I

cky, nasty formaldehyde in some poor gal’s bra?! That’s just not right! But that’s the charge:

Roberta Ritter claims she had an allergic reaction to the Very Sexy Extreme Me Push-Up and Angels Secret Embrace. “I had the welts … very red, hot to the touch, extremely inflamed, blistery. It itched profusely. I couldn’t sleep, waking up itching,” the 37-year-old told ABC News. Ritter’s lawyers purchased and tested the bra styles at issue and found that they contained formaldehyde. Since filing the lawsuit in May, Ritter’s lawyers say they have been contacted by dozens of women with similar complaints; they hope to soon launch a class-action lawsuit. (Source)

From a corporate communications point of view, this is nasty stuff. You can’t really say the lawyer is a bottom feeding scumbag who’ll do anything for a buck (you know, a John Edwards type), but you don’t have a scientific analysis handy to prove the case is nothing more than a pile of dirty skivvies.

The typical response is, “Until we see the lawsuit, we can’t comment.” Or, “We never comment on pending litigation.” These are the granny’s panties of corporate messaging functional, for sure, but they do nothing for your image.

Victoria’s Secret is looking fine, however, after issuing this statement:

“We are sorry that a small number of people have had an issue and we want to help them determine the cause. Customer safety and satisfaction are always our primary concerns and we take seriously any issues our customers may have with our products.”

They didn’t deny the problem; neither did they give it credence. They offer assistance in finding out the cause, and speak on behalf of their customers, not the corporation.

I’ll give them an A. A double A, even.

N

othing the Democratic party does surprises me any more, as long as it’s something nasty. They’ve shown their worst ugliness in their response to Joe the Plumber and millions of straight-thinking Americans are very angry - as the polls show.

To tap this anger and shame the Democrats, I offer up for free this ad for a conservative 527’s consideration. It features Joe the Plumber in the same setting that made him famous, his front yard, cut with insets of Obama talking about him at rallies:

Hi. I’m Joe the Plumber. As you know, I recently had the opportunity to ask Barack Obama a question about the economy that was very important to me. Boy was that a mistake.

Since then, Obama and Joe Biden have been mocking me at campaign rallies and people there have been booing me. Democratic operatives have been digging through my personal life, and the media is investigating me like they never investigated ACORN or Bill Ayres.

Despite all that, I still have one more question to ask: Why would you vote for a party that would attack a guy like me for just asking a question?

B

oth candidates came out swinging today, with new speeches honed over the weekend, designed to speak to a new America that’s much more nervous than the America they’ve been speaking to thus far in the campaign.

Both speeches focus on the economy. Both re-hash old proposals and introduce a few new ones. Both end with wrap-ups meant to inspire.

And they couldn’t be more different. (Thanks to RCP, here’s McCain’s speech, and here’s Obama’s.)

Let’s start with the most basic of differences: word count. McCain’s speech has 1,469 words; Obama’s is over twice as long, at 3,012. McCain has needed to slow down and explain his position for some time now, but he still rushes his speeches, giving bullet points not details, and this hurts him quite a lot. Here, for example, is the portion of the speech in which he rolls out five key new elements of his economic recovery plan:

I’m not going to spend $700 billion dollars of your money just bailing out the Wall Street bankers and brokers who got us into this mess. I’m going to make sure we take care of the people who were devastated by the excesses of Wall Street and Washington. I’m going to spend a lot of that money to bring relief to you, and I’m not going to wait sixty days to start doing it.

I have a plan to protect the value of your home and get it rising again by buying up bad mortgages and refinancing them so if your neighbor defaults he doesn’t bring down the value of your house with him.

I have a plan to let retirees and people nearing retirement keep their money in their retirement accounts longer so they can rebuild their savings.

I have a plan to rebuild the retirement savings of every worker.

I have a plan to hold the line on taxes and cut them to make America more competitive and create jobs here at home.

Got it? I hope you understand all the nuances of those plans and, more importantly, why they’re better than what Obama is proposing, because that 175 words is all you’re going to get. “McCain” may rhyme with “explain,” but his speeches have become bumper stickers.

