In a week of almost unprecedented economic crisis, when Wall Street seemed on the brink of meltdown, John McCain's presidential bid was hit by mistake after mistake, varying from the serious to the surreal.

As stocks dropped off a precipice, McCain said the economic fundamentals were strong. Then a senior aide seemed to suggest McCain had invented the BlackBerry. His top economic advisor, Carly Fiorina, confessed she thought neither McCain nor his running mate, Sarah Palin, was capable of running a large company.

Then, in the middle of the worst financial collapse since the 1930s, McCain got the public endorsement of Donald Trump, a celebrity tycoon who symbolizes raw capitalism. For a candidate trying to strike a populist tone, the backing of "the Donald" was poorly timed.

At the same time the remarkable surge of support inspired by Palin seems to be ebbing. Polls show women voters drifting back to Obama, who has established a slim lead again. Palin is increasingly mired in the "Troopergate" scandal related to allegations that she fired a senior official out of a personal grudge against her sister's former partner.

Palin's star, which shone so brightly for two weeks and reinvigorated the Republican base, is showing every sign of dimming. But the real problem is the biggest one: the stunning economic rollercoaster of last week. Americans in their tens of millions have been glued to their TV screens watching banks collapse, stocks slide and their own government pump billions of dollars into the system to bail out troubled banks and insurers. It has turned the election right back to the core issue that Democrats have wanted to talk about all along: the economy and its terrible woes.

McCain, with the first presidential debate looming this week, is now fighting the election on his opponent's strongest turf. In an America shaken and scared by the specter of a second Great Depression, no one is talking about pigs, lipstick or moose-hunting any more.

For many years, McCain has been an outspoken advocate of easing restrictions on Wall Street, not tightening regulations. His campaign is closely linked to lobbyists and the financial industry is a huge donator to his cause. That has allowed Obama's speechwriters to hurl some sharply worded barbs. "The old boys" network? In the McCain campaign, that's called a staff meeting," is one of Obama's most popular lines in his current stump speech.

At the same time McCain is facing an American electorate likely to blame eight years living under a Republican White House for the current mess. The words that McCain never mentions on the campaign trail are "President George W Bush". In effect, McCain has to run against what his own Republican party has done for the last two presidential terms, almost turning his campaign into a third party.

The economy is not the ground on which McCain wanted to fight the election. His line last week that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" was the latest in a long list of verbal mistakes he has made over economic issues. The subject has been a weak one for Republicans ever since the Bush administration turned a surplus into a massive deficit and jobless figures started creeping up.

A recent Washington Post poll found that people preferred Obama on the economy by 51 per cent to 39 per cent. Almost three-quarters of people said Obama understood their economic problems, compared with only 53 per cent who thought McCain felt that way.

(The Guardian via China Daily September 22, 2008)