McCain vs. Obama: Economic battle
Posted: Tuesday, September 16, 2008 9:33 AM by Domenico Montanaro
The Washington Post looks at how the current financial crisis brings the economy back to the forefront. "McCain faces the bigger challenge. As the Republican nominee, he must answer for what has happened on President Bush's watch and offer a plausible explanation for why his conservative administration would be genuinely different. Obama already is attacking him as ill-equipped to deal with the financial crisis and has aggressively moved to tie a future McCain administration to a lobbyist-dominated Washington culture.”
VIDEO: McCain talks about the economy, talks politics, and defends his 'kindergarten-sex education' attack ad on MSNBC's 'Morning Joe'.
“Obama's challenge is different. He begins with the reality that Democrats are seen as the party that is more trusted to deal with the economy. Despite that, he has struggled through much of the year to develop a compelling economic message. Where he remains suspect is on the strength of his leadership and his ability to connect with working- and middle-class voters."
More: "McCain's own admission, the economy is not his natural turf, and his comments yesterday seemed less than sure-footed. At his first event of the day, he acknowledged that the economy is in difficult straits and promised to shake up Washington and Wall Street. But he also said he still thinks that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong’… By the time the Republican nominee had made the short flight to Orlando for a town hall meeting, his campaign had e-mailed reporters new remarks he would deliver. They seemed a 180-degree turn. If McCain's earlier comments had seemed designed to reassure, his new ones were dire. ‘The American economy is in a crisis -- in a crisis,’ he repeated.”
VIDEO: Biden talks about what he meant when he said Republicans aren't used to "smart people," and the differences in running for the Senate as opposed to vice president is that America is in trouble right now.
The
New York Times looks at how both McCain and Obama might handle the mess on Wall Street. McCain's "record on the issue, and the views of those he has always cited as his most influential advisers, suggest that he has never departed in any major way from his party’s embrace of deregulation and relying more on market forces than on the government to exert discipline. While Mr. McCain has cited the need for additional oversight when it comes to specific situations, like the mortgage problems behind the current shocks on Wall Street, he has consistently characterized himself as fundamentally a deregulator and he has no history prior to the presidential campaign of advocating steps to tighten standards on investment firms."
Meanwhile, "Obama set out his general approach to financial regulation in March, calling for regulating investment banks, mortgage brokers and hedge funds much as commercial banks are. And he would streamline the overlapping regulatory agencies and create a commission to monitor threats to the financial system and report to the White House and Congress.”
McCain and Biden appeared on TODAY to discuss the economy. NBC’s Matt Lauer asked McCain about his comment yesterday that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. McCain pivoted back to workers. “It’s obviously true that the workers … are the fundamentals of our economy,” McCain said, adding later, “Americans are hurting. Our workers are the best.” When Lauer though asked, “Isn’t there something fundamentally wrong with our economy?” McCain again simply spoke about workers. “There’s nothing wrong with our workers. America is in crisis because of greed, excess….”
Biden showed his feisty side, while interviewed by NBC's Meredith Vieira, going right after McCain, saying, “Hire a doctor who’s just been convicted of malpractice? You going to do that?” He accused McCain of not supporting legislation that would have curbed CEO severance packages for bankrupted companies. “We need to correct problems that caused this,” Biden said, adding, “Why didn’t he do something to help the middle-class people. … Give the tax cut to the middle class; give some help to the middle class here. You haven’t heard the word middle class cross the lips” of Republicans.
The Los Angeles Times: "The growing sense of urgency about instability in the housing and financial sectors may pressure both McCain and Obama to flesh out economic policies that have been vague or overshadowed by a blizzard of character attacks and negative campaigning. The last week, for example, has included bickering over the McCain campaign's charge that Obama was making a sexist reference to Palin in talking about ‘putting lipstick on a pig.’”
Politico also examines the two candidates’ responses to yesterday. "Obama aims to pin the blame squarely on the Republican Party’s philosophy of deregulation and to argue that his policies could have worked, and will work, to avoid such crises. McCain, meanwhile, hopes to turn the conversation from the financial crisis to the broader economy and to make the case that his tax cuts on the wealthy and on corporations would stimulate the economy where Obama’s plan would slow it. Both candidates are blaming insiders and influence peddlers and are casting themselves as the true reformers."
