For a moment last night there was a glimmer of hope. Obama is leading in the polls because of the economy, and in particular, the banking failures. As usual he blamed the financial crisis on Bush-McCain deregulation (though, as some one here pointed, didn’t give a single example). McCain started to say the problem was that Obama and the Democrats forced banks to make bad loans to risky loan applicants. All he needed to do was to quote Stanley Kurtz: “Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.” But he didn’t press the point. A lot of voters think Obama is right, that deregulation caused the banking mess. McCain and the Republicans have failed to show how the crisis was not the fault of the free market and deregulators, but social engineering and interference in the market by liberal politicians. That’s why McCain is trailing. And there is no excuse for this.