Timing is everything in this world (if you don’t believe me, just ask Ted Cruz). When FDR took office in 1933, the country had been living with the Great Depression for three years; as a result, Hoover, who had done nothing to cause the collapse, but who had come to believe that any measures that would plausibly solve it were worse than the disease, was held completely responsible by the public. FDR was given full credit for the subsequent recovery, and profited politically from it.
In 2008, by contrast, while the recession technically had started earlier, the real crash didn’t occur until the late summer and early fall. The unemployment rate only began to shoot up shortly before the election. Consequently, people with short memories blame Obama for the worst of it, which simply isn’t accurate or fair.
The origins of the federal welfare state, of course, can be traced back to the 1932 election. In the long run, it may even be more important that the nation started to view itself as a single economic entity at that time; without the expansion of federal power, with its roots in the commerce clause, who knows what our country would look like today? Certainly more like the EU, with all of its corresponding economic and governance problems.