Outsourcing blame: the president's economic policy.

Ohio's unemployment rate is higher than the national average; manufacturing communities like Youngstown and Cleveland have been hit especially hard.... I know there are workers here concerned about their jobs going overseas. I share that concern.... There are those with good jobs who worry about their health care and their retirement benefits. There are a lot of moms and dads who wonder whether or not their child will be able to find a job in the community in which they were raised.

Those words are not an excerpt from an old John Edwards speech about the "Two Americas," or a John Kerry speech lashing the Bush economy. They are President George W. Bush's own, given on March 10 in Cleveland. They are the admissions of a man who knows he is in a desperate race to redefine how Americans see this election-year economy.

The first two months of 2004 will be remembered as the moment when Americans shifted their view of Bush's economic stewardship. The politicians' private polls and the public polls tell the same story: Americans who began to have faith in the economic recovery a few months ago are now losing it.

This puts the president in the tricky position of having to do many things at once. He needs to make clear he understands that people are hurting. He needs to offload blame. He needs to persuade voters that things can only get better--and that his opponents will only make things worse. The Cleveland speech was important because it provided the template for the political strategy that Bush will have to pursue as long as Americans feel blue about jobs and money.

Bush needs to insist that sluggish job creation does not prove that his tax policies failed. So he argued, first, that he inherited a recession, noting that manufacturing jobs started to decline in August 2000, that is, during the last administration. Second, 9/11 was "a serious blow to our economy" and "the enemy hurt us." Third, the financial scandals "hurt the economy as well." Besides, Bush added, "this is a time of transition, it's a time of change. And if you're one going through transition, it's not an easy experience." In other words, don't blame Bush for your problems. Blame Bill Clinton, Osama bin Laden, Enron, and, yes, "transition." And whatever you do, don't vote for his opponent who will return the country to the "old policy of tax-and-spend" and "economic isolationism."

This is not the argument Bush hoped to be making now. "Morning in America" is an easier sell. "See, my policies worked!" is an easier sound bite. The public, however, wouldn't buy that. The startling thing is that an election that seemed on track for the Bush team just a few months ago has, thanks to new economic perceptions, gone haywire. According to Pew Research Center polls, economic confidence grew steadily between last fall and the beginning of the year. The proportion of Americans rating economic conditions as "excellent" or "good" rose from 21 percent in September 2003 to 43 percent in the first days of 2004. That was good news for Bush.

But the Pew surveys found that the proportion of Americans giving the economy positive ratings dropped steadily during the heat of the Democratic primaries. It was down to 31 percent at the end of February. Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, said the findings were consistent with private polls and suggested several factors that came together to dent the public's confidence. Sluggish job growth "takes its toll after a while" and the "continuing bad news about jobs undercuts the other economic indicators." In political terms, the actual unemployment rate is playing second fiddle to the job-creation numbers.

In addition, "the collective effect of the press covering outsourcing" has made it a powerful issue that now comes up regularly in the focus groups. Rising health care, transportation, and education costs, she said, have further under-mined Americans' sense of well-being. "Nobody feels like their incomes are going up," she said.

That is why the Bush campaign will be spending so much of its vast treasury in the coming weeks on advertising to change what has become, from its point of view, a dismal dynamic. No wonder Bush went on the air the day after his Cleveland speach with a new ad attacking Kerry on taxes and the Patriot Act. In one of his positive ads, Bush declares: "I know exactly where I want to lead this country." Perhaps. Even more than ads, Bush needs a sustained period of job growth, and soon, if he expects voters to go with him.

[c] 2004, Washington Post Writers Group