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While Republicans like Tim Pawlenty think it's absolutely outrageous for anyone to blame anyone but Obama for the state of the economy (see above), 68 percent of his fellow citizens disagree.

Americans continue to place more blame for the nation's economic problems on George W. Bush than on Barack Obama, even though Bush left office more than three years ago. The relative economic blame given to Bush versus Obama today is virtually the same as it was last September.

Gallup first asked this "blame assessment" question in July 2009, six months after Obama became president. At that point, 80% of Americans gave Bush a great deal or a moderate amount of blame, compared with 32% who ascribed the same level of blame for the bad economy to Obama. The percentage blaming Bush dropped to about 70% in August 2010, and has stayed roughly in that range since.

Unfortunately for Republicans, most Americans are frustrated that the economy hasn't recovered enough, but they have no illusions about how we got into the mess we're in. And because Mitt Romney endorses exactly the same economic policies as George W. Bush, it's going to be almost impossible for him to make an affirmative case for his presidency. Instead, he'll do what Pawlenty is doing: simply blame everything on Obama.