Obama Back In The Lead

Barack Obama has jumped back into the lead this week as the issues (in particular the economy) have pushed the superficial “human interest” story of Sarah Palin off the front page.

Obama has a clear advantage on the issues as John McCain has the exact same policies on every major issue as the failed George W. Bush administration. This is why the McCain/Palin campaign has tried so desperately to make this election about anything other than the issues. In fact, their campaign manager has been quoted as saying “this election is not about the issues.”

It is McCain’s preferred policy of deregulation that has got the economy into the problems it’s in today. In fact, the man who wrote John McCain’s economic policy played a huge role in the deregulation that lead directly to today’s economic problems. His name is Phil Gramm. Yes, the same Phil Gramm that called Americans “whiners” for complaining about the economy.

McCain made his economy problem even worse this week by erroneously claiming that the “fundamentals of the economy are strong” (sounding a lot like Hoover during the Great Depression.) He then got really absurd by all of a sudden claiming that “fundamentals” means American workers. This is the first time he’s claimed that even though he’s been using that same line “the fundamentals of the economy are strong” for months. Straight talk express? Are you kidding me? Does he really expect anyone to believe that nonsense?

I believe this economic meltdown has woken up the American people to the reality of what McCain represents. More of the same. The United States can clearly not survive another 4 years of these failed policies. McCain’s “solutions” include more tax cuts for rich people & corporations along with further deregulation (remember, deregulation is what caused these problems in the first place.) Obama, on the other hand, has an economic policy closer to that of Bill Clinton. And everyone remembers Clinton’s booming economy in the 1990s. Obama wants to give big tax cuts not to the rich and to corporations but instead to the middle class.

In today’s new Gallup poll, Obama is up 48% to 44%. That’s a huge 9% point turnaround from just last week when McCain held a 5% lead in the same poll.