Poll finds more blame Bush than Obama for economy
(CBS News) When President Obama delivers a major campaign speech on the economy today in Ohio, some in his partyare concerned it will be too backward looking, with allusions to the presidency of George W. Bush. But according to a new Gallup poll, that message may resonate with voters.
More than three years after Mr. Obama took office, 68 percent of Americans still say former President Bush deserves a great deal or a moderate amount of blame for the struggling economy, according to Gallup. Just 52 percent say the same about Mr. Obama.
And even though economic indicators have kept alive concerns about the pace of the recovery, the poll suggests that independents are more likely to blame Mr. Bush than Mr. Obama -- and even more so now than they were last September. In September, Gallup found that 60 percent of independents blamed Mr. Obama for the economy. Now, just 51 percent said Mr. Obama deserves blame, while 67 percent said Mr. Bush does.
In his speech at a community college in Cleveland today, according to campaign officials, Mr. Obama plans to draw stark distinctions between his own economic philosophy and that of Mitt Romney's, while underscoring the dire economic circumstances he inherited in 2008.
Romney, meanwhile, will deliver his own economic speech in Cincinnati today. On Wednesday, the presumed Republican candidate and his campaign pre-butted the president's speech, predicting that the president will offer no new ideas for getting the economy moving. "My own view is that he will speak eloquently, but that words are cheap, and that the record of an individual is the basis upon which you determine whether they should continue to hold on to their job," Romney said from Washington.
