McCain (18 times) “fundamentals of the economy are strong”

by Peter on September 19, 2008

By Jim Stratton, Orlando Sentinel
September 16, 2008

Article Excerpt:

Amid near-chaos on Wall Street, John McCain on Monday told an Orlando audience that the U.S. economy is “in crisis,” sounding a new note of urgency in a campaign that’s preferred until now not to talk much about the economy.

The Republican’s shift in pitch came as Democrat Barack Obama, citing what he called “the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression,” said neither McCain nor his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, offered anything different from George Bush.

The Obama campaign has hammered for weeks at McCain’s assessment that the U.S. economy was “fundamentally sound.” The Arizona senator repeated that assertion Monday morning in Jacksonville. He revised his comments in Orlando, saying three times in six sentences that the economy was in “crisis.” He also defined “fundamentals,” perhaps for the first time, as the American worker and said he stood by his assessment.

The duel over the economy comes as stocks plunged more than 500 points on news that Lehman Brothers is filing for bankruptcy protection and Bank of America is buying Merrill Lynch & Co. for $50 billion. Bear Stearns got a taxpayer bailout several months ago, and more recently the U.S. Treasury seized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. All are victims of the meltdown of credit markets caused by the collapse of the home mortgage industry, due largely to the sale of mortgage-backed securities including high-risk subprime loans.

Neither McCain nor Obama, however, offered solutions to the crisis beyond tighter, but unspecified, regulation of financial institutions.

McCain, speaking to Hispanic supporters in east Orange County, blamed the financial implosions on a culture of “greed, irresponsibility and corruption” that was allowed to run unchecked by regulators.

“Some on Wall Street have treated Wall Street like a casino,” McCain said. He promised to “put an end to the greed that has driven our markets into chaos.”

McCain’s description Monday in Orlando was among the most dire he’s used during his campaign, and it included a twist.

He continued to insist that the U.S. “fundamentals” were strong, but he narrowly defined the term to mean only the American work force, not the state of the nation’s finances. “The American worker,” McCain said, “and their innovation, their entrepreneurship, the small business, those are the fundamentals of America.”