The Financial Crisisis Helping Obama.

The financial crisis is helping Obama.

The financial crisis in the United States is helping Obama more than McCain in the battle for presidency. Is the turmoil on Wall Street going to decide who will become the next president?

Yesterday the Bush administration and Congress were arguing over the financial sector rescue plan. The government wants to allocate as much as 700 billion dollars for that purpose. It would mean that together with previous interventions aimed at rescuing insurance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the crisis would cost taxpayers over 1 trillion dollars.

Since the beginning of the crisis, Republican candidate McCain has had difficulty finding the right rhetoric. His unclear statements last week have not benefited him at all. Yesterday conservative publicist George Will wrote in Washington Post that “McCain loses his head” during the crisis. During the last few days, McCain, however, has started speaking more clearly. For example, he opposes the idea of giving the Bush government, without sufficient oversight, almost one trillion dollars to finance bailouts. “We will not solve a problem caused by poor oversight with a plan that has no oversight,” says McCain.

Obama’s stand on the financial rescue plan is similar: “If we grant the Treasury broad authority to address the immediate crisis, we must insist on independent accountability and oversight.”

Surprisingly, only 28 percent of Americans support the idea of the government’s bailouts of financial institutions. As many as 37 percent of them are against it and almost the same number do not know what to think.

What might really affect the election’s result is the fact that now a lot of voters support Obama’s arguments blaming Bush and Republicans for the crisis.

According to yesterday’s opinion poll carried out by CNN, twice as many Americans blame the Right (47%) than the Left (24%) for the crisis, 20 percent put blame on both parties, and 8 percent think that the politicians are not responsible for it.

The economy is now the campaign’s number one topic. Around 50 percent of Americans think that it will be the biggest challenge for the next president to face, whereas less than half of that number of people claim that it will be the war in Iraq or terrorist threats. In fact, in the last few days Americans think that Obama could manage the country’s economy better (with the prevalence of 10 percent just as in the CNN opinion poll).

Only ten days ago McCain was leading in the presidential poll by 3 percent on average. Yesterday it was the opposite- 48 percent of Americans supported Obama and 45 percent of them the Republican candidate.

What is more important is the fact that Obama is gaining more support in those states that probably will decide the result of the presidential elections. In Virginia, the Democratic candidate is leading by 3 percent; in Pennsylvania, Colorado and Michigan by percent. McCain has slightly more supporters in Ohio and Florida.

All the experts and commentators agree that at this point the differences are minimal and anything might happen during the next forty days before the elections.

If the election’s results will be influenced by what Americans think about the economy, Obama’s chances are really great. However, if another big crisis in the world breaks out, McCain might take the lead in the polls.

According to the research done by Washington Post, Americans still trust him as a potential commander in chief and foreign policy constructor. As many as 73 percent of them believe that seventy-two year old Republican candidate would be a good leader, whereas 51 percent think the same about Obama.

It is highly likely that the next three debates with Obama and McCain will decide the election’s result; the first one taking place the day after tomorrow in the state of Mississippi.