By contrast, Obama lays out new initiatives designed to protect and expand the job market. He just spends 240 words on these five initiatives, but because he puts it in context rather than bullet points and provides at least a modicum of detail, we feel we understand his programs much better:

We’ve already lost three-quarters of a million jobs this year, and some experts say that unemployment may rise to 8% by the end of next year. We can’t wait until then to start creating new jobs. That’s why I’m proposing to give our businesses a new American jobs tax credit for each new employee they hire here in the United States over the next two years.

To fuel the real engine of job creation in this country, I’ve also proposed eliminating all capital gains taxes on investments in small businesses and start-up companies, and I’ve proposed an additional tax incentive through next year to encourage new small business investment. It is time to protect the jobs we have and to create the jobs of tomorrow by unlocking the drive, and ingenuity, and innovation of the American people. And we should fast track the loan guarantees we passed for our auto industry and provide more as needed so that they can build the energy-efficient cars America needs to end our dependence on foreign oil.

We will also save one million jobs by creating a Jobs and Growth Fund that will provide money to states and local communities so that they can move forward with projects to rebuild and repair our roads, our bridges, and our schools. A lot of these projects and these jobs are at risk right now because of budget shortfalls, but this fund will make sure they continue.

Five proposals well presented are more effective than McCain’s four edited-to-the-bone proposals.

Of course both speeches present more than this on the economy. Obama’s speech is focused entirely on the economy, spending paragraphs on programs that go to family finances and what he will do to protect our pocketbooks. McCain has more stuff to rush to (which isn’t all bad, as you’ll see), but on the subject of personal finances, McCain’s shorter, broader speech definitely loses to Obama’s longer, more carefully detailed one.

J

ohn McCain launches this critical week of campaigning - a week that brings us the final debate - with a new campaign speech in hand, a speech he says hits the reset button for his campaign.

Does it? Will it be enough?

I can’t answer. I haven’t heard the speech, but I have seen excerpts of it in a Politico article that decides the speech isn’t the reset that was hit, but the panic button. Here’s what we can glean from the speech from that source:

“The national media has written us off. Sen. Obama is measuring the drapes and planning with Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Reid to raise taxes, increase spending, take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections and concede defeat in Iraq. But they forgot to let you decide. My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them.”

This tactic has worked well before. Americans are not big fans of arrogance. But McCain is going to have to explain to the American people how the Dems are conspiring to raise taxes when Obama promises to cut taxes for 95% of us. There is an easy explanation - how else will he pay for $700 billion in new spending programs? - but McCain hasn’t made it yet.

Hopefully the Obama-Pelosi-Reid connection will be further exploited in the speech. The people should think long and hard before handing the entire federal government over to the Dems. Congress’ approval ratings are so low there’s plenty to exploit here.

“Let me give you the state of the race today. We have 22 days to go. We’re six points down. …

“What America needs in this hour is a fighter; someone who puts all his cards on the table and trusts the judgment of the American people. I come from a long line of McCains who believed that to love America is to fight for her. I have fought for you most of my life. There are other ways to love this country, but I’ve never been the kind to do it from the sidelines.”

Ugh. I don’t want any more talk for McCain about how tough he is if he can’t match it with tough actions and visionary plans for dealing with America’s woes. The fighter angle’s a non-starter because we’ve heard too much already about McCain’s fighting spirit, but haven’t seen that spirit since he crawled back from sure primary defeat - and that was a long time ago. Since then, we’ve seen him check out on the economy by quietly accepting the $700 billion bail-out package, and check out on health care, as he tries half-heartedly to defend a program neither he nor we understand.

The fighter was cool when Iraq was the main issue; it’s not so cool now. And as for the real fighting, he has to convince us he’s not fixated on Iraq.  He should demand, as Obama does, that Iraq start footing more of the bill. And he should level Obama on Afghanistan, saying the obvious: The only reason why the Taliban is on the rise there is because we whipped jihadist butt in Iraq, and they’ve gone back to their caves.  He should play up the recent resurgence to convince us that the war on terror is real and isn’t going anywhere, and that Obama is not the one to continue the fight.

McCain needs to show he’s a fighter, not say he’s a fighter. We’re waiting and we’re hopeful he’ll deliver somewhere in this speech, as CNN hints it will:

“The theme is the new direction that Sen. McCain will take the country through his specific plans for creating jobs, helping those nearing retirement, keeping people in their homes and curbing spending,” the aide said.

McCain’s speech comes the same day that Democratic candidate Barack Obama is laying out his economic rescue plan for the middle class.

