And if Obama fails to make this the central issue and doesn’t put McCain on the hook for this meltdown, we can forget about November. This is the issue on everyone’s mind so losing control of this debate will hurt badly. Obama must remain ahead on this problem and quit giving McCain a free ride or launching an intellectual debate over McCain’s role (though we saw Obama fighting harder later in the day on Monday, and that’s good). He’s already given up too much, too easily on owning “change” and without a hard move, he’s going to lose on the economy as well. This is a Republican problem and McCain is making a move to appear as though he had nothing to do with it.

David Corn, who has had some brilliant articles on the McCain-Gramm links, has another classic out today. Learn more about what McCain failed to explain today when he criticized the Wall Street failures.