In Race About Crisis, Obama, McCain Mirror Hoover, FDR

We should quit trying to pin the candidates down on policy specifics, writes EJ Dionne in the Washington Post. They’ve given us a “clear sense of who they are and how they would lead,” and that’s all we can ask. The economic crisis is moving so fast that “new ideas could become obsolete in a few days.”

This is not the moment, writes Dionne, to quibble over how the candidates will pay for their programs. We can worry about deficits during boom times, but in a recession, spending is the solution, not the problem. Like FDR, Barack Obama has emphasized no particular big program, but the need not to panic. And like Herbert Hoover, John McCain hopes to win by sowing panic about his opponent.