[Chuckster]

No one ever went broke (Or lost an election) by underestimating the intelligence of the American people,

[Verginius Rufus]

The American people don't know much about economics--the average person probably thinks FDR did more good than harm with his New Deal policies (and he managed to get a landslide win in 1936 despite the continuing Great Depression).

Since the economic scare just before the election in 2008, the Democrats have relentlessly preached the message that all of our economic woes are the result of the policies of the George W. Bush administration, while the Republicans have made no effort to counteract that message. The result was that 53% of the public thinks that Bush is more to blame than Obama for the current economic stagnation.