McCain 'Better Off' Compared to November

The Democratic Party has an ad airing currently on cable which features an excerpt from a January Republican Primary debate. The ad shows Senator McCain answering the question "are Americans better off than they were eight years ago," by saying "you could argue that Americans overall are better off." It also features imagery of foreclosures, high gas prices, and other cheery signs of being better off.

As is often the case with Senator McCain, full excerpting provides a more accurate view.

Anderson Cooper: "Senator McCain, are Americans better off than they were eight years ago?"
Senator McCain: "I think you could argue that Americans overall are better off, because we have had a pretty good prosperous time, with low unemployment and low inflation and a lot of good things have happened. A lot of jobs have been created."
But let's have some straight talk. Things are tough right now. Americans are uncertain about this housing crisis. Americans are uncertain about the economy, as we see the stock market bounce up and down, but more importantly, the economy particularly in some parts of the country, state of Michigan, Governor Romney and I campaigned, not to my success, I might add, and other parts of the country are probably better off."
But I think what we're trying to do to fix this economy is important. We've got to address the housing, subprime housing problem. We need to, obviously, have this package go through the Congress as quickly as possible. We need to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, which I voted for twice to do so. I think we need to eliminate the alternate minimum tax that sits out there and challenges 25 million American families."
Cooper: "It sounds like you're saying we're not better off."
McCain: "I think we are better off overall if you look at the entire eight-year period, when you look at the millions of jobs that have been created, the improvement in the economy, et cetera. What I'm trying to emphasize, Anderson, that we are in a very serious challenge right now, with a lot of Americans very uncertain about their future, and we've got to give them some comfort. We've got to give them some stimulus."
We've got to give them some tax relief. We've got to stop this outrageous squandering spending that causes us to have to borrow money from China, and we've got to get our fiscal house in order. I think we went on a spending spree that, frankly, betrayed Ronald Reagan's principles about tax cuts and restraint of spending."

The Democratic Party's new ad isn't exactly wrong. McCain did say he thinks, overall, we are better off compared to eight years ago. However, the point of the ad is to paint McCain as clearly clueless about the economy; that he doesn't recognize times are tough, that he's out of touch. The full excerpt shows that the ad isn't exactly right, either. (I certainly can't think of any reason why the DNC would be anxious to get the "out of touch" arrows pointed elsewhere right now).

In the meantime, the AP points out that their recent poll, while indicating a huge increase in the relative importance of the economy as a campaign issue, does not seem to indicate any effect on who people are deciding to vote for. In fact, among those who have recently become extremely concerned about the economy there is no significant voting preference difference from other voters. Also, among those who show the most concern about the economy, the poll reports they are slightly more likely to vote for John McCain now than they were to favor a Republican at all in November's poll.

The new Democratic Party ad ends with a question every voter will almost certainly be asking themselves in November: Do you feel better off? It leaves off some other questions that perhaps ought to be on voters minds (and may very well be judging by the survey analysis): Do you feel better or worse off because of the government? Do you think the government is the solution? Do you expect raising taxes will make it all hunky-dory? Of course, I won't be holding my breath for that version of the ad.