Obama’s economic message is clearly aimed at middle-class families that have seen prices rise and incomes stagnate. This is his clearest advantage. And he pressed it in his speech tonight here:
And here: “I will cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95 percent of all working families.” And here: “If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums.” And here: “But I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less – because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth-century bureaucracy.” McCain can respond to these assertions by pointing out that Obama would raise the overall tax burden, support a renewal of the ban on offshore drilling, and has no record of spending cuts. That may not be enough, however. Because McCain’s lack of a middle-class tax cut remains his key domestic policy liability.