The Republican presidential candidate will “speak directly to people’s fears and worries about the state of our economy and the other challenges we face,” the aide said.

Speaking to the fears and worries is fine, but if Obama rolls out one of his patented multi-point plans, which he always makes clear on the surface at least, and McCain is just speaking of fears and worries, without laying out a powerful alternate vision of his own and showing the fallacies of Obama’s, then it will be time to hit the panic button.

T

oday, the Obama campaign will roll out its most aggressive attack strategy against McCain - and it’s got a lot of potential and momentum behind it, so watch out.

According to Politico, the new “multimedia” effort - read TV, Internet and talking heads - will focus on events from long, long ago, the Keating Five S&L scandal from 1989-1991. The intent is to blame the current financial crisis on McCain and his S&L buddies, which is political dirty work at its dirtiest.

McCain was the least dirty of the five, which came very close to being called the Keating Four; last minute machinations alone lumped McCain with the others. His involvement in support of constituent Charles Keating was brief, shallow and ineffective. His repenting has gone on for the 17 years since, with his refusal to play the political games favored by Chris Dodd and Barney Frank.

But explaining all that will be difficult for McCain, whose messaging this far in the campaign has been about as effective as a three-legged thoroughbred. McCain does have a message strategy available to him that will work for him - comparing himself to Obama; something like:

I’ve been open about this and have said a thousand times that I regret that I signed my name to one letter for Charlie Keating. I regretted it when I did it and I still do today. It was the worst mistake of my career, but from that moment on, I turned against political favoritism and earmarking. Keating went to jail, and I’m glad he did.

I’m comfortable admitting all this because it changed me into a better man, a crusader against corruption. My opponent admits nothing about relationship with Tony Rezko, who took bribes and wielded influence, or about Bill Ayres, who says he wishes he had planted more bombs in his efforts to destroy America. My opponent took over $100,000 from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in just three years, and has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from companies like Lehman and Goldman Sachs.

Why won’t Obama talk about all that? Could it be because he hasn’t changed? That he’s just an old-school politician in a nice new suit?

Meanwhile, the McCain camp is stepping up its character messaging on Obama, with Palin’s comments over the weekend accusing him of “palling around with terrorists” like Bill Ayres. She told Bill Kristol:

Palin also made clear that she was eager for the McCain-Palin campaign to be more aggressive in helping the American people understand “who the real Barack Obama is.” Part of who Obama is, she said, has to do with his past associations, such as with the former bomber Bill Ayers. Palin had raised the topic of Ayers Saturday on the campaign trail, and she maintained to me that Obama, who’s minimized his relationship with Ayers, “hasn’t been wholly truthful” about this.

I pointed out that Obama surely had a closer connection to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright than to Ayers — and so, I asked, if Ayers is a legitimate issue, what about Reverend Wright?

She didn’t hesitate: “To tell you the truth, Bill, I don’t know why that association isn’t discussed more, because those were appalling things that that pastor had said about our great country, and to have sat in the pews for 20 years and listened to that — with, I don’t know, a sense of condoning it, I guess, because he didn’t get up and leave — to me, that does say something about character. But, you know, I guess that would be a John McCain call on whether he wants to bring that up.”

That’s well and good, but it shouldn’t stop with Ayres and Wright. Rezko, the New Party and other radical and racist fellow travelers should all be brought up: A litany of what makes Obama “not like the rest of us.”

The GOP campaign has got to start putting its attacks in context, to disallow the racists at AP and elsewhere in the MSM from mischaracterizing legitimate challenges to Obama’s judgment and associations with racial attacks. Words are important; “palling around” does not accurately characterize the Obama/Ayres association, and it should be replaced with “long friendship” or even “birds of a feather.”

So the GOP needs to step up and improve its campaign about Obama’s radical associations by clearly making it about his character and judgment, and nothing to do with his race. But more important, they have to begin talking about Obama’s financial ties to corruption and greed on Wall Street, and his failure to do anything more than write one letter.

After all, all McCain did for Charlie Keating was write one letter, and that’s all Obama has done to call out the culture of destructive greed on Wall Street.

