John McCain, on offense to prove he's taking the economic meltdown seriously after yesterday's misfire, released a new ad this afternoon that uses the word "crisis" three times in 30 seconds. In it, McCain promises to tackle the situation "head on" and to protect Americans' jobs and savings. A female voiceover adds that McCain will bring "experience and leadership in a time of crisis". (And here we thought "experience" was SO August 28th...)

But the Democrats are not going to let McCain retake control of his economic narrative that easily. Four minutes after that ad hit my inbox, I received a video from the DNC montaging 10 instances from this year of McCain saying some version of "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" (the most recent example, of course, was from yesterday), along with quotes from McCain advisers downplaying the country's economic problems.