Advantage Obama

This week's news cycle - a meltdown on Wall Street - pushes the energy of the election back toward Barack. The Democrat needs voters unhappy in order to have traction, and this week's economic woes make lipstick talk seem long ago.

Ridiculing his rival for sticking with "an economic philosophy that has completely failed," Sen. Barack Obama laid out his approach to managing the current financial crisis -- promising to play a proactive role if he is elected president in order to prevent future meltdowns.

Monday morning, McCain said the fundamentals of the economy are still strong, a comment that's been used against him in the past. Instead of acting presidential and sticking with that arguably accurate and reassuring assessment, his campaign retrenched, offering a convoluted explanation to escape responsibility for the remark - fundamentals means workers, and workers are strong.

Obama is seizing this mess to gain an upper hand as effectively as McCain jumped on the Russian invasion of Georgia last month, and the McCain campaign is bobbling the ball almost as badly as Barack did.

Obama poked fun at McCain for proposing a commission to examine the crisis, calling that "the oldest Washington stunt in the book."

"This isn't 9/11. We know how we got into this mess," Obama said. "What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I'll provide it, John McCain won't, and that's the choice for the American people in this election."

Meanwhile, McCain adviser Carly Fiorina provided fodder for the Obama campaign to whip McCain with.

"No, I don't," Fiorina replied. "But that's not what she's running for. Running a corporation is a different set of things."

Later on MSNBC, said she said the same of the presidential nominee. "I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation."

Of course, Fiorina said the Democrats were likewise unqualified to run a major corporation, but that didn't stop the Obama campaign from pouncing, once again making the new kinda politics look remarkably like the old.

"If John McCain's top economic adviser doesn't think he can run a corporation, how on Earth can he run the largest economy in the world in the midst of a financial crisis?" spokesman Tommy Vietor asked.

The McCain campaign offered reassurance, which wasn't very reassuring.