McCain On 'Black Monday': Fundamentals Of Our Economy Are Still Strong

John McCain may want to refine his economic message a bit more during this potentially disastrous week for the financial sector.

On the campaign trail in Jacksonville, Florida, the Senator declared this morning that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong," despite what he described as "tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street."

The line may seem like GOP boilerplate, save for the fact that this morning, the McCain campaign released a television ad that began: "Our economy is in crisis." Moreover, with financial and job markets in disarray, and with Lehman Brothers, the troubled investment bank, filing for bankruptcy, it may not be the wisest political message to tell voters that the fundamentals are a-okay.

"You know," said McCain, "there's been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street and it is -- people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think, still the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult time. And I promise you, we will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. We will reform government."

Many conservatives and McCain supporters have argued, against the prevailing sentiment, that despite Wall Street's failings, the economy is actually on firm footing. Donald Luskin, who described himself as "an adviser to John McCain's campaign," made such an argument in Sunday's Washington Post. But despite modest growth and relatively low unemployment rates, many economists see dire signs in today's economic landscape. On Sunday, former fed chairman Alan Greenspan said the market was the worst he had ever witnessed and predicted another major bank would close soon. Meanwhile, inflation is rising, real wages are declining, and the problems in the housing market persist.

McCain acknowledged, to various degrees, these topics in his Monday morning speech.

"I promise you we will never put America in this position again," McCain said. "This is a failure. We've got take every action to build an environment of robust energy supplies, lower inflation, control health care costs, access to international markets, low taxes and reduce burden of government to allow people to move forward toward a future of prosperity."

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