Herbert Hoover’s name is supposed to conjure up images of the stock market crash, the Great Depression, and massive unemployment. With this in mind, the fact that George W. Bush has the worst record on job creation of any president since Hoover should make for a devastating political comparison.
Alas, it appears that it’s an observation that won’t, or at least shouldn’t, make its way into John Kerry’s campaign ads. The problem: most Americans don’t know who Herbert Hoover is.
Al Kamen noted today that the National Annenberg Election Survey released a report this week and the results weren’t encouraging.
Only 43 percent of those polled knew Hoover had been president or connected him with the Depression. Another 12 percent confused him with former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Three percent lauded him for creating a fine vacuum cleaner, 4 percent associated him with building that big dam and 29 percent didn’t have a clue. (They’ve been signed up by the producers of Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” segment that features the truly bewildered.)
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Older folks, of course, scored higher in understanding the messages. About 54 percent of those older than 65 tied Hoover to the White House, the Depression or the October 1929 market crash. Only 38 percent of those ages 18 to 29 got it right.
I guess we’ll just have to stick to the rhetoric of Bush having the worst jobs record in over 70 years. That’s bad enough, right?