Economy focuses presidential candidates

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WASHINGTON – Monday's meltdown on Wall Street brought the economy roaring back to the center of the presidential campaign, and the question for the final seven weeks of the campaign seems likely to be whether Barack Obama or John McCain can convince voters that he is capable of leading the country to a rebound.

Neither has truly won the confidence of voters, and on Monday, neither offered fresh ideas on dealing with the mammoth challenge.

Mr. McCain, at his first event of the day in Jacksonville, Fla., 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."

The Obama campaign pounced on those words, saying they showed Mr. McCain to be "disturbingly out of touch" with the reality that everyday Americans face.

At a rally in Grand Junction, Colo., Mr. Obama wondered:

"What economy are you talking about?"

If Mr. McCain's earlier comments had seemed designed to reassure, his new ones at a later stop in Orlando were dire.

"The American economy is in a crisis – in a crisis," he repeated.

While Mr. McCain has recently 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 in the past as fundamentally a deregulator.

In 1995, Mr. McCain promoted a moratorium on federal regulations.

He was quoted at the time saying excessive regulations were "destroying the American family, the American dream."

The moratorium measure was unsuccessful.

Mr. Obama's track record on financial regulation has been limited.

As a first-term senator, he hasn't been around for the major debates of recent years, and his eight years in the Illinois Senate afforded little opportunity to weigh in on the issues.

In March 2007, however, he warned of the coming housing crisis, and a year later in a speech in Manhattan he outlined six principles for overhauling financial regulation.

Mr. Obama has been under pressure from Democrats, nervous about Mr. McCain's post-convention rise in the polls, to refocus his campaign message on the economy.

He described the recent series of events as "the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression" and accused the Bush administration and Wall Street of failures.

Mr. Obama said Mr. McCain embraced a philosophy that has opposed tougher regulations – "one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises."

Mr. McCain's campaign accused Mr. Obama of embracing "pessimism, defeatism and weakness" in questioning the Republican's praise of the ingenuity and vitality of American workers and charged that an Obama administration would mean higher taxes and burdensome regulation just when the economy can least afford it.

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