The White House contenders played the blame game Saturday as the US government readied an astronomically expensive rescue package to avert disaster on Wall Street. Democrat Barack Obama prepared to flay Republican John McCain's support for privatising Social Security retirement benefits, which his campaign said would be at risk of evaporating in the current turmoil afflicting markets world-wide.
Obama, at a Florida rally focussed on issues of particular concern to women, was also set to assail President George W. Bush for an absence of leadership as the market crisis has exploded, according to his campaign. McCain meanwhile pursued a new line of attack in blaming the financial hurricane on fraud at US mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are among the tottering companies now taken over by the government.
By extension, according to McCain, Obama is to blame as he was a leading recipient in Congress of campaign donations from the two companies and did nothing to sound the alarm about their "festering problems." "Two years ago, I called for reform of this corruption at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," but Congress and the Bush administration "did nothing," the Arizona senator said in his weekly radio address.
"Senator Obama did nothing, and actually profited from this system of abuse and scandal. While Fannie and Freddie were working to keep Congress away from their house of cards, Senator Obama was taking their money," he said. "This is the problem with Washington. People like Senator Obama have been too busy gaming the system and haven't ever done a thing to actually challenge the system," McCain added.
"The crisis on Wall Street started in the Washington culture of lobbying and influence-peddling, and he was square in the middle of it." Obama is mocking McCain's attacks, noting that the Republican's seven top lieutenants are all former corporate lobbyists, some of whom also did lucrative consultancy work for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "I think it's pretty clear that Senator McCain is a little panicked right now," the Illinois senator said at a campaign stop in Coral Gables, Florida Friday.
"At this point he seems to be willing to say anything, or do anything, or change any position, or violate any principle to try and win this election," he said, noting that McCain was himself a three-decade veteran of Congress. "After spending the entire campaign saying I haven't been in Washington long enough, he apparently now is willing to assign me responsibility for all of Washington's failings."
In his own radio address, Obama was expected to offer his support for the rescue deal being prepared by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, which the New York Times said was estimated to reach 500 billion dollars. The plan calls for buying distressed assets from US financial institutions - but not hedge funds - and hiring outside advisers who would work for the Treasury, the newspaper said.
At fundraisers in Florida late Friday, Obama called the crisis "one of the most difficult weeks in the history of this country" and said it was time to elect a Democrat and end "a political philosophy and an economic philosophy that basically says you're on your own."
At one event in Miami that raised roughly three million dollars, Obama said there had been a "vacuum" of leadership from the White House. "Here we have the greatest crisis probably since 9/11 and our president was absent," he said, referring to the September 11 attacks of 2001.
It was clear, Obama said, that McCain "doesn't have any ideas" other than those he has taken "from George Bush and Karl Rove," Bush's long-time political counsellor who is vilified by Democrats for his political machinations. Obama is pressing the administration to shield ordinary Americans from the crisis, not just Wall Street banks, by enacting an "emergency economic plan for working families."