In Candidates, 2 Approaches to Wall Street

[groovedaddy]

WASHINGTON — The crisis on Wall Street will leave the next president facing tough choices about how best to regulate the financial system, and although neither Senator Barack Obama nor Senator John McCain has yet offered a detailed plan, their records and the principles they have set out so far suggest they could come at the issue in very different ways.

On the campaign trail on Monday, Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, struck a populist tone. Speaking in Florida, he said that the economy’s underlying fundamentals remained strong but were being threatened “because of the greed by some based in Wall Street and we have got to fix it.”

But his record on the issue, and the views of those he has always cited as his most influential advisers, suggest that he has never departed in any major way from his party’s embrace of deregulation and relying more on market forces than on the government to exert discipline.

While Mr. McCain has cited the need for additional oversight when it comes to specific situations, like the mortgage problems behind the current shocks on Wall Street, he has consistently characterized himself as fundamentally a deregulator and he has no history prior to the presidential campaign of advocating steps to tighten standards on investment firms.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/us/politics/16record.html?th&emc=th

[frazzled]

1. This was a surprisingly good article, and on the front page

Frankly, given my usual morning rant at the Times, I was pleasantly surprised at how they avoided the "balanced" narrative and went straight for the jugular on McCain's complicity in the deregulation movement that has led to this crisis--and at the outset of the article, no less. They then go on to CONTRAST Obama's actions, policies, and credentials.

Touché

[groovedaddy]

2. You're right. It's a huge, critical difference in this race. Greed has had its field day

and now the chickens are coming home to roost. And McSame wants more of it!?! What an idiot!