"Stop, Thief!" Cried the Burglar

[ProSense]

"Stop, Thief!" Cried the Burglar

The financial meltdown on Wall Street is stimulating some very creative messaging from the McCain campaign. Now, all of a sudden, he and Sarah Palin are depicting themselves as chomping at the bit to get into office and crack down on Wall Street, presumably via some government action.

That's perfectly understandable from a tactical point of view; the only arrow in Team McCain's quiver that's remotely relevant to the current crisis is the threadbare but still effective claim that the Arizonan is a cranky "maverick" who wants to change Washington.

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Yesterday, Obama seized on what he called McCain's "newfound support for regulation" and accused his rival of backing "a broken system in Washington that is breaking the American economy."

In a speech in Golden, Colo., Obama blamed the economic crisis on an "economic philosophy" that he said McCain and President Bush supported blindly.

"John McCain has spent decades in Washington supporting financial institutions instead of their customers," he told a crowd of about 2,100 at the Colorado School of Mines. "So let's be clear: What we've seen the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed."

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I don't think the financial crisis qualifies as an emphemeral, flavor-of-the-day controversy. It epitomizes the sense of helplessness of Americans whose current and future economic aspirations are being endangered if not squandered by irresponsible behavior enabled by reflexively pro-business, anti-governent, free-market ideology. It's a subset of the general refusal of conservatives and the GOP to make the interests of middle-class Americans a priority in a rapidly changing, globalizing economy.

Convincing swing voters that John McCain is part of the economic problem rather than its solution, and is so blinded by ideology that he can't champion "change," is now crucial for Obama. I think he understands that, and is adjusting his campaign accordingly. But as Galston points out, there's no longer any margin for error. If McCain is allowed to get to election day perceived as a credible "safe change" option on the economy, instead of a burgler crying "Stop, Thief!" when his own philosophy produces terrible results, then we may be forced to find out whether Obama's vaunted ground game can make a big difference.