Economy Reveals McCain's Weakness

For all of the experience John McCain has been touting, it’s becoming painfully clear that the economy is not one of his strong suits.

The darkest day on Wall Street since 9/11 gave the 2008 presidential candidates something new to criticize each other over. This is unfortunate for McCain, especially after his admittance that he doesn’t understand the economy. Never one to miss an opportunity, McCain hammered this point home with several less than insightful comments –

“The fundamentals of the economy are strong.” Despite a 500 point drop on Monday, and the economy heading for a recession just as soon as it meets the definition (two successive quarters of negative growth), McCain holds to the Republican line that the economy is fine, and that America is just experiencing ‘tough times.’ Those tough times are a recession. As one of his advisers put it earlier, America is in a ‘mental recession’ and becoming a ‘nation of whiners.’

“The fundamentals of the economy are at risk.” If the political season is good for anything, it’s showing that politicians are willing to say anything to get a vote, even if they’ve been saying the exact opposite for the entire race. His new commercial highlights this. Unfortunately, even in promising change and reform, he never really mentions exactly what he’s going to do. Of course, if he even understands what’s going on. If McCain wants to remain competitive during this economic crisis (ahem, recession), he will need to take a crash course in economics and be able to lay out a clear plan for how to address what’s happening on Wall Street, New York, as well as Main Street, USA.