I

write a lot about messaging because if words matter, the right words matter a lot.  This short film captures the essence of how just the right turn of a phrase can make a huge difference in how people respond to the message.  It’s almost six minutes long, but do watch it; it’s well worth it.

hat-tip: Jim

I

n the first presidential debate Obama had more to prove. On the positive side, he had to return to his “new kind of politician” aura that he started with. On the negative side, he had to show he’s not a lightweight, not naive on foreign affairs, and not all eloquence with no specifics. He tackled the last best, responding to several questions with action lists, including his first response, in which he articulated four things that need to be a part of any economic solution - but still, he didn’t spell out the solution.

Against John McCain, though, he came off as a lightweight; very few wouldn’t against a seasoned foreign policy pro like McCain. And McCain said several times, believably, that Obama’s positions were naive, and Obama was not able to make a convincing argument they were otherwise.

As for returning to the new kind of politics, he didn’t even get through the second question (on the economic crisis) without sounding like an old Dem operative:

The question, I think, that we have to ask ourselves is, how did we get into this situation in the first place?

Well, that’s a question but it’s certainly not the question. The question we need to ask is how to get out of it, then we can deal with how we got into it. The answer he gave to how we got into it was Bush, of course, which is a very, very old school approach designed to appeal to those who will never work across the aisle, not build a new consensus. And again, his leading sentence on Iraq:

Well, this is an area where Senator McCain and I have a fundamental difference because I think the first question is whether we should have gone into the war in the first place.

No, again, that’s old pol. The new kind of politician tells us his plans for the future, his vision, not his politically obfuscated re-hash of the past.

Obama did indeed come off as a hair-splitter, more concerned with phrasing than policy, as evidenced in this guffaw-generating thigh-slapper:

I just have to correct the record here. I have never said that I object to nuclear waste. What I’ve said is that we have to store it safely.

Why else would one object to nuclear waste were it not for the storage issue? On principle? Because the color doesn’t go with the decor?

Still, because Obama kept his head above water and because of McCain’s messaging strategy, the debate was a draw. And that’s why McCain needs a new messaging strategy.

McCain’s core messaging thus far in the campaign has been drawn from his experience: His wartime POW experience, and the many bills he’s supported, leaders he’s met and countries he’s visited since. Here’s how that was articulated in the first debate:

War stories: Eisenhower before D Day; re-enlistment ceremony in Baghdad; Matthew Stanley’s bracelet; our defeat in Vietnam, “”Jim, when I came home from prison …”

McCain definitely has dialed this part of his messaging back. His POW experience didn’t enter into the debate at all; the last comment was just a bridge to his POW/MIA work. This is excellent because America knows his POW experience but many suspect he’s just an old fogey compared to the robust, young Obama. Too much focus on the physical abuse he endured over 40 years ago - when Obama was in elementary school - no longer serves him well.

Also, McCain needs to walk a fine line between having military experience and being too steeped in the military ethos. Not as many Americans have a personal touch with the military as used to, so for more and more voters, it’s a mysterious, misunderstood and even somewhat threatening thing. McCain shouldn’t, indeed can’t, walk away from it, but he has to put his love for the military in context. Telling stories makes him an old vet of a long-ago war; putting it in context makes him presidential.

Legislative experience:: A much too passing reference to his 2005 Freddie/Fannie bill; earmark reform; the Littoral combat ship; a Boeing contract; a long ramble on positions on war from Lebanon through Bosnia, Kosovo and Somalia; “When I’m a subcommittee chairman …;” “I supported Nunn-Lugar back in the early 90s;” :I have worked across the aisle. I have a long record on that, on a long series of reforms;” “I’ve been involved, as I mentioned to you before, in virtually every major national security challenge we’ve faced in the last 20-some years,” resolving the POW/MIA issue after the Vietnam war.

This is of course McCain’s strong suit and it needs to be positioned against Obama’s legislative inexperience, which is one of his greatest weaknesses. McCain did not do this; he just pulled out bills and issues from his hat, which effectively showed him to be a greater senator than Obama, but did not necessarily more presidential.

We Americans tend to think of professional politicians in much the same way we think of professional athletes: They don’t have real jobs. We work every day, getting our hands dirty (or at least sore on the keyboard), racking up miles on the car, and coming home beat. The play sports and play politics, so we begin zoning out when politicians start talking about bills - especially bills from the early 90s that none of us remember. Sure, McCain’s record is impressive, but the only way he can make it truly interesting and purposeful is to use it against Obama’s record.

