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While campaigning in New Mexico this afternoon, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama continued to pummel John McCain on the economy, and as a new twist, mocked McCain’s new found love for regulation.

“When I was warning about the danger ahead on Wall Street months ago because of the lack of oversight, Senator McCain was telling the Wall Street Journal—and I quote—“I’m always for less regulation. Except now, with the magnitude of the crisis apparent even to the Bush White House, John McCain wants to reverse course. Now, all of a sudden, he’s unleashed an angry tirade against all the insiders and lobbyists who’ve supported him for twenty-six years – the same folks who run his campaign,” Obama said.

The Democrat then launched into McCain’s latest flip-flop, “On Monday, he said the economy was fundamentally sound, and he was fundamentally wrong. On Tuesday, he said the government should stand by and allow one of the nation’s largest insurers to collapse, putting the well-being of millions of Americans at risk. But by Wednesday, he changed his mind. He said he would take on the ol’ boy network, but he seemed to forget that he took seven of the biggest lobbyists in Washington from that network and put them in charge of your campaign. John McCain can’t decide whether he’s Barry Goldwater or Dennis Kucinich.”

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Obama repeated his message that McCain can’t run away from his record, “You can’t just run away from your long-held views or your life-long record. You can’t erase twenty-six years of support for the very policies and people who helped bring on this disaster with one week of rants.”

Major props to Obama for working Dennis Kucinich into a speech, and he is correct in stating that McCain can’t hide from 26 year of anti-regulation votes. One of the staples of his pitch to conservative audiences has been that he has always opposed regulation, but apparently neither his conviction nor his opposition was all that strong.

As soon as the focus of this election shifted to the economy, McCain starting stumbling and Obama regained his lead. McCain is in real trouble here. After the Palin buzz and the negative ad campaign have died down, people seem ready to talk about the issues, but we are finding out that John McCain is incapable of having that discussion. Every move that McCain has made this week has been wrong. The door is wide open for Obama to capitalize, so let’s see if he can get the job done.

Full text of Obama’s remarks