TDS Co-Editor Ruy Teixeira’s latest ‘Public Opinion Snapshot’ at the Center for American Progress web pages takes a look at conservatives’ success in propagating the “It’s Obama’s fault” meme regarding health care and the economy. Teixeira shows pretty conclusively that the public isn’t buying it. On the economy:

…A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds just 20 percent blaming Obama’s policies for current economic conditions, compared to 63 percent who say this is a situation Obama has inherited.

On the difficulty of securing health care reform:

…A question in the same poll also asked respondents who was to blame for making health care reform legislation so difficult to pass. Almost half—49 percent—said “special interest groups such as big pharmaceutical and health insurance companies” deserved “a great deal of blame” and another 26 percent thought these special interests deserved “quite a bit of blame.” By comparison, just 18 percent thought Obama deserved a great deal of blame and another 20 percent thought he deserved quite a bit of blame. Almost three-fifths (58 percent) thought he deserved very little blame or none at all.

Teixeira adds “…The Bush administration and big insurance and pharmaceutical companies—are associated strongly with the conservatives and their policies. That should make conservatives very, very nervous.”