Leaders and Countries: “I went to Iraq in 2003,” “Two Fourths of July ago I was in Baghdad,” “George Schultz … told me once,” “I’ve been to Waziristan,” “Dr. Kissinger, who’s been my friend for 35 years,” “I looked into Mr. Putin’s eyes,” “… Tbilisi, where I have spent significant amount of time with a great young president, Misha Saakashvili,” “I was there (Osetia, Abkhazia) once,” “I know our allies, and I can work much more closely with them,”

McCain is in danger of getting into POW stories trouble here. He has established that he knows world leaders and is well traveled, so too much use at all is over-use today. We certainly don’t need to know about two trips to Baghdad and two trips to Georgia; one each will more than do.

As with legislation, face time with world leaders and hands on, on the ground experience with troubled lands differentiates McCain from Obama, and needs to be used in that context. McCain would have been better to say just once on Iraq, “I’ve been to Iraq seven times, and each time I’ve gone with an open mind, talked to troops, officers and generals, and formed my opinion based on what I learned. Senator Obama has been once, and he issued his statement before he left.”

New Messages

So, how should the McCain camp revise its messages? Let me play Obama and give you some numbered points.

First, it must confront the age issue. The way to do this is not to say, “I’m pretty chipper for a 72 year old;” rather, it’s to show him as a man who’s continually thinking, who’s on the move, dynamic and ready for new ideas. Do this, and the public won’t necessarily see him as younger, but will no longer see his age as a problem. This means spending less time telling stories from a decade or more ago and more time talking about his quest for hands-on information and how he processes that information to stay ahead of issues.

Second, the campaign needs to let us see a little of the intense McCain who’s now covered up under a personable guy who seems too laid back to be a maverick. This is a fine line adjustment, of course, because on the other side is that mean, nasty McCain who really shouldn’t be seen before Nov. 3, but there is room for improvement. It’s about passion, and we didn’t see or hear passion from McCain last night. It needs to be doled out in very small doses - just once in a debate, no more - but I want to see him raise his voice a little, stab at the podium or even choke up a bit. If we see that, it will reinforce my first point, because being perceived as more dynamic helps to nullify the age difference.

Third, McCain has to humanize his tax and economic policies.  A poll conducted overnight after the debate by CBS found that twice as many thought Obama understood their needs as McCain.  I can see why because Obama’s tax cuts for 95 percent of the middle class sounds more in touch than McCain’s plan.  McCain needs to flip his economic messages 180 degrees, explaining its benefit not to “the economy” but to “you.”  It’ll be a nifty trick, but it’s easy to contrast the short-term, modest benefit Obama’s 95 percent will receive with the long-term job and salary benefits that will come with McCain’s program.

Fourth, experience in Washington and around the world always needs to be contrasted with Obama’s lack of experience. McCain didn’t draw the distinctions forcefully enough last night and he missed many opportunities. A passing reference to Obama’s three years in the Senate comes to mind, but it was not enough. McCain needs to have Obama’s complete Illinois and DC work product memorized, and must be facile at using it against his opponent.

Fifth, McCain needs to get stronger on his energy talking points and stronger on belittling Obama’s. The playing field for this game isn’t nuclear power, which is where McCain was playing last night, but drilling. The new Dem drilling bill is outrageous, and Obama outrageously said this about it last night:

We’ve got an emergency bill on the Senate floor right now that contains some good stuff, some stuff you want, including drilling off-shore, but you’re opposed to it because it would strip away those tax breaks that have gone to oil companies.

The bill has nothing in it McCain likes, and he opposes it, as does every single Republican, not because of tax issues but because it simply would not lead to a meaningful increase in offshore oil production. Earlier McCain referred to the bill (I think it was this bill) as “festooned with Christmas tree ornaments,” but he never closed the loop and attacked Obama and the Dems for being out of touch with the American people on energy. Again, he has to stop talking so much about what he’s done and begin putting it more in context with Obama’s policies and Dems’ actions.

Finally, McCain needs to be who he is, a man who puts country first. He said that term only once last night, which is about right, but let me show you two passages in the debate that reveal the great potential offered McCain by building up this message deck. First, here’s McCain:

But I have a fundamental belief in the goodness and strength of the American worker. And the American worker is the most productive, the most innovative. America is still the greatest producer, exporter and importer.

But we’ve got to get through these times, but I have a fundamental belief in the United States of America. And I still believe, under the right leadership, our best days are ahead of us.

