It's the economy, period

If the economy wasn't the top issue for voters before today, it certainly will be now. Which candidate is best prepared and most able to shepherd our shaky economy through its deepening crises? It's a no-brainer.

John McCain and his wife are unspeakably wealthy through his wife's involvement in a beer distributing empire. He doesn't know how many houses he owns.

He insists that the economy is fundamentally strong. (Watch him dodder through this statement today, even as Wall Street giants collapse and the stock market reels.) He said earlier this year that he really doesn't understand the economy. He supports Bush economic and tax policy that favors the wealthiest Americans while offering little to the middle class. His key economic adviser says Americans are "whiners" and that the recession is all in our heads.

Barack Obama is a product of the middle class who only recently became well-off due to book sales. He understands what middle-class families are going through. He and his wife Michelle own one home.

Obama's economic policy is based on tax cuts for the middle class and creation of top-notch new jobs for the 21st century. He would  end tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and he would bring more oversight to the financial and housing markets. Watch Barack Obama and Joe Biden talk about the economy and what working families really care about.

As Obama spokesman Bill Burton said this morning, "Today of all days, John McCain's stubborn insistence that the 'fundamentals of the economy are strong' shows that he is disturbingly out of touch with what's going in the lives of ordinary Americans. Even as his own ads try to convince him that the economy is in crisis, apparently his 26 years in Washington have left him incapable of understanding that the policies he supports have created an historic economic crisis."

Update 9/16/08: Obama released this ad today:

Update, Wednesday afternoon: Check out the fastest flip-flop in U.S. political history. The economy is strong. No, wait, it's not! Nice straight talk there, senator. And now McCain adviser Carly Fiorina is telling the media that neither McCain nor Sarah Palin nor Barack Obama nor Joe Biden could run a major corporation. But actually, after 19 months of watching Obama build a powerhouse organization, I'm dead  certain he could run HP, or anything else.

For a recap of how the economy is now dominating the presidential campaign, check out this AP story, which leads with this statement: "Economic fears are suddenly dominating the presidential campaign, shoving aside lipstick on pigs and every other issue." And not a moment too soon ...

Comments

[theresa]

and on another note

http://www.hulu.com/collections/99

cause you have to smile some too, as you explain the differences :)

t

[Julie in Boise]

Thanks, t. I FINALLY took time to watch that. Funny stuff.

But back to the serious matter, too, check out Joe Biden in Michigan this morning:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcDpLlRTO0k

[theresa]

nice clip

"I could walk from here to Lansing and I wouldn't run into a single person who thought our economy was doing well, unless I ran into John McCain."

nods -- mcsame is more of the same, of out of touch with the everyday life in America.

t