The general election hit the gutter in less than a week.

Economics 101 dictates the president really has no bearing on the economy. That is Ben Bernanke’s job, and his character, integrity or priorities aren’t up for grabs in November.

That doesn’t mean the economy isn’t in cyclical decline. Or that it’s structurally insufficient in housing, health care, welfare, education and Social Security. It is.

Economic policy is the name of the game for Barack Obama in Virginia, North Carolina and elsewhere, hammering John McCain’s flip flopping on tax cuts for the rich and tax breaks for corporations.

In Washington D.C., McCain painted Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal who’s policy is to wreck the incentive for work. McCain the Objectivist? Get real.

Economic policies are boring, and so the media industry provides us finger pointing filling the void of any excitement or action. Any meaningful note is abandoned for shrapnel and sound bytes to feed the mouths of talking heads.

It’s hard to go from filling arenas and breaking records to balancing the budget, and so Obama’s paying the price among his so called friends in the press.

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