(HOST) With the presidential race nearing the finish line, commentator Bill Seamans is thinking about the latest financial news, and what effect it has had on campaign rhetoric.
(SEAMANS) We have just six weeks to go before election day and the presidential campaign seems to have undergone at least a temporary transition from lipstick back to a profoundly serious issue. It took a national financial crisis to momentarily overwhelm the scurrilous campaign. Regretfully, as the candidates are driven back to debating our economic survival the cry of "Enough" still echoes in the background as the rhetoric remains laced with diatribe.
Also regretfully, the Mudfellas on all sides are not listening and the negative campaigns continue while we, the constituents, repeatedly cry out that we are fed up. One side denies that it is mud balling, the other side says it is being forced to defend itself by counter-mudballing.
On Monday, as the stock market lost a chaotic 500 points, the rhetoric of John McCain and Barack Obama also was changed. On Monday morning, McCain said that he thought the economy was fundamentally sound. By Monday evening, McCain sounded less sure when he said – and I quote – "We’re in the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression" and he blasted what he called Wall Street’s "greed and corruption." Obama, meanwhile, dropped what his critics call his "Seminar Speak" and sounded off in terms more familiar to the working class voters he needs to attract. In plain lunch pail language, Obama charged that McCain was partly responsible for the crisis because he had opposed proposals to more closely regulate and oversee Wall Street activity. Obama accused McCain of insulting the American public with – and I quote again – with "Lies and Swift Boat politics."
Meanwhile, McCain has recently changed his core campaign from the call for "experience" to the need for "change." He now says the McCain-Palin ticket will fight for a "major reform" of how Washington works. Obama, meanwhile, charges McCain with stealing the battle cry for "Change" with which Obama launched his whole campaign. And again, in lunch pail language, Obama labelled McCain’s new call for Change – quote – "A disgraceful, dishonorable campaign."
And back to the financial crisis – in the most simplistic terms McCain has favored deregulation while Obama favors more regulation and oversight of the financial market forces while we the people remain smear-shocked in the middle. And there’s no relief in sight. After coping with the mind boggling technicalities of the primary delegate count we can now look forward to the mind boggling technicalities of the Electoral College and a renewal of the debate asking why we keep a system under which a candidate who loses the popular vote could be elected president by winning only eleven key states.
Which all calls for more kitchen table discussion time.