Digesting the economic speeches of today, and the last few days, we're struck by how they're tailored to fit the broader narrative each campaign is trying to build.
Both Democrats complained that McCain was not doing enough. Clinton took one traditional Democratic tack -- direct aid to help with the housing credit crisis, and job retraining -- instead of abstract solutions, and promised to be a "commander in chief of the economy," explicitly evoking the same perception of a tested leader that she has used to bash Obama's readiness on foreign policy:
"Sometimes the phone rings at 3 a.m. in the White House and it’s an economic crisis. And we need a president who is ready and willing to answer that call."
Obama proposed a $30 billion stimulus package and a federal role in helping homeowners fend off foreclosure, but he emphasized the need to reform and re-regulate structural problems in financial regulation, allowing him to castigate lobbyists and the Clinton 1990s, and play to his strength as a change agent. AP:
"Obama said outdated bank regulation needed to be reformed in the 1990s, but... 'the $300 million lobbying effort that drove deregulation was more about facilitating mergers than creating an efficient regulatory framework.' President Clinton signed that repeal. 'Unfortunately, instead of establishing a 21st century regulatory framework, we simply dismantled the old one, aided by a legal but corrupt bargain in which campaign money all too often shaped policy and watered down oversight.' ”
The messages are so perfectly tailored to each campaign, it makes you wonder if the politics are driving the economics......
AP story is here. Obama speech is here. Clinton speeches are here and here.