Democratic White House contender Barack Obama was to shift the focus of his campaign to the troubled US economy yesterday after basking in the adulation of foreign crowds last week.
Switching gears back to the central front of his campaign against Republican John McCain, Obama was to convene a panel of economic advisers in Washington to examine ways to address fuel prices and job insecurity.
The group includes former treasury secretary Robert Rubin, ex-Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker and billionaire investor Warren Buffett.
“What is driving people all across the country right now are worries and concerns about inability to pay the gas bill, inability to buy food because prices have gone up so high,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told NBC television on Sunday. “We’ve got to fundamentally shift how we approach economic policy.”
Obama sailed through the biggest tests of his trip, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel, and captured an unprecedented photo-op for a presidential candidate, speaking before a staggering crowd of 200,000 people in Berlin.
Republicans however branded his tour as a political stunt.
In a Rasmussen daily tracking poll on Sunday, Obama had 46 percent support overall to McCain’s 41 percent.
In contrast to McCain’s market-driven approach, Obama has laid out interventionist proposals for middle-class tax cuts, new federal stimulus spending and additional measures to prop up the stricken housing market.
The Senate on Saturday approved a housing rescue plan designed to help thousands of homeowners avert foreclosure and bolster mortgage finance giants at risk of collapse.
McCain said Wall Street was the “villain” when it came to out-of-control mortgage lending to borrowers of dubious means.
But speaking on ABC News, the Arizona senator also said Congress was “at fault” for allowing government spending to get out of hand and push the US deficit up.
“So I think there’s a lot of blame to go around here,” said McCain, who has struggled to conceal his frustration at the glowing press coverage accorded to Obama’s tour.
The overseas trip was aimed at cementing the Democrat’s credentials to serve as commander-in-chief. But on the economy, Obama has a commanding poll lead.
In the meantime, McCain suffered a setback just over a week ago with the resignation of his own top economic adviser, Phil Gramm, after the former senator had called the US a “nation of whiners” over the economy.
The two campaigns renewed a war of words over Iraq, trading accusations of abrupt policy U-turns after Obama’s return home.
McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds fastened on Obama’s remark in a Newsweek interview that the size of a residual US military presence in Iraq would have to be “entirely conditions-based.”
“It’s hard to anticipate where we may be six months from now, or a year from now, or a year and a half from now,” said Obama, who plans to pull most combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months of taking office if elected.
“The fact that Senator Obama has now shifted positions on Iraq three times in the last 48 hours demonstrates the poor judgment and inexperience that concerns the American people,” Bounds said.
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