How confident are you in their ability to make the right decisions about the economy?

That is the header on small graphic on the front page of today's New York Times. The "they" mentioned in the question are Barack Obama and John McCain.  For Senator Obama 64% responded "very/somewhat"and 34% responded "not too/not at all".  For Senator McCain, 55% responded "very/somewhat" and 45% responded "not too/not at all".

Not too/not at all encouraging. Neither of the candidates have the confidence of an overwhelming majority of Americans that they can make the right decisions about the economy.

Neither major political party is currently running a presidential candidate most Americans particularly want to see in office.

Morning thought experiment:

What would the figures have looked like in Clinton/McCain match-up? A Clinton/Romney match-up? An Obama/Romney match-up?

And, according to the New York Times, the current President's great summit did little to advance Congressional action on a band-aid for the the economy, which everybody seems to believe must happen and soon.  The headline: "Tentative Accord Crumbles at a White House Meeting". Good going, Mr. President and Messrs. Wanna-Be President.

We better hope that the founders' visions for our country, which allowed for the possibility of strong effective legislative leadership - which is currently conspicuously absent given House Republican leader leader John A. Boenher and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and their Senate counterparts - can be redeemed by a major change in who gets elected to the 111th Congress and who ends up in leadership positions from both parties. Because I highly doubt that the next occupant of the Oval Office is going to be the sort of successful leader either Party is touting their guy to be.

Comments

[Boba Fett]

I'm not an academic but I'm pretty certain 34% is not an overwhelming majority.

[democraticjack]

Whatever the numbers, I have learned one thing in the past eight years. If nothing else, I trust the voter's judgement about as much as I do the people they choose to create these messes.

[ainnj]

I will have to agree with democratjack on this one. And if there is no agreement on this bailout soon, those voters, along with the rest of us, are going to be in much worse shape in the coming months than we are now, no matter which of these guys gets elected.