Hope and Change

Americans are feeling it:

The number of Americans who believe that the nation is headed in the right direction has roughly tripled since Barack Obama's election, and the public overwhelmingly blames the excesses of the financial industry, rather than the new president, for turmoil in the economy, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

At this early stage in his presidency, Obama continues to benefit from a broadly held perception that others should bear the bulk of responsibility for the severe economic problems that confront his administration. Americans see plenty of offenders, but only about a quarter blame the president and his team for an economy that's in the ditch.

Hmm. Now it's one thing to say that Obama's not doing the right things, but what sort of slack-jawed morons say that Team Obama are to blame for the economy?

There is now a pronounced divergence between Democratic and Republican perceptions of the economy, a bigger partisan divide than the one that occurred 16 years ago after Bill Clinton took office. In early 1993, people in both parties were about equally likely to see the economy as improving, but now the number of Republicans who say it is souring is more than double that of Democrats.

Oh, right.

Other findings: 42% of Americans say the country is on the right track, which seems pretty low, until you consider that it's the highest percentage to say so in five years "and marks a sharp turnabout from last fall, when as many as nine in 10 said the country was heading in the wrong direction." 66% approve of the job Obama's doing as president, 60% approve of the way he's handling the economic crisis, and 52% approve of the way he's handling the federal budget deficit.