Texas ? Democratic candidate Barack Obama said Thursday the economy is “on the brink of a recession” and blamed economic policies espoused by President Bush and Republican presidential contender John McCain.

Obama mocked a more optimistic economic picture painted by Bush at a White House news conference just moments earlier: “People are struggling in the midst of an economy that George Bush says is not a recession but is experienced differently by folks on the ground.”

For the second day in a row, Obama focused on the likely GOP nominee McCain and all but ignored Hillary Rodham Clinton’s continuing campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, although key Democratic primaries come up next Tuesday in Texas and Ohio.