Following The Money, Honey

Nate Silver crunches the numbers on Obama's overall favorability ratings at Pollster.com and his favorability ratings on the economy and health care:


Gee, notice any similarities?  It looks very much so that America's spotting Obama about 5-8 points, but the perception of the economy is driving everything, including health care.

(More percecption as reality after the jump...)

Nate's advice:

Indeed, the most troubling problem for the Democrats may be that government interventions into the economy -- meaning the bailout and the stimulus -- are increasingly perceived as having failed, which in turn increases skepticism about government intervention overall, in health care and other areas. I'm just not sure where this is headed: perhaps when the jobs picture recovers, so too will perception of these other programs, which will rob Republicans of much of their ammunition (although since employment is unlikely to recover significantly before 2010, they'll have plenty of fun in the shooting gallery in the meantime). But perhaps instead, the damage will be medium or even long-term: if the economy takes too long to recover, it may be perceived as being in spite of, not because of, programs like the stimulus. If that's the case, the 2010s could be a lost decade for liberalism.

To channel my Inner Krugman: it's a political imperative for the Democrats of the highest order to get some sort of jobs bill to Obama's desk -- the sooner and the bigger the better. Suppose you could create jobs at a price of about $40,000 per, which is higher than the figure suggested by empirical research on highly targeted jobs programs. A $200 billion bill would then create 5 million new jobs, which would reduce unemployment by about 3.3 percent (e.g. from 10.2 percent to 6.9 percent).

It's not that easy, I'm sure. But the Republicans -- who have been clamoring for such a bill for months -- are liable to find themselves on the wrong side of the politics of the issue. And even if the jobs bill isn't especially efficient at reducing unemployment on its own, it would have a bit of a wind at its back between the existing stimulus efforts and the organic recovery in the economy.

Might it even be worth tabling health care to get the jobs bill passed? Probably not when health care is so close to the finish line, and when the House can start working on a jobs program while the Senate deliberates health care. But if it looks like health care doesn't have the votes, this would be the exit strategy for the Dems -- for Obama to intervene and say: "we need a jobs bill first." Either way, a couple million more jobs would make everything much smoother for the Democrats; the economy remains the primary way that the public evaluates their success.

This goes back to what Digby was saying earlier this week:

I've been writing for some time that Americans are confused about the recession and furthermore that the Republicans are making headway with their easy explanation that the cause of all their pain is government spending. I have felt for years that the Democrats needed to explain economics better because the free lunch supply siders and deficit hawks are on the verge of turning America into a dysfunctional state akin to California.

And of course this morning's StupidiNews item on who the public blames for the recession:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Friday morning indicates that 38 percent of the public blames Republicans for the country's current economic problems. In May, 53 percent blamed the GOP.

According to the poll, 27 percent now blame the Democrats for the recession, up 6 points from May, and 27 percent now say both parties are responsible.

The bottom line is the Republicans are starting to win the war on whose fault the recession is.  It wasn't the oversight and the economic meltdown that caused the problem, the GOP says...it was Obama spending money to fix it.  Remember, all non-Defense spending is wasteful pork that real Americans never need to use, you see.
27% now blame the Democrats for the economy, completely forgetting Bush nearly destroyed the global financial system.  That number's only going to go up unless the Democrats get control of the message war.  And right now they are losing it badly.

As goes the perception of the economy, so goes the reality of the nation.  Put the GOP on the wrong side of that battle...and while you're at it, start listening to Volker and less to Helicopter Ben and Timmy.