75% of Americans still blame Bush for the economy, but...

A new Gallup poll conducted March 26-28 shows that 75% of Americans surveyed still place most of the blame for the current economy on former President George W. Bush.

But the blame Obama chorus is beginning to rise, as the poll shows. The poll shows a "significant uptick" since last July in the percentage of Americans blaming Obama at least a moderate amount (from 32% to 50%), but a decrease, however slight, for George W. Bush (from 80% to 75%).

Gallup also notes that "Americans in July 2009 clearly recognized that the nation's economic problems preceded Obama's term; at that time, close to half of Republicans (43%) -- in addition to most independents (63%) and nearly all Democrats (92%) -- believed Obama bore little or no responsibility for them." While those figures have begun to decline, clearly Bush still takes much more of the blame for the current state of the economy.

"The same survey, conducted July 17-19, showed 14% of respondents gave Obama a “great deal” of the blame and 18% tagged him with a “moderate amount," adds the MarketWatch blog.

Politics Daily makes note of the political divide within the survey, "Seventy-seven percent of Republicans blame Obama a great deal or moderate amount, with 23 percent not blaming him much or at all. "Fifty-seven percent of Republicans put some measure of blame on Bush (although only 15 percent are in the "great deal" category) while 43 percent do not blame him much or at all anymore."

"Fifty percent of independents blame Obama a great deal or moderate amount, while 49 percent blame him not much or not at all," Political Daily's Bruce Drake adds. "Seventy-seven percent still blame Bush, while 24 percent blame him not much or at all."

The Christian Science Monitor suggests that perhaps that 'Miss me yet?' billboard in Minnesota went up a bit prematurely judging by the Gallup Poll. However, they also note that Obama's share of the blame continues to rise, "The bad news for Obama is that the numbers are worse for him now than they were last July, when only 14 percent blamed him a great deal and 18 percent blamed him moderately. The numbers for Bush have improved slightly."

The poll also suggests that these figures could begin to impact Obama's presidential approval numbers. "Theoretically, Obama accumulates more responsibility for the nation's economy every day he's in office,'' Saad writes. "That could bear down increasingly hard on his approval rating if unemployment continues to hold at or near 10 percent and consumer attitudes remain negative. However, the big upside is that should the economy rebound on his watch -- and recent Gallup tracking has some signs of a "nascent" recovery -- Obama is poised to receive much of the credit.''