For All the Marbles

Meanwhile, Carly Fiorina is a big help, isn't she? Do you think Sarah Palin has the experience to run a major company like Hewlett-Packard?

"No, I don't."

Having dug that hole -- and she's out there as the surrogate, remember -- she tells MSNBC that McCain, Obama and Biden don't, either.

I mean, they're only running for president and vice president of the United States.

And by the way, Carly got dumped by H-P. So her experience wasn't all that great either.

Slate's John Dickerson is unsure that the Dems get the edge here:

"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 . . .

"What about McCain's policies on the specific topic of the recent market turmoil? He's going to clean the mess up, he promises. If voters see him as the action candidate, perhaps they'll take his word for it. On the specifics, though, he's not in a very strong position. Though he offered a new ad today touting his 'experience' to handle the crisis, he doesn't have much of a record at all. When McCain talks about eliminating earmarks, his record is a mile long. When he talks about cutting CEO pay and regulating the financial industry, his aides can provide only one amendment to an accounting-reform bill to show his history on the issue. He offered it six years ago.

"Still, Obama can be pushed around on the economy because voters don't know what he's for. Yes, he's for change -- but what does that mean when it comes to their daily lives? Yes, he's for a middle-class tax cut--but a July poll showed that nearly 50 percent of the country was unfamiliar with his economic policies. In this vacuum, McCain has been able to mischaracterize Obama's position on taxes. McCain says Obama will raise taxes, which isn't true for the majority of Americans. Yet in a recent ABC/Washington Post poll, 51 percent of respondents said Obama would raise their taxes, while only 34 percent said McCain would."

That's a failure by Obama, but also of the easily distracted media.

Marc Ambinder examines the tone problem:

"Both McCain and Obama have to strike a balance between acknowledging the crisis and using their authority to convince Americans not to run on their banks and head for the hills. That's what McCain was doing when he said the 'fundamentals' of the economy are strong; Obama will strike a different balance."