Who has the best economic approach? Clinton? Obama? McCain?

The Associated Press

Is she trying to send a message?

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Who has the best economic approach? Clinton? Obama? McCain?

In the last few days, all three remaining major presidential candidates have described their plans to help a faltering economy. John McCain warned against too much government intervention, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama called for new packages of government aid and increased regulation of the financial industry. Who had the best approach?

Ben likes: House of politics

Wall Street Journal

This week John McCain and Hillary Clinton both used the housing-market upheaval to offer a window on what their presidencies would look like. The contrast in philosophy and program is something voters should pay attention to.

Mrs. Clinton proposes a curious triumvirate of grey eminences -- Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin -- to sit down and in three weeks come up with a more comprehensive rescue plan. Yes, this is the same Mr. Rubin who, as chairman of Citigroup's executive committee, oversaw the bank's reckless plunge into mortgage risk. And it is the same Mr. Greenspan who opened the liquidity floodgates as Fed Chairman and so helped to inflate the credit bubble. She got it right in choosing Mr. Volcker, but he's endorsed Mr. Obama.

Mr. McCain can be a little too righteous when he claims he would "not play election-year politics with the housing crisis." What he does seem to understand, however, is that most Americans are responsible borrowers who don't want to underwrite the losses of those who aren't. In that, he is politically smarter than Senators Clinton and Obama.

Joel likes: The plan to change the economy

Andrew Leonard/Salon

In the past quarter-century, there has probably never been a better time for a presidential candidate to charge into downtown Manhattan and make a speech arguing for more regulation of the financial industry. The moral authority of market fundamentalism (if such a thing ever existed) is in tatters, and even Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, the former CEO of Wall Street's crown jewel, Goldman-Sachs, is acknowledging that new rules are necessary to clean up the current mess.

Back in 1980, Ronald Reagan announced a series of broad, vague principles, and then proceeded to drastically change the direction of American politics and economics. If we take both Clinton and Obama at their word, we have Clinton promising a boatload of quick fixes, and Obama promising a profound change of course. What unites them, in opposition to McCain, is that both understand that the U.S. is facing a real problem.