by Thomas Pierce

Good Morning.

Evie's out of town for the next few days, so I'm stepping in to help out.

As the credit crisis persists on Wall Street, the candidates probably aren't going to waste time talking about pigs, lipstick, or blackberries today. More likely, they'll continue toting (and fine-tuning) their solutions for the economy.

John McCain, who got himself into trouble earlier this week by suggesting the fundamentals of our economy are "strong," seems to be searching for the right response. He was an initial critic of a government bailout of AIG but has since changed his mind. That's giving Obama a chance to capitalize on what the LA Times is calling McCain's "wildly swinging rhetoric." Despite McCain's equivocation, the Wall Street Journal reports that neither candidate is necessarily in an ideal position to earn voter confidence on this issue:

Sen. Obama has had his own problems connecting with working-class voters, and the first-term senator's short time in Washington has raised doubts with voters about his ability to handle a complex crisis. But the economy has never been one of Sen. McCain's strong suits.

New polls out this morning confirm that the economy could very well decide the election. According to New York Times/CBS News poll data:

By overwhelming numbers, Americans said the economy was the top issue affecting their vote decision, and they continued to express deep pessimism about the nation's economic future. They continued to express greater confidence in Mr. Obama's ability to manage the economy, even as Mr. McCain has aggressively sought to raise doubts about it.

This same poll also suggests the so-called Palin Effect could be waning. Since her addition to the ticket, Palin has certainly invigorated the party base and attracted previously unseen audiences to McCain events. But apparently her favorability ratings have dropped, with more than 6 in 10 people surveyed saying they'd "be concerned if Mr. McCain could not finish his term and Ms. Palin had to take over." Not only that, 75% of people polled suspected that McCain picked Palin — not because she'd make a good Vice-President — but because she'd help him win.

 

Whether or not these changes have anything to do with negative press coming out of Alaska or with her recent interviews is unclear. Perhaps the excitement about Palin has been stymied by what's happening on Wall Street?

NPR's Nancy Cook takes a more comprehensive look at all the new polls.

In the ad-world, Obama has released some new Spanish-language TV and radio spots that are drawing criticism — especially from Rush Limbaugh. That might be because he's in them. The ad features two highly invective quotes from Limbaugh that, it seems, are taken out of context, and then accuses "McCain and his friends" of having two faces when it comes to issues like immigration reform. Jake Tapper does a good job of putting the quotes back in context and pointing out that tying McCain to Limbaugh on immigration is unfair:

Limbaugh opposed McCain on that issue. Vociferously. And in a larger sense, it's unfair to link McCain to Limbaugh on a host of issues since Limbaugh, as any even occasional listener of his knows, doesn't particularly care for McCain.

And finally, the Washington Post predicts Election Day chaos of epic proportions with record numbers of voters going to the polls — adding to the fear that thousands of votes will be lost in the process:

The crush of voters will strain a system already in the midst of transformation, with jurisdictions introducing new machines and rules to avoid the catastrophe of the deadlocked 2000 election and the lingering controversy over the 2004 outcome. Even within the past few months, cities and counties have revamped their processes: Nine million voters, including many in the battleground states of Ohio, Florida and Colorado, will use equipment that has changed since March.

With a surge in voter registration and voter excitement, yes, lines on election day will probably be very long. And yes, there's probably a phalanx of lawyers from either side of the aisle ready for deployment to battleground states. Okay and yes, granted: the addition of new (and potentially unreliable) voting machines into the mix probably won't increase confidence in the results, either. But for the country's sake, I hope we're just experiencing a little premature Y2K election day-panic here — and that voters won't start falling out of the sky when the clock strikes midnight.