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The hits just keep coming for Barack Obama against John McCain. Today, the Obama camp released an ad that uses McCain’s advocacy for the deregulation of the health insurance industry against him.

Here is the ad:

The focus on the economy has changed the entire dynamic of this election. After months of McCain trying to paint Obama as risky and inexperienced, it is now Obama who is portraying McCain as a risk to America’s pocketbooks, but in order for any candidate to be elected president, they need a degree of good luck. John McCain has had nothing but bad luck for a couple of weeks now.

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It was bad luck that the article pushing for deregulation of the health insurance appeared the same week as the collapse of our financial markets, which was in part caused by too little regulation. If the timing is a little different, the Obama camp doesn’t gain this issue to use against him. Healthcare is an issue when the majority of voters side with Obama, and if he is able to characterize McCain as risky on both the economy and healthcare, McCain is in huge trouble.

The last set of polls taken before the financial crisis had Obama resuming a small lead. I am curious to see what the next set of polls will look like. The recent financial crisis also makes the upcoming debate on Friday ten times more critical for both candidates. A good debate performance for Obama would help him maintain, or grow his lead, and McCain must have a good performance to get some momentum back, or he could be facing an uphill climb to the White House in November.