Now, Obama:

You know, my father came from Kenya. That’s where I get my name.

And in the ’60s, he wrote letter after letter to come to college here in the United States because the notion was that there was no other country on Earth where you could make it if you tried. The ideals and the values of the United States inspired the entire world.

I don’t think any of us can say that our standing in the world now, the way children around the world look at the United States, is the same.

That was the second time Obama said the world’s opinion of America has deteriorated. Look at the structure: To Obama, America’s glory is in the past tense - “the notion was,” “inspired the world.” Between Barack and Michelle, there is a litany of such phrases and McCain has to pull them up regularly, turn them around for the audience to see, and then go “Country First” all over them.

The big fear that is keeping Obama from pulling away from McCain in a race the liberal pundits think should be a cakewalk isn’t fear of his skin color, it’s a fear that we may not really know the man, that we may be misreading him, that he may be hiding something. That utterly is not the case with McCain, who has no questions at all swirling about him. By reworking the “Country First” message deck, the McCain campaign can accentuate these worries and doubts, build on national pride, and make a McCain vote that much easier to cast.

D

enise Tyrrell, who shocked just about everyone when she said within hours of last Friday’s Metrolink crash that the Metrolink engineer was to blame for the accident has resigned her position as the agency’s spokesperson.

Metrolink Spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said she has quit over comments made by the Metrolink board.

She claims that Metrolink’s Chief Executive told her she could release the basic facts of the investigation after Friday’s crash, including an initial statement suggesting the Metrolink engineer may have been at fault in the deadly crash after ignoring a red warning signal.

Tyrrell says she decided to resign after a statement read by board member Ron Roberts to a Los Angeles Times blogger Sunday that her announcement was “premature.”

Tyrrell says she believes that the public should know the facts as early as possible. (source)

I would agree with Tyrrell to a point. It is perfectly good crisis management to roll out facts as quickly as you get them, and the consequences of not doing so can be profound. But you should only disclose information that has been proven true, because having to admit you disclosed misinformation in the middle of a crisis can make reputation recovery much tougher.

In this case, Tyrrell’s statement was proven true - or as close as you can get to true at this point - when the NTSB also tagged the engineer with blame on Sunday.  But that was Sunday, and Tyrrell pegged him on Friday.

Tyrrell said she had Metrolink’s Chief Executive permission to give an initial statement suggesting the Metrolink engineer may have been at fault in the deadly crash after ignoring a red warning signal, but her resignation today suggests either she misunderstood the direction … or is being sacrificed to protect a CEO who overstepped.

It all goes to show how important internal communications and clear directions are in crisis situations.  The issue of blame is the biggest issue in a crisis, and it demands considerable care.  As refreshing as it seems to hear an immediate mea culpa, it’s essential everyone who’s in the leadership of the “mea” agrees with the “culpa.”  As Denise Tyrrell is painfully aware today.

I

t’s one of those times when great forces are at work, partly under the eye of institutional regulation, partly in pure chaos; forces that we know have the power to twist our lives around, yet we have no real power to do anything about it … except to cast a vote.

The bankruptcy of Lehman Bros., the sale of Merrill Lynch, the teetering of AIG, all following the Freddie and Fannie news of last week have combined into what Alan Greenspan termed a “once in a century” financial crisis.

Speaking personally, Lehman’s collapse may spell the end of my company’s chances to recover what is owed us by developer SunCal Companies, which used mostly Lehman money to finance its rapid expansion - becoming the largest private land development in the West, if not the nation, by capitalizing on miscalculations about how far the home market could expand. (I have to credit SunCal’s management with trying to do what they can in this complex situation to do the right thing by us.) If we lose all that money (and at a minimum we’ll probably lose most of it) is going to hurt, but at least I can measure it and I’ve been able to anticipate it for some time now - unlike whatever is ahead.

Politicking the Nightmare

The Obama campaign came out immediately, trying as Dems are wont to do, to seize on catastrophe. We know they were hoping for quagmire in Iraq and Katrina II on the Gulf Coast, so it’s no surprise they see what’s going on on Wall Street as an opportunity. It’s a rule of thumb: Glum people vote Dem; hopeful people vote GOP.

