Obama Slams McCain Over The Economy

Barack Obama on Monday mocked John McCain's promise to bring change to Washington, saying the Republican presidential nominee has marched loyally with President Bush and was out of touch with the economic distress of struggling Americans.

"In 19 months he has not named one thing he would do differently from this administration on the central issue of this election," Obama said of McCain. "Not one thing. And we know that if we go down that path, that the next four years will look exactly like the last eight."

Seven weeks before the election, Obama sought to portray McCain as an unshakable ally of the unpopular Bush and Washington lobbyists -- unsympathetic to the pocketbook issues that are the No. 1 concern of American voters. Obama delivered a frontal attack that showed none of the hesistancy that has worried some of his own supporters as McCain edged ahead in the polls.

"Can you afford to take a chance on someone who's voted against the minimum wage 19 times," Obama asked a crowd of thousands under a blazing sun at a rally in western Colorado at the start of a swing through contested Western states. "When it was $4, he was against it, when it was $5 he was against it, when it was $6 he was against it."

Obama closed the day in Pueblo with a rally at the Colorado State Fairgrounds before a wildly enthusiastic crowd estimated by the facility's general manager at 13,500.

The nation's economic anxieties were sharpened by a historic upheaval on Wall Street with the announcements that financial giant Lehman Brothers was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy while titan Merrill Lynch was being bought by Bank of America for about $50 billion.

Charging that McCain was out of touch, Obama said, "He doesn't get what's happening between the mountains in Sedona where he lives and the corridors of power where he works. Why else would he say that we've made great progress economically under George Bush. Why else would he say that the economy isn't something he understands as well as he should.

"Why else would he say, today of all days, just a few hours ago -- think about this, we just woke up to news of financial disaster -- and this morning he said that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong. Sen. McCain, what economy are you talking about?"

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McCain's campaign accused Obama of distorting the GOP candidate's comments.

"Only Barack Obama would take a statement about the strength, ingenuity and resilience of American workers and American industry and turn it into a political distortion and attack," said McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. "Barack Obama's short career as a public servant has been defined by pessimism, defeatism, and weakness in the face of the great challenges of our time. His lack of faith in American workers may explain his willingness to raise taxes during a struggling economy, but it is no way to lead our country."

Obama said chaos in the financial markets was "the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. I certainly don't fault Sen. John McCain for these problems. I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to."

"It's the same philosophy we've had for the last eight years, one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else," Obama said. "It's a philosophy that says even commonsense regulations are unnecessary, unwise. One that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crisis."

Obama's campaign released a new television commercial accusing McCain of running some of the "sleaziest ads" ever seen -- especially an ad that declares Obama supports sex education for kindergartners. The ad is a distortion of Obama's position. He supported legislation that would teach age-appropriate sex education to kindergartners, including information on rejecting advances by sexual predators.

Obama also chided McCain for another new commercial that promises "change that we need."

"Sound familiar?" said Obama, who has made "change" the central theme of his campaign. "Let me tell you, instead of borrowing my lines he needs to borrow some of my ideas. Change isn't about slogans. It's about substance."

He also took a little poke at McCain's running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, raising the "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska that she initially supported and later opposed. Saying that McCain had put some lobbyists in key roles of his campaign, Obama said, "If you think those lobbyists are working day and night for John McCain just to put themselves out of business, well I've got a bridge to sell you up in Alaska."

Comments

[SummerNite]

Barack Obama on Wall Street:

September 17, 2007
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=b6PPZMpc-e0

Almost one year to the day.
Pesky foresight

[TurangaLeela]

Lot's of repug trolls posting, the stench of thier desperation permeates the internets. Lol

[berrycooda]

Hey Senator Obama.....What have you done for us lately...other than read off a script the way most
politicians do when they want to get elected.

You don't have any more to offer than McCain. Lot of talk and same old rhetoric.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.....and all of you politicians seem to be living on easy street.

For some reason, politicians seem to make a big change once they are elected.
They forget what their pre-election promises were.

[elan4444]

Where is Michelle Obama?

[RButler]

Obama makes fun of McCain for saying he'd appoint a commission to straighten out this mess. Then Gov. Bill Richardson was on TV today saying Obama would gather economists and republicans and Democrats to fix the problem. SOUNDS KINDA LIKE A COMMISSION WITHOUT THE NAME. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

[rcpmac]

Gov. Bill Richardson does not speak for Obama.

[g3ills]

I see you didn't post the first part of the message...was it because of the quotes? I couldn't change them because the writing belongs to Tim Wise.

[g3ills]

cont.

or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.



Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull.


"We just need to get real people, and stop hating."

[g3ills]

cont.

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question,

[g3ills]

cont.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.

[SCG2]

" The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson — and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of W.W. The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United States — only on a far bigger and broader basis. "


Letter to Col. Edward Mandell House (21 November 1933); as quoted in F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1928-1945, edited by Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), pg. 373.

[genseric13]

I wonder if the community agitator is going to appoint some old black panthers to fill out his cabinet.

[mrsmdressup]

Holy f*ck...that bee-otch is still spewing out the same lies on CNN. I am flabbergasted that anything close to human can lie that much....who does she think she is, OJ Simpson?

[genseric13]

Obama the community agitator, similar to Jesse Jackson harassed local banks to give unqualified people bank loans for houses. He's just part of the problem, folks.

[rcpmac]

Nice try troll but i don't think so.

[tomfl78]

the economy is on an 8 year cycle and we started to see a slow down in 2006 thus president Clinton should take some of the blame

[jgalvan]

John McNuggets financial adviser Phil Graham said that he was sorry for the mess he caused yesterday.
And then said that the American people should stop whining.