With an investment bank failing, an insurance giant needing a bail-out, the Dow tumbling and panic gripping Wall Street, Barack Obama spoke graciously about his opponent. "I certainly don't fault Senator [John] McCain for these problems," he said. He also refrained from blaming him for global warming and Hurricane Ike. But he did fault Mr McCain for his economic philosophy, "a philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise, and one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises."rnBoth candidates doubtless wish to tackle the crisis. But they cannot, since neither will be in charge until January and the crisis must be tackled immediately. So each is trying to sound as if he would knock some sense into Wall Street, while tut-tut-ting that the other fellow supported the policies that got America into this mess in the first place.rnMr Obama has the immense advantage that voters tend to blame the party in the White House for bad news. His campaign has looked sickly in the past few weeks, since Mr McCain picked Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin as his running-mate and then surged ahead in the polls.
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