This morning, Obama blamed the crisis on the policies of George Bush (without any evidence in support) and said, “”This country can’t afford another four years of this failed philosophy.” But with Obama himself admitting that his proposed tax increases would be bad for the economy and might have to be postponed, what is he offering that could possibly help? His entire economic plan is based on wealth redistribution, and suddenly there’s not as much wealth around for him to get his Socialistic mitts around.

Obama had to come out swinging because the McCain plan is certainly the better economic plan, at least for anyone who is interested in the turn-around of economy. If ever there was a time to reduce taxes on corporations, this is it. From my little corporation all the way up to the top, we’re feeling a need for some relief from whatever nastiness is around the corner. Unfortunately, McCain’s first statement on the meltdown, issued this morning, isn’t the one I would have written:

“The crisis in our financial markets has taken an enormous toll on our economy and the American people — first the decline of our housing markets followed by the collapse of Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and now Lehman Brothers. I am glad to see that the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department have said no to using taxpayer money to bailout Lehman Brothers, a position I have spoken about throughout this campaign. We are carefully monitoring the financial markets, including the duress at Lehman Brothers that is the latest reminder of ineffective regulation and management. Efforts must also be focused on ensuring that the deposits of hardworking Americans are protected.

“It is essential for us to make sure that the U.S. remains the pre-eminent financial market of the world. This will be a highest priority of my Administration. In order to do this, major reform must be made in Washington and on Wall Street. We cannot tolerate a system that handicaps our markets and our banks and places at risk the savings of hard-working Americans and investors. The McCain-Palin Administration will replace the outdated and ineffective patchwork quilt of regulatory oversight in Washington and bring transparency and accountability to Wall Street. We will rebuild confidence in our markets and restore our leadership in the financial world.”

Where is any mention of Obama’s economic plan? Nowhere! Yes, regulation and reform are viable McCain/Palin messages for all but those who insist on tying McCain to Bush, but we’re in an entirely new game now. As Wall Street (which most Americans cannot distinguish from the GOP) is reeling, many simply will not trust the GOP to “bring transparency and accountability to Wall Street.” They know that no one uses government to punish like the Dems, so cleaning up is not a good McCain message here.

Talk of how to recover has got to be his leading message. America’s economy will not recover if American business is to be the wallet Obama will be removing again and again from his hip pocket to fund his social programs. McCain needs to focus on the two candidates’ tax plans now as never before.

S

arah Palin’s stumbling response to Charles Gibson’s question, “Do you support the Bush Doctrine?” was the low point of last night’s interviews. Her posture and voice both went defensive, and she came across, as I noted here and here, as not knowing the answer.

On second thought, though, the problem may easily have been that she didn’t know which answer, not the answer. That’s because the Bush Doctrine is actually many doctrines:

• The right of the United States to treat countries that harbor terrorists as terrorists (the justification for the Afghanistan invasion)
• The policy of preventive war, or the right of the United States to depose foreign regimes that represent an immediate threat (the justification for the Iraq invasion)
• The policy of supporting democracy in the Middle East and around the world in order to squelch terrorism
• A willingness to pursue U.S. military interests unilaterally. (A hat-tip to Wikipedia, for compiling the points so succinctly.)

Let’s consider the initial substantive answer she provided:

I believe that what President Bush has attempted to do is rid this world of Islamic extremism, terrorists who are hell-bent on destroying our nation.

That is a credible endorsement of each of the four elements of the Bush Doctrine, all of which are directed at ridding the world of Islamic extremism, but because it was not presented as, “Yes, I endorse the doctrines because …” it has not been viewed as credible.

In my company’s media training programs, we teach executives and politicians that if they don’t understand the question, to ask for clarification, and we counsel not to guess at answers. Palin guessed at an answer last night and it came across - perhaps rightly, perhaps wrongly - that she didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine is. That’s hardly an endorsement of her foreign policy prowess - but why all the angst? There are only so many hours in a governor’s day, and they’re filled with local, state and federal issues, not foreign issues. It’s been the same with great foreign policy presidents (Reagan) and disastrous ones (Carter).

Her better response would have been, “Which Bush doctrine are you asking about, Charlie? I support them all generally, but I want to answer your specific question.” That would have set Gibson back in his chair and would have put a stop to all the prattle (here, here, here, etc.) this morning.

Update:  Charles Krauthammer - who coined the term “Bush Doctrine” - agrees. (Thanks, Christa)