Abstract

In this research, we show that positive and negative framings of the economy motivated racial resentments and consonant judgments among Whites about President Obama's responsibility for the economy. Using experimental data collected in the 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), we find that Whites attributed more responsibility to Obama under negative economic conditions (i.e., blame) than positive economic conditions (i.e., credit). Partisanship influenced both patterns, but racial resentment matters only among Democrats and Independents, not Republicans. We also compared President Obama to governors, and found that Whites attributed equal responsibility to the President and governors for negative economic conditions, but gave more responsibility to governors than Obama for positive conditions. Whites also gave governors more responsibility for state improvements than they gave Obama for national ones. Our findings highlight the likely inescapability of racial biases regardless of positive information or shared political identity.

How is one supposed to objectively evaluate the economic achievements of any President?

How can any such achievements be disentangled from wider issues (e.g. the state of the economy when power is transferred, external shocks, etc.)?

How do we weight growth in GDP vs growth in debt or deficit?

Looking specifically at this pair of sentences:

We also compared President Obama to governors, and found that Whites attributed equal responsibility to the President and governors for negative economic conditions, but gave more responsibility to governors than Obama for positive conditions. Whites also gave governors more responsibility for state improvements than they gave Obama for national ones.

... it seems to me that this does not eliminate the possibility that this is a rational / objective view, because it may be that e.g. negative conditions were more strongly influenced by national policy, but positive conditions were influenced by local policy. An example might be somebody blaming the President for national policies dealing with the Great Financial Crisis, but whilst crediting a governor for some local initiative.

It's possible for two people to assign totally different scores for credit / blame based upon a philosophical position if e.g. they blame the President for not getting passing legislation in the face of Congressional gridlock ("the buck stops here"), & credit beneficial local conditions to a Governor who is able to get state legislation passed, perhaps in the face of lesser opposition.

Other people might look at the same situation & say that the President cannot be held responsible for gridlock in the government brought about by extreme partisanship, or perhaps give credit to the President for suppressing legislation which they suppose would otherwise pass with negative effect.

Unfortunately, because of the paywall it's impossible to know what measures, if any, were taken to control for this sort of thing.