McCain Makes the Case Against Himself

Posted by Faiz Shakir, Think Progress at 3:04 PM on October 13, 2008.

During a campaign rally this afternoon, John McCain made this observation:

The next President won't have time to get used to the office. He won't have the luxury of studying up on the issues before he acts.

"We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight, waiting for our luck to change," McCain added. "The hour is late. Our troubles are getting worse. Our enemies watch." Watch it:

McCain's statement could not be a more damaging indictment of himself. As he has acknowledged repeatedly, he doesn't know much about the economy and "still needs to be educated" on it:

- "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." [Wall Street Journal, 11/26/05]

- "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should...I've got Greenspan's book." [Boston Globe, 12/18/07]

- "In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't pay nearly the attention to those issues in the past...I was probably a 'supply-sider' based on the fact that I really didn't jump into the issue." [The New Republic, 1/31/00

Just last month, McCain proposed a plan to outsource dealing with the economy. The Washington Post reported, "Sen. John McCain on Tuesday proposed a commission to study the economic crisis along the lines of the one that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks."

More recently, the McCain campaign has tried to "turn the page" on the economy and has stated, "If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we're going to lose."

Faiz Shakir is the Research Director at the Center for American Progress and serves as Editor of ThinkProgress.org and The Progress Report.