Ignoring the economy

“When are you going to take the gloves off?”

“How about Tuesday night?”

That exchange took place at a John McCain town hall meeting last week, with the question posed by an older lady and answered by the candidate himself. As you’re reading this, you will probably already know how off the gloves came during Tuesday’s debate. It seems, though, that the process of dragging down the 2008 presidential campaign has already started.

The assault began on Saturday, when Sarah Palin claimed during a rally that Barack Obama was “palling around with terrorists” and that he didn’t see America like “you and I” do. She was referring to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, with whom Obama worked on community boards before he became a politician, but the claim is eerily close to unproven and unfounded Internet rumors claiming that Obama is some kind of Muslim Manchurian candidate.

It continued from all angles on Monday. A law enforcement officer introducing Sarah Palin at a rally in Florida made a reference to “Barack Hussein Obama” – something which in February caused McCain to revoke the endorsement of radio host Bill Cunningham. Palin’s spokesperson condemned the statement.

Also Monday, during a rally, John McCain asked an audience the question “Who is Barack Obama?” He did nothing as a member of the audience yelled, “a terrorist.”  And the most egregious attack came when he accused Obama of distorting his record on economic regulations, saying, “I guess he believes if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it will be believed.”

This is clearly the McCain plan for the remainder of the campaign – ignore the issues and attack the opposition. It’s not exactly surprising, considering the beating McCain has taken since the market crash and the bailout. He’s dropped in polls, he’s fallen behind in almost every measure, and the map is looking increasingly bad for him. Even McCain’s own strategists accept that if he sticks to issues like the economy, he will lose.

Obama summed the situation up well with his retaliation – he said that McCain is “gambling that he can distract (voters) with smears rather than talk to you about substance.” Obama added, “They’d rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up. It’s what you do when you’re out of touch, out of ideas and running out of time.”

The problem for McCain is that he’s waited far too long for this. The American people are frightened about the economy, and McCain’s “erratic” (in the words of Obama) behavior on the issue isn’t giving them a whole lot of confidence that he can handle the economy and bring it out of this morass. When 60 percent of people believe that a depression is “likely,” the chances of voters biting on the use of fear are low.

People are already scared about the issues, and McCain isn’t helping himself out by ignoring them. It may have worked for George W. Bush, but the chances of it working again are slim.