Check out these numbers (from Pew, conducted July 22-25):
Q: What do you think would do more to improve economic conditions in the country over the next few years?
Following economic policies of Obama administration:
All: 46% | Dem: 84% | Ind: 43% | GOP: 13%
Following economic policies of Bush administration:
All: 29% | Dem: 7% | Ind: 20% | GOP: 63%
So despite Democratic control of the White House and Congress during the worst economy since the Great Depression, most voters still have a clear preference for Democratic economic policies. Twelve times as many Democrats prefer Obama's economic policies than prefer Bush's and more than twice as many independents prefer Obama's economic policies than prefer Bush's. Only among Republicans are Bush's economic policies popular: 5 times as many of them support Bush's policies than support Obama's.
Despite these numbers, there's no question that Democrats have a huge challenge to face this November. But here's the point, revealed by these numbers: Republicans have serious political problems as well. Most Americans may think the country is headed in the wrong direction, but given the choice, they'd rather follow President Obama's policies than go back to the Bush-Republican prescription for the economy. The GOP has yet to show they can overcome this hurdle.
Interestingly, even though Republicans favor Bush's economic policies, a sizable chunk of them -- 40% -- would like to at the very least let the tax cuts for the wealthy expire. Indeed, while 52% of them support extending all the tax cuts permanently, 21% of them believe all the tax cuts should be canceled. That suggests that at least among some Republicans, the rhetoric of fiscal responsibility has come home to roost. So we now have a GOP that pretty much uniformly doesn't support any sort of government action to strengthen the economy, but a significant faction of the party also supports fiscal austerity in the form of across-the-board tax increases and nearly half the party supports at least increasing taxes on the wealthy.
Hopefully, numbers like these will remind Democrats that the real challenge in 2010 isn't to blur the distinction between themselves and the GOP because the last thing people want are GOP economic policies. Republicans might want Bushonomics, but just about everybody else wants to see aggressive government action to get this economy back into shape.