Politics

Starting Gate: Feeling The Pain

By Vaughn Ververs

July 8, 2008 / 9:57 AM EDT / CBS News

It's once again the economy that is driving a presidential campaign, and almost nobody is "stupid" about recognizing that in 2008. When over 80 percent of Americans tell pollsters that they think the country is headed in the wrong direction, it reflects a whole range of issues – the war in Iraq, America's place in the world, the state of the nation's moral and civic health, climate change, etc. But nothing drives voters unrest quite like their pocketbook concerns.

Soaring energy prices, the home mortgage crisis, stock market plunges, health care costs and creeping inflation fears are adding to those concerns on almost a daily basis. So it's no surprise that the presidential candidates expect to be spending the bulk of their time between now and the election talking about it. Given the complexity of the problems, and the lack of any clear-cut, easy answers, it also isn't shocking that the candidates have fallen into all-too familiar rhetoric on the subject either.

Look at yesterday's debate over taxes for example. Trying to return his party to the champion of smaller government and spending discipline, John McCain pledged to slash federal spending and balance the budget by the end of his first term in office (a questionable prospect at best) while keeping taxes low. "The choice in this election is stark and simple," McCain said at a town hall meeting in Denver. "Senator Obama will raise your taxes, I won't."

Barack Obama says that his tax plan would benefit the middle class, promising that nobody with an income under $250,000 a year would see an increase and casting McCain as an extension of President Bush's policies. "John McCain's policies are essentially a repeat, a regurgitation of what we've been hearing from the Republican Party over the last two decades, maybe three," Obama said. "It's part of the reason that we're in the situation that we find ourselves in right now."

It also sounds a lot like a repeat of the debate we've heard for decades between the two parties. Fiscal policy isn't the only issue where the argument is going according to script. With a few deviations, the candidate's positions on the myriad of issues affecting the economy, once again drawing lines between government intervention and the marketplace, between the middle class and the wealthy.

On energy policy, McCain wants to reopen offshore drilling and clings to a moratorium on federal gas taxes that has been widely discredited by economists and has hardly set voters on fire with anticipation. Obama wants more investments in long-term solutions and cleaner energy but won't commit to nuclear energy or harvesting U.S. resources.

Neither candidate offers a panacea for voters concerned about their immediate futures. That's because there aren't any easy answers to what is driving the pessimism and, in their absence, the familiar arguments are the safest. In the final analysis, that dynamic should help Obama in a "change" election. But a traditional fight over the economy could help McCain bring disgruntled Republican voters back into the fold. What's certain is that voters are telling pollsters about their pain and the candidates aren't finding many new prescriptions for it.

Around The Track

Both candidates take time out from their focus on the economy today to address the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) convention in Washington. Obama will focus on his plans to reform bankruptcy laws, especially to aid homeowners who face foreclosure due to medical expenses.

Jim Webb has taken himself out of consideration to be Obama's vice presidential running mate, saying in a statement, "Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for Vice President." CBS News chief political consultant Marc Ambinder reports that Webb was asked by Obama's search team last week to provide information to begin the vetting process and Webb told them at that time he was not interested. It's "a signal that the formal vetting phase of the search process has begun," Ambinder reports.

As last week's shakeup in the McCain campaign settles down, the New York Times says that McCain's campaign remains "a swirl of competing spheres of influence, clusters of friends, consultants and media advisers who represent a matrix of clashing ambitions and festering feuds."

At an Atlanta fundraiser last night, Obama claimed the mantle of underdog in the presidential race, reports CBS News' Maria Gavrilovic. "John McCain calls himself the underdog. I will simply point out, for reasons you might consider apparent, that I am the underdog," Obama said. "I will be the underdog until I'm sworn in."