Here's my response as a centre-left Democrat and Obama supporter:

Neither candidate is addressing the economic crisis head-on, because neither wants to risk damaging their campaign by telling their supporters the truth; our country is broke, and we won't be able to do much beyond belt-tightening for a while, regardless of Senate super-majorities or party affiliations.

Obama seems, albeit indirectly, to understand this issue better than McCain for the simple reason that he equates the economic crisis with the need to get out of Iraq. The spending we are engaging in over there could and should be diverted to much-needed triage at home.

As for taxes, I suspect both candidates would try to avoid increases to preserve their chances in 2012. But the much-vaunted tax cuts for the middle class that they both suggest will probably not happen. Bush has racked up a debt, and we are going to have to pay it off the old-fashioned way; with tax-payer dollars.

Recently Barack Obama stated that McCain's getting mad at George Bush is like Tonto getting mad at the Lone Ranger.

I really thought that remark was screamingly funny, but I don't think Obama really caught on to the real humor of his own joke.

In Spanish, tonto means super stupid. Years ago, when I was teaching adult school, one of my students, a Latina woman, asked me why the Lone Ranger's Native American side-kick would call himself Tonto,since Tonto means dumb-head. She was also puzzled at Tonto's famous line "Quinosabe. Or Qui no sabe?" which means "Who doesn't know."

So "Qui no sabe que la GOP es muy Tonto?"

And perhaps Tonto is a very appropriate name for McCain, Palin, and the entire GOP.

This seems the realistic outcome, and the prudent one. I hope the Dem Congress doesn't push the issue too far however. Obama can't very well veto their spending bills.

When was the last time we had a Dem Congress and a Dem President? 1992-1994?

I hope Obama can live up to what I see as potential for intelligent discourse with the country, and get into office and realize we have to address the most pressing needs of the economy and try not to spend too much more...and reducing the Iraq expenditure as soon as reasonably possible will help. Tax increases are necessary but that can go too far also.

We'll see. But he does have my vote.

A really fabulous comment. Eloquent, razor-sharp and honest. Thank you for it.

My pleasure! Good to see you here. Keep on pushin'.

"(Interestingly, the spitting incident never happened except in reverse. According to contemporaneous media reports, it was a Vietnam vet who spit on an anti-war protesters. No biggie, but notice how desperate conservatives are to play the victim, which they never did prior to being babied by today's conservative media)"

It's really flabbergasting to me. John McCain's indignation at having his rallies compared to those of George Wallace.

He was personally offended, outraged to the extent he simply couldn't process the criticism and take it to heart. That's not the only time he or other conservatives play the victim, of course, but it was extremely notable to me, especially contrasted with Obama's transcendent approach to objectionable charges.

Yet another example of white privilege; McCain could play the aggrieved victim precisely because he was utterly unaccustomed to being one. Obama, on the other hand, had long since learned to just suck it up and rise above.

Anyway, yes, I do find it extremely ironic that conservatives are so eager to play the aggrieved victim, all the while resenting what they perceive as (mostly) black victimhood and entitlement.

To hell with these people and their repellent, misanthropic ethos.

I agree with every word....but isn't this premature? Yes, I know what the numbers say and all but still...shouldn't this have been heald back until after the election?

Because the American electorate has been so incredibly stupid. Neocons would simply represent anything as truth and continue to repeat it over and over until millions believed it.

They continued to do this until their bubble burst.

The ultimate responsibility for our present predicament lies squarely in the laps of those who enabled this administration to present out right falsehoods as truth.

The party is finally over.

It's funny how Karl Rove's "permanent majority" has dissolved into a party of petty bickering and possible obsolescence in just under two election cycles. I say blame the architect for the fall of the house of Bush - Rove (and Lee Atwater before him) built this monster, and he must be held accountable by the Republican's if they are to survive as a viable party. Winning elections by dividing the electorate, suppressing votes with dirty tricks, putting the US into a permanent war, and destroying the opposition with slander and lies is not a long term strategy.

The saddest thing in the very sad McCain campaign is that he could have at least repudiated Rove's strategy by firing Steve Schmidt and his ilk and perhaps begin the reconstruction of his party, but instead he stayed the course right over the cliff. Let's just hope the Democrats handle majority rule with a little more wisdom and a little less bluster. I always thought the big difference between Clinton and Bush was that Bill wanted the US to lead the world, while Bush wanted to rule the world. I hope the Democrats keep that in mind.

"In the 80's, conservatism was simple. Less taxes, less government, less abortion, and anti-communism."

You forgot the virulent racism contempt for cities and the underclass that actually enticed northern Democrats to align themselves with the Republican party to vote for these things.

Please let's not romanticize 1980s conservatism, ftr.

All the figures anyone needs to analyze government economic policies of the post WWII years in the U.S. are in the historical tables of the Federal budget and available online.

I plotted the total Federal expenditures and total Federal taxes as a percentage of GDP over the years. It is highly instructive.

Prior to the Clinton years, the last time the Federal budget was in balance was 1969 with a budget that LBJ passed on to Nixon. Nixon immediately took it back into deficit.

Basically, while the numbers bounce around a little, the government was taxing 18% of GDP and spending 19% from 1947 to 1981. This worked pretty well. The Federal debt was still under one trillion dollars when Reagan was elected, and dropping as a percentage of GDP. Reagan did not cut taxes, but shifted the tax burden from wealthy Americans to middle and lower income Americans by lowering income tax rates and raising FICA taxes. What he really did was raise government spending to the highest levels seen after WWII. The Reagan years saw the debt go over four trillion dollars.

Clinton got the deficit under control and balanced the budget in his last years by both increasing revenue and cutting expenditures as a percentage of GDP. His success was made possible by an economic boom, but his policies were responsible, at least in part, for the boom.

Bush immediately took the budget back into deficit by cutting taxes for the rich. It was back in deficit prior to 9/11. Bush achieved the lowest revenue levels as a percentage of GDP seen in the post WWII period. He will have more than doubled the debt by the time he leaves office. The government spending that will be required to get us through the current economic disaster would not be a problem if we were not starting with a ten trillion dollar national debt.

Republicans have simply lied to the American people about "tax and spend liberals" for years, and voters, most of whom cannot comprehend numbers, have believed them. The Republican Party should not have survived the Great Depression that they brought on with policies similar to those we have seen since 1980. Maybe this time we will drive a stake through the elephant's heart.