Voters Not Convinced Either Candidate Has a Clear Plan to Fix the Economy
But on what is likely to be the central issue of the 2012 race, a majority of voters say neither candidate has a "clear plan for fixing the economy."
Sixty-one percent of voters surveyed said Obama did not have a plan to aid the economy, with 36 percent expressing confidence in his policies.
Fifty-eight percent did not believe Romney had solutions for the nation's economic woes, with 31 percent expressing support.
In surveys like this, you often learn as much from the questions as from the responses. Fox asked likely voters whether they think each candidate "has a clear plan for fixing the economy, or not?"
The assumption is that voters are looking for a president who can map out and execute a master plan to "fix" the entire $15 trillion U.S. economy. Basically, they want a This Old House-era Bob Villa for the entire economy.
Given how poorly recent presidents (with plenty of help from Congress, to be sure) from both parties have managed the explicitly federal parts of the economy, maybe it's time to reset expectations a little bit. How about a president with a plausible plan to clean up the massive federal budget mess—and a commitment to try not to make the rest of the economy worse?