Obama: "John McCain Can't Decide Whether He's Barry Goldwater Or Dennis Kucinich"

ESPANOLA, NM – Despite the economic crisis facing the country and the turmoil in the markets, this is not a time for fear or panic but for leadership and resolve, Barack Obama said today, telling the audience at a rally he would announce new plans tomorrow for dealing with the economy.

Both campaigns have been scrambling to stay out in front on economic issues this week as news of bank failures and bailouts have roiled financial markets worldwide.

Obama has consistently argued that John McCain’s response to the crisis on Wall Street has been inadequate and that he was now trying to reverse course on issues like market regulation because it was politically expedient. It's all part of his campaign’s continued efforts to convince worried voters that the Illinois senator will be a better steward of the economy than his rival.

At the rally here in Northern New Mexico, a state he hopes to snatch from the GOP in 47 days, Obama announced plans to host a meeting tomorrow with his top economic advisors. He said he would call for the passage of a Homeowner and Financial Support Act that “would establish a more stable and permanent solution than the daily improvisations that have characterized policy-making over the last year.” During the meeting tomorrow, Obama and his team will hammer out the details of the plan his campaign is calling "a major proposal." They say it will be a collection of ideas he has been talking about or proposed over the last two years and others reached during conversations and conference calls with his advisers this week.

“The events of the past few days have made clear that we need to do more,” Obama told some 9,500 people gathered in a dusty plaza. “We can’t afford to lurch back and forth between positions depending on the latest news of the day when dealing with an economic crisis, the way John McCain has. We can’t be lurching around. We need some clear and steady leadership and that’s why I was ahead of the curve in calling for regulation.”

Obama's act would provide capital to the financial system, provide liquidity to enable our financial markets to function and help families to re-structure their mortgages on more affordable terms so they can stay in their homes, he said.

With unemployment rates rising, millions losing their homes and the added pressure of the problems on Wall Street, the economy is at the top of many voters’ list of concerns and a topic polls show favors Obama. One his campaign’s chief arguments is that McCain is out of touch with the concerns of average people and cares more about big corporations and the wealthy.

Today the senator told the New Mexico crowd that even the White House had distanced itself from McCain’s comment that the fundamentals of the economy are strong, which the Arizona senator repeated earlier this week as the crisis on Wall Street unfurled, and said he was a flip-flopper who had long supported the kind of deregulation that had caused the troubles affecting major banks and financial institutions. He also reminded the crowd that McCain’s economic adviser Phil Gramm had been a big proponent of deregulation and said there had been talk that Gramm would head the Treasury Department under a McCain administration.

"John McCain can’t decide whether he’s Barry Goldwater or Dennis Kucinich,” he said to laughter. “He’s not clear about what he thinks or what he believes. Well, I have a message for Sen. McCain: You cannot just run away from your long-held views or your life-long record. You can’t erase twenty-six years of support for the very policies and people who helped to bring in some of the problems that we’re seeing. You can’t just erase all that with one week worth of rants.”

The McCain campaign responded in an email that suggested Obama cozied up to special interests and is indecisive.

“When Barack Obama came to Washington, he chose to strengthen his ties to spiraling lenders like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their jet-set CEOs, not make change," wrote Spokesman Tucker Bounds. "The American people cannot afford leadership that puts a higher premium on campaign contributions than protecting hardworking Americans. The American people cannot afford leadership that votes present on the most important issue of the day – the AIG bailout.”

Obama told the Espanola crowd McCain’s claim that he lacked a position on the AIG bailout was false – though his statements about the bailout have not included an explicit message of support for the government’s decision to rescue the firm -- and he responded to McCain’s call for the firing of SEC Chairman Chris Cox by saying, don’t stop there.

“Today he said that he’s calling for the firing of the Security and Exchange Commissioner,” he said. “ Well, I think that’s all fine and good, but here’s what I say: In the next 47 days, you can fire the whole Trickle-Down, On-Your-Own, Look-the-Other-Way crowd in Washington who has led us down this disastrous path. Don’t just get rid of one guy, get rid of this administration, get rid of this philosophy, get rid of the do-nothing approach to our economic problems and put somebody in there who’s gonna fight for you.”

Red states

Espanola was the latest stop on a tour of red states the Obama campaign has made a priority in this year’s election. Other than the fundraising trip to Los Angeles, Obama has spent the week in red states: Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and he'll end the week in Florida. Meanwhile, in an effort to flood the battleground states, his running mate Joe Biden has been spending a great deal of time in Ohio and Michelle Obama campaigned in Virginia yesterday and North Carolina today.

Obama was introduced by Gov. Bill Richardson, who stressed the importance of the Hispanic vote here and in states like Colorado. The governor broke into Spanish at several points throughout his brief remarks, at one point telling crowd, many of whom were Hispanic, Obama has heart and values, that he believes in family and religion “but most importantly, Barack Obama is one of us.”

The senator spent the morning at a private meeting with tribal leaders in Albuquerque where he was accompanied by Richardson. He later stopped by a café in Bernalillo to chat with voters and order enchiladas, a couple pies and a cookie to go. This afternoon Richardson hosts two fundraisers for the campaign and the Democratic Party – a host reception where the price of admission is $28,500 and attendees get a picture with the candidate and a reception that costs $2,500 – at an Albuquerque home, before Obama heads to Florida, another red state, where polls show a close race.

(NBC/NJ's ATHENA JONES)