McCain Must Contrast his Record on Fiscal Reform with Obama’s Empty Rhetoric

It seems that Barack Obama has picked the perfect theme for this campaign, “Change.”   People are tired of the ways things are being done in Washington and want government to change those ways.  Fortunately, for Obama, the media haven’t challenged him on how his policies will differ from the current modus operandi in our nation’s capital.

Indeed, as even one of Obama’s most fervent supporters has acknowledged, his convention speech was “more unabashedly, unashamedly liberal than any Democratic acceptance speech since the great era of American liberalism.”  Echoing that supporter, one of readers observed “how quickly and eagerly Obama has assimilated with . . . the beltway establishment.”

Obama may talk of a “new kind of politics,” but he has become a creature of the old politics.  He’s not offering us any new ideas, just the same old tired liberalism dressed us with fancy rhetoric and presented by a more dynamic personality than Democratic nominees past.

The Democrat has surged ahead in most polls not because of his ideas, but because he’s from the political party opposing the one in power–whom people blame for the crisis.  If anything, Americans reject the statist rhetoric he would spouts.

So, it’s up to John McCain tonight to do what he did in New Mexico yesterday and make the case not only that he has done more to fix the problems which created the current financial crisis, but that he is better suited to manage it once he takes office next January.

McCain has heretofore lacked a coherent economic message.  And yet he has the stronger argument, more in tune with what Americans want than that of his rival.  Not just that, he also has a better understanding of the mortgage meltdown which led to the current crisis.  Meanwhile, many MSM organs pretend McCain didn’t even address the economy in his New Mexico address.

Perhaps because the facts in his speech upset their narrative about this campaign.  Their spin notwithstanding, McCain has a record of reform, Obama rhetoric.  As the Republican said yesterday:

This crisis started in our housing market in the form of subprime loans that were pushed on people who could not afford them. Bad mortgages were being backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it was only a matter of time before a contagion of unsustainable debt began to spread. This corruption was encouraged by Democrats in Congress, and abetted by Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has accused me of opposing regulation to avert this crisis. I guess he believes if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it will be believed. But the truth is I was the one who called at the time for tighter restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that could have helped prevent this crisis from happening in the first place.

Senator Obama was silent on the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and his Democratic allies in Congress opposed every effort to rein them in. As recently as September of last year he said that subprime loans had been, quote, “a good idea.” Well, Senator Obama, that “good idea” has now plunged this country into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

To hear him talk now, you’d think he’d always opposed the dangerous practices at these institutions. But there is absolutely nothing in his record to suggest he did. He was surely familiar with the people who were creating this problem. The executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have advised him, and he has taken their money for his campaign.

He has received more money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than any other senator in history, with the exception of the chairman of the committee overseeing them.

If John McCain wants to win, he needs to remind voters tonight of his record and contrast that to his opponent’s. And people will see which candidate has worked to address our economic difficulties and which has offered soaring rhetoric, but has done little to confront America’s economic challenges.