WASHINGTON ó New polling suggests that nearly half (48 percent) of Americans think another Great Depression is just around the corner.
This is not good news. Such depressing prophecies can be self-fulfilling. Who wants to spend money if things are getting worse?
There is good news, perhaps, in the refusal of President Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to share that view. On the other hand, what do they know?
Obama keeps going to Northern Virginia Community College (itís near the White House and his motorcade saves gas) to talk to us about the economy. Mainly, itís become a national tragedy the way he mangles metaphors. In the same speech, he referred to our economic health as being buffeted by strong headwinds and being hit by a truck.
Bernanke, Obamaís financial oracle, heads to Capitol Hill and says, yes, things are not good but they should improve. Unfortunately, the Hill is consumed by Weiner Roast, and few are buying Bernankeís optimism.
To make matters worse for the president, the 2012 presidential race (speed walk? trot? slog?) is under way, and overheated airwaves are filled with scorn heaped upon Obama by dozens of GOP contenders.
They donít point out that he inherited a total economic meltdown not of his making, or two costly, decade-long wars that have not been paid for or gloomy forecasts about the sustainability of Medicare and Social Security.
They do say that heís made things worse and that they will make things better, mainly by cutting taxes for the wealthy and big corporations while taking away services and benefits from everyone else and putting public service workers in unemployment lines where 15 million Americans already stand.
The White House, suddenly, ěgets it.î So here are Obamaís options:
Schedule a golf outing with House Speaker John Boehner. The hope is that while comparing their tans and swings, they will become bosom buddies and agree on such issues as not putting the nation into financial default and taking an ax to spending.
Spend more money on improving the nationís crumbling infrastructure while creating a million well-paid jobs and increasing the deficit.
Reverse himself and demand the Bush-era tax cuts for the richest Americans be rescinded.
Put forth meaningful plans to save Medicare, Social Security and pay down the debt and alienate seniors.
Pray.
There are no good scenarios for a significant improvement in the unemployment rate before November 2012. And that is exactly what Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, Michele Bachmann, Howard Cain and, possibly, Rick Perry and Rudy Giuliani are counting on to unseat the incumbent president.
It certainly is not that any of these scintillating statesmen has a wise, foolproof solution of his/her own. (Perhaps theyíre saving their magic bullets, let alone viable plans for getting anything controversial through a divided Congress.)
It must be maddening to the White House that business leaders are sitting on billions of cash rather than expanding their companies or hiring more workers because they are waiting to see when consumer demand returns. (Talk about your Catch-22.)
It must be frustrating to the White House that in a few years the economy will expand and whoever is president will get the credit.
It must seem terribly unfair to the White House that there really is little any president can do to make the economy grow in such turbulent times, especially when half of the legislators in Congress donít want him to succeed.
But life is unfair. Supporters of the president are telling him that he is not connecting with us (real people) and that he needs to work on a message that will convince us the jobs climate will improve. He also needs to improve his working relationships with Congress.
But if the unemployment rate is still hovering around 9 percent next year, Obama will have trouble winning re-election no matter who wins the GOP nomination.

Scripps Howard columnist Ann McFeatters has covered the White House and national politics since 1986. Email: amcfeatters@nationalpress.com.