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Loose ChangeWhy bad economic news doesn't hurt McCain, or help Obama, as much as you think.

By John DickersonPosted Monday, Sept. 15, 2008, at 7:12 PM ET

John McCain. Click image to expand.This is the change the Obama campaign has been waiting for. After two weeks of political news dominated by Sarah Palin, bad weather, a reunified GOP, and nervous Democrats, there is suddenly real news: Wall Street banks are collapsing. Everyone is talking about the economy (a pig that can't be improved by lipstick, or Honeybaked), and the economy is an issue with which Barack Obama has had an advantage with voters. Even better, as luck would have it, he'd already planned to devote the week to addressing the issue and showing America just how out of touch John McCain is.

McCain, for his part, must have felt guilty about his recent wave of attacks, because he immediately chipped in to help Obama, producing just the kind of out-of-touch sound bite his opponent needed. "The fundamentals of the economy are strong," said McCain at a Florida rally after addressing people's jittery feelings. Instantly, the Obama team jumped on the remarks. Joe Biden, who has started sharpening his attacks on McCain, poked fun at his Senate colleague while campaigning near Detroit: "Ladies and gentlemen, I could walk from here to Lansing, and I wouldn't run into a single person who thought our economy was doing well, unless I ran into John McCain."

All in all, it adds up to a huge win for Obama, right? Not exactly. (At this point in the campaign, the only huge wins are in contests of height or age.) For Obama to take advantage of this moment, he has to convince voters he's going to change their lives. He can't use it as merely another opportunity to paint McCain as out of touch.

The McCain team knew its candidate had messed up by suggesting the economy was strong on a day when panic reigned. Only an hour after his initial remarks had bounced around the Internet, McCain aides were releasing excerpts of remarks the candidate was scheduled to make later in the day: When he said "fundamentals," McCain was referring to "'American workers'—they're the ones who are 'strong.' " He was clearly backpedaling, but in a sign of how complicated this issue can be, McCain got an assist from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whom Obama has been courting for months. Bloomberg said that the fundamentals—by which he meant the underlying economy, not the workers—were strong.

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One Democrat, a veteran of successful campaigns, pointed out an additional complication. If Obama spends too much time claiming the fundamentals of the American economy are not strong, he risks becoming the candidate of gloom instead of the candidate of hope.

Obama supporters may already be gloomy about the idea that McCain has extricated himself from this gaffe or that Obama has already wrung as much benefit as he can from it. Lord knows, Obama hasn't been starved for opportunities. Since the start of the general election race, the Obama campaign has been pounding McCain as out of touch. It started with McCain's admission that he doesn't know as much about the economy as he does about foreign policy. From there McCain went on to declare the economy strong, claim (jokingly) you were rich only if you had more than $5 million, and forget how many houses he owns. Top McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm said, when talking about the economy, that America had become a "nation of whiners." McCain recently admitted he was distanced from regular people's lives, and Obama jumped on that, too.

McCain was already in a tough spot before he opened his mouth. Voters give Democrats a nearly 20-point advantage over Republicans. They are also very upset with the performance of President Bush, who nominally still heads the party McCain now leads. And when it comes to which party voters trust more to handle the economy? You'd think pollsters would almost have to create a new category (as in, 28 percent of respondents doubled over in laughter when asked the question).

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John Dickerson is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. He can be reached at .
Photograph of John McCain by Gerardo Mora/Getty Images.
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