MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, Ohio -- At his first solo campaign stop since announcing Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain tried to be optimistic about the struggling economy.
Last Monday morning, after reading prepared remarks in reaction to the breaking news that lending giant Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch had been effectively rescued by Bank of America, McCain made an unscripted comment that attracted everyone's attention.
"Our economy, I think, still -- the fundamentals of our economy are strong, but these are very, very difficult times," McCain told a crowd in Jacksonville, Fla.
The line was ad-libbed, according to a senior McCain adviser, but the theme is one of the candidate's favorites; he has used it throughout his campaign, although it's been heard less and less as the economy has gone south. As economic concerns have come to dominate the election, McCain seems eager to comfort consumers by saying that portions of the economy remain stable even while Wall Street is in crisis.
Regardless of what McCain intended, it took less that two hours for Barack Obama's campaign to seize on the remark.
"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," spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. "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."
It's not so simple to define the fundamentals of the economy, George Mason University economics professor Peter Leeson said in an e-mail message, "although there might be consensus among many economists on certain 'vital stats' that we look to to tell us about the economy's health.
"It sounds to me like 'the fundamentals of our economy are strong' was just a platitude -- a way to recognize trouble and sound concerned but also sound optimistic and like [McCain] has 'faith in America,'" said Leeson. "Using this kind of a platitude can work well because it allows the politician to identify a problem but not to somehow implicate Americans; it allows for a 'they're the problem' that 'we' can all rally behind and ensures that 'we're' not the problem."
After his morning comments drew so much attention, McCain tried to clean them up in the afternoon. Before taking questions at a town hall with Hispanic voters in Orlando, McCain clarified what he meant by "fundamentals."
"Our workers are the most innovative, the hardest-working, the best-skilled, most productive, most competitive in the world," McCain said. "That's the American worker, and my opponents may disagree, but those fundamentals, the American worker and their innovation, their entrepreneurship, the small business, those are the fundamentals of America, and I think they're strong."
McCain had, effectively, steered the central question from how strong the fundamentals of the economy really were in light of the serious challenges shaking Wall Street institutions to whether American workers are the hardest-working, most competitive workers in the world. If Obama or his campaign criticized McCain for his economic optimism, then McCain could argue that his opponent is finding fault with America's blue-collar workers and the entrepreneurship of its small businesses.
McCain set up this argument in an interview with Matt Lauer on NBC's "Today Show" the day after his rally in Florida.
"Well, it's obviously true that the workers of America are the fundamentals of our economy and our strength and our future," McCain said. "And I believe in the American worker, and someone who disagrees with that is fine."
The next day, the government decided to bail out insurance giant American International Group. And despite telling Lauer, "We cannot have the taxpayers bail out AIG or anybody else," McCain issued a statement giving his reluctant approval.
"These actions stem from failed regulation, reckless management, and a casino culture on Wall Street that has crippled one of the most important companies in America," McCain said. "The focus of any such action should be to protect the millions of Americans who hold insurance policies, retirement plans and other accounts with AIG. We must not bail out the management and speculators who created this mess. They had months of warnings following the Bear Stearns debacle, and they failed to act."
Obama issued a similar statement, but he was more open about not having all the specifics of the government's proposal.
"While we do not know all the details of this arrangement, the Fed must ensure that the plan protects the families that count on insurance," Obama said. "It should bolster our economy's ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills and save their money. It must not bail out the shareholders or management of AIG."
For the next several days, McCain pointed to his statement as an example of his leadership ability, and he pointed to Obama's as an example of his refusal to take a position on the bailout.
"When AIG was bailed out, I didn't like it, but I understood it needed to be done to protect hardworking Americans with insurance policies and annuities," McCain said at a rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Thursday, the day after the government's deal with AIG was announced. "Senator Obama didn't take a position. On the biggest issue of the day, he didn't know what to think. He may not realize it, but you don't get to vote 'present' as president of the United States."
This quickly became a talking point for the McCain campaign and Republican surrogates. While highlighting McCain's leadership abilities, something that served him well in the GOP primaries, this argument also allowed them to bring up the 130-plus "present" votes Obama cast in Illinois' state Senate, a record that Republicans cite as proof that he was protecting himself from controversial decisions.
At the end of the week, Obama played into his opponent's argument by announcing that he would not announce a plan to solve the crisis.
"You don't do it in a day," Obama said of creating a comprehensive solution. "We've got to do it in an intelligent, systematic, thoughtful fashion, and I'm much less interested at this point in scoring political points than I am in making sure that we have a structure in place that is sound and that is actually going to work."
At a speech before the National Guard Convention in Baltimore this Sunday, McCain once again brought up the fact that "Obama has declined to put forth a plan of his own," saying that decision proved the Democrat was not a leader.
"Whether it's a reversal in war or an economic emergency, he reacts as a politician and not as a leader, seeking an advantage for himself instead of a solution for his country," McCain said.
Painting a picture of Obama as a "politician," not a "leader," is similar to a tactic the McCain camp used in the run-up to Florida's important primary this winter. Engaged in a tight race with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, McCain tried to paint Romney as a "manager" and himself as a "leader." McCain won the Florida primary, which made him the front-runner going into Super Tuesday.
The financial bailout may be the issue of the day, but with neither McCain nor Obama calling the shots in the short term, leadership is where they're both staking their claim. McCain has taken liberties with what constitutes an economic fundamental in order to construct an optimistic narrative; Obama has decided on a wait-and-see approach, holding off on an economic protection plan or any decisive statements in hopes of being seen as a prudent thinker. If the economy continues to monopolize the election, voters will decide which approach is true leadership.
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