Obama’s economic messaging not going so well thus far, huh?

“They really want to be either ‘Hope and Change’ or ‘Morning in America,’” said Matt McDonald, a former Bush and McCain operative, now a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies. “But now as the incumbent and with three quarters of Americans thinking we’re still in recession, they can’t really run either of those campaigns.”…

Joe Trippi, a senior adviser on the John Edwards campaign in 2008 and Howard Dean’s 2004 guru, told BuzzFeed that the Obama campaign is still struggling to find a message that reflects how people are actually feeling.

“Part of the problem for the Obama campaign positioning is whether the economy is turning enough to make a message of ‘we’ve turned the corner’ real to people,” he said. “You can’t be saying that if everyone feels that we’re going deeper, and we’re in this sort of situation where people are sort of thinking — the reality is it’s turning, but not as fast as people expect, which is incredibly hard to communicate.”…

Indeed, the Romney campaign is planning to seize on Obama’s “not coming to grips” with the reality of his record, an aide said, seeing an opening to paint Obama as someone unwilling to take responsibility — something Romney will say would be unacceptable in the private sector.