By Samuel Rubenfeld
Amid all the economic turmoil is the 2008 presidential campaign, and the rapidly changing news on Wall Street caught both campaigns off guard, leaving them beholden to events rather than driving the message themselves.
Neither candidate has achieved dominance over the issue: Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, holds a nine-point lead over his Republican counterpart, John McCain, on which of the two can better handle the economy, according to a Newsweek poll out Sept. 12, just days before the latest Wall Street crisis ensued. Obama held a 25-point lead the last time the poll was taken, in June.
The campaigns have spent the last week battering each other over their initial responses to the financial meltdown. Both campaigns are accusing each other of being out of touch with the struggles of average people.
McCain, who said as recently as last December that the economy is not his strongest issue, is struggling to gain solid footing on what Americans believe is the most important issue facing the country.
The Republican candidate committed a major gaffe early Monday: McCain repeated a line he used once before, saying “the fundamentals of our economy are strong,” which hours later saw a rapid response advertisement from the Democrats. McCain had to step back from that remark later in the day, saying he was only referring to the “American people” as being strong.
McCain also said Monday that he wanted time to study the issue. “We need a 9/11 commission,” John McCain said. “We need a commission to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it, and I know we can do that, and I’ll do it.”
Obama slammed that idea within hours, calling the commission plan “the oldest Washington stunt in the book.” He repeated a six-step plan the Obama campaign issued in March, calling for increased regulation of the economy during a speech in Jefferson County, Colo., a critical swing area in a critical swing state.
The message carried through the week. “In the past few weeks, Wall Street’s been rocked as banks closed and markets tumbled. But for many of you-the people I’ve met in town halls, backyards and diners across America-our troubled economy isn’t news,” Obama said in an unusual two-minute ad airing Wednesday in battleground states.
Ads this long usually air at the beginning or end of a campaign season, not in the middle, as this one did.
“This isn’t just a string of bad luck. The truth is that while you’ve been living up to your responsibilities, Washington has not,” Obama said in the ad.
McCain issued a statement Wednesday morning about the market turmoil, calling the bailout of American International Group, or AIG, the result of “failed regulation, reckless management and a casino culture on Wall Street.”
“We should never again allow the United States to be in this position,” he said in the statement. “We need strong and effective regulation, a return to job-creating growth and a restoration of ethics and the social contract between businesses and America.