Obama tries to push economy as dominant issue

Presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) signaled Monday that he will push the country’s economic woes as the prevailing theme of the general election and continue his effort to tie his Republican opponent to President Bush.

Obama began the general election in earnest Monday, following Saturday’s withdrawal of one-time rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), by kicking off a two-week tour of the country aimed at painting him as the candidate best equipped to right a struggling economy.

{mosads}The first day of his tour kicked off with a speech in North Carolina where Obama ticked off a list of economic ills, trying to tie them to presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) at every turn.

Obama noted that the country has lost jobs for five straight months and pointed out the high percentage of home foreclosures and high mortgage rates. He also made special mention of the record-breaking costs of oil, gasoline, healthcare and college tuition.

Speaking in Raleigh, N.C., Obama said that “for all his talk of independence, the centerpiece of [McCain’s] economic plan amounts to a full-throated endorsement of George Bush’s policies.

“This is the choice you face in November,” Obama said. “You can vote for John McCain, and see a continuation of Bush economic policies — more tax cuts to the wealthy, more corporate tax breaks, more mountains of debt and little to no relief for families struggling with the rising costs of everything from healthcare to a college education.”

Obama has beefed up his economic policy team, adding economist Jason Furman as economic policy director, and the campaign said the tour would hit a number of states, including Missouri and Michigan, “where they’re feeling the economic pinch most acutely.”

The speech and the overall tour was bracketed by the McCain campaign, which is seeking to paint Obama as a “tax-and-spend liberal,” pointing out Obama’s vote in favor of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and accusing him of wanting to raise taxes.

The conventional wisdom has long held that elections that center around national security benefit Republicans, while those that have the economy as the focus will help Democrats.

And while polling throughout the Democratic primaries did show repeatedly that the economy dominated the minds of Democratic voters, McCain has continued to push the national security issue.

But Republican strategists insist that McCain can win an election where the economy dominates, though most assert that one issue will not take priority over the other.

Kevin Madden, the communications director for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) presidential campaign, noted that when the Republican nomination race “shifted” to the economy, which was thought to be an advantage for Romney, McCain still did well because he made it an issue of “confidence.”

“One of the challenges they have is he has admitted the economy is not one of his strong suits,” Madden said.

Despite that, Madden said, McCain proved adept at painting himself as a leader who inspired confidence on all fronts, if not the nuts and bolts of economic policy.

But Madden acknowledged that the Obama campaign’s “playbook … [where] they’re going to make every issue … a referendum on the Bush administration,” does create challenges for McCain.

Mark Kornblau, a former spokesman for ex-Sen. John Edwards’s (D-N.C.) presidential campaign, said that strategy will prove effective for Obama in the current political environment.

“Barack Obama is coming right out of the gate with a strong, straightforward argument for change from the failed George Bush economy,” Kornblau said in an e-mail. “Meanwhile, John McCain has to put a lot of lipstick on that proverbial pig as he makes the case for four more years.”

The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee (RNC) made clear Monday how they plan to combat Obama’s efforts at defining himself as the savior of the economy.

On two separate conference calls aimed at Obama’s travel plans — Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) on one, Republican Gov. Matt Blunt of Missouri on the other — the Illinois senator was compared to former President Herbert Hoover as the Republicans noted repeatedly that Obama planned to raise taxes.

Burr said that Obama’s raising taxes is “a pretty certain thing,” calling the Hoover comparison a “very accurate description.”

Obama’s message was complicated somewhat by weekend revelations that the man heading his running mate selection committee has been involved with sub-prime lending.

A number of reports have surfaced that Jim Johnson, an Obama adviser and former CEO of Fannie Mae, received special loans from Countrywide Financial Corp., suggesting an inappropriate relationship with Countrywide executive Angelo Mozilo. The suggestion provided the RNC with ammunition to paint Obama as a hypocrite on the first day of his “Change That Works for You” tour.

The Obama campaign provided talking points to its surrogates in a memo obtained by The Hill, calling the story on Johnson “overblown and irrelevant.”

“This an overblown story about what appear to be completely above-board transactions,” the memo said.

What is clear from the exchange and the day’s conference calls is that the McCain campaign, despite any perceived weaknesses the Republican candidate might have on the economy, has no intention of letting Obama claim the issue as his own.