Americans still blame Bush for economy

(Jim Young/Reuters) Sorry, Willard:

Another set of numbers from our new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: 60 percent say President Obama inherited the current economic conditions, compared with 26 percent who blame his policies for the state of the economy.

That's a slight change from Aug. 2011, when 56 percent said the president inherited the economy, versus 33 percent who singled out his policies.

Obviously, the fact that people largely blame current economic conditions on the disastrous Bush presidency does not guarantee a victory for President Obama'he still needs to make the case that he has a better economic plan for the future than does Mitt Romney.

Nonetheless, these numbers demonstrate the enormous flaw in Romney's strategy of simply trash-talking the economy, because no matter how much trash he talks, Obama isn't the one who is getting the blame. Of course, given that Romney's economic plan is basically Bush's on steroids'and given the fact that Americans blame Bush for our economic challenges'maybe Mitt Romney really doesn't have a better choice.