Under Bush, the U.S. economy has lost about 3 million private-sector jobs. The unemployment rate has risen from 4.2 percent to 6.1 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average, despite a recent rebound, remains more than 1,100 points below the levels of January 2001. The president's tax cuts and spending increases have turned budget surpluses into record deficits that some experts say amount to a long-term fiscal crisis.

In the face of those figures, Democrats appear stymied. The party's congressional wing, operating in the minority, has neither the votes nor the megaphone to carry an economic message, party strategists acknowledge. The party's presidential candidates speak with nine voices, and they have failed to make the economy a consistent and coherent focus of their messages. Polls show that the public neither blames Bush principally for the state of the economy nor recognizes a Democratic alternative.