting to see
what happens, but without much hope, and they expect they'll be
disappointed with Obama in one to three years. The latter seems a bit
unlikely, since the majority of Americans voted for him not long ago.

If America is still in a recession in a year or two, either Americans will
blame Obama or they won't. That may depend on how effectively Obama can
claim his policies attenuated the recession without ending it, and it
would be hard to know whether that claim is accurate (his claim that the
stimulus will save or create three to four million jobs, it has been
pointed out, is a little tough to verify). But the fact that Americans
like his performance (albeit to a lessening degree) while also expecting a
continued recession seems to indicate that his political fate might be
dissociated from the recession. That, of course, may not hold up over time
if those 41 percent are right about the nation's economic future.

Comments (3)
ottovbvs April 3, 2009 1:40 PM

I'm not sure polls measuring how effective a particular set of measures
will be are particularly valuable. From many polls that we now have it's
fairly conclusive that the public think this was brought about by the
financial industry and Bush/Republicans. Obama's clearly got masses of
leeway in the public mind but its hard to see if it's still in the tank in
two years time he doesn't start to get some responsibility. Conversely, if
things are turning around by next Spring he is going to be solid gold. The
same is true of the democrats generally...they are going to go up or down
with Obama which is why all this agonizing over minor policy differences
within the democratic caucus is total baloney largely invented by the
media. Personally, I'm sure the economy will be on the mend by next spring
if not sooner and hence he'll be gold. Quite apart from his own huge
political talents the Republicans have been incredibly UNLUCKY in timing
while he has been incredibly LUCKY in his. This is sort of poetic
justice....almost makes me believe in a higher being.
Reply
Rhoda April 3, 2009 1:52 PM

I think that two things are simultaneously true: people approve of the job
Obama is doing and they also think that things might be so far gone he
won't be able to pull this thing around in four years. I think people
constantly say: Obama will own this economy. I think that George Bush owns
this bad economy just as Herbert Hoover owned the recession. People know
it took Roosevelt a decade; they believe it'll take a long time to fix
this mess too. In the meantime, they like the guy and they like the fact
that he's been focused on the middle class.

If Barack Obama and the democrats in Congress get health care through this
year, a huge saftey net as this crisis deepens, I have no doubt that
democrats will expand their majority in 2010 and Obama will win in 2012.
Reply
ottovbvs April 3, 2009 2:03 PM

"If Barack Obama and the democrats in Congress get health care through
this year, a huge saftey net as this crisis deepens, I have no doubt that
democrats will expand their majority in 2010 and Obama will win in 2012."

Rhoda: couldn't agree more. I don't think the pundit class who after all
live fairly insulated lives have any idea of how pivotal this is.
Paradoxically some conservatives like Kristol and Krauthammer do. They can
see it's going to completely change the the relationship of the people and
their govt in a way that will be irreversible just as SS and Medicare did.
Basically Obama has three tasks this year: stabilize the banking system,
turn the economy around and pass universal healthcare. If he does these
three things the Dems are going to substantially increase their majorities
2010 and he's a shoo in for 2012.

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