It's My Philosophy on the Industry

Via Ben Smith, Barack Obama rounds up the culprits for today's market meltdown.

I certainly don't fault Senator McCain for these problems. But 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. It's a philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise; one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises.

Matthew Yglesias picks up the rebound.

Conservatives don't believe in [the] safety net for regular people — just for the billionaires. Guaranteed health care? Forget it. Guaranteed retirement income? No way. Just let the market work, and when it stops working the executives will be okay and the rest of us will, oh, something or other.

It's just something to keep in mind when you hear John McCain ranting about the horrors of government waste. Obviously, there is some waste in there, and certainly some stuff that sounds funny like Sarah Palin's seal DNA earmark. But in McCain's mind, it's all waste. Nobody paid attention at the time, but back in the spring he came out with an extraordinarily stingy housing plan that would have done essentially nothing to help ordinary people hit by the foreclosure crisis. McCain, after all, managed to acquire eight homes through good old fashioned hard work marrying an heiresses, so why shouldn't hard work and prudence be good enough to see any family through tough times?

I think we're seeing a return to the frame that Obama wants: If the country thinks the economy's collapsing, and if the blame is placed on Coolidgenomics, then the Democrat wins. Unfortunately for the Democratic ticket, Joe Biden is far more convincing than Obama in serving up this sort of boilerplate. But this clip is the sound of a Democrat on friendly turf.