The Issues v. John McCain

With Wall Street facing some dire straits, what will each candidate do to help calm fears over an upcoming recession? With John McCain backpedaling from his stance that the economy is "fundamentally sound", it's been interesting to see how the media is portraying each of the candidates in this struggles. Even just from a quick scan of the LA Times or NY Times headlines will show that McCain is certainly the target of the scorn from the mainstream media. While Obama seems to escape unscathed from the day's headlines, there are an unmistakable glutton of articles about McCain's opinions (1)(2)(3)(4). It seems as if we may be beginning to enter a portion of the campaign built around issues and from the looks of it, McCain is starting to take more direct hits from the media about his inability to discuss the issues.

In a recent poll by Quinnipiac, Obama has regained a small lead in the race (49-45), rebounding from some polls last week showing him trailing a McCain-Palin ticket hot off a good showing at the convention. The article in the Times states that this only a portion of the polling came during the recent financial struggles. I can't help but wonder if this is a sign of the backlash that may be starting to stem from the attack tactics shown by McCain and Palin. As we mentioned in class on Monday evening, we wouldn't know the results of those ads until the next major poll came out. With the Republican Campaign finding themselves on the bottom of the heap, the question becomes how do they, in turn, rebound and regain the lead that they had, however slim it may have been.