5 days to first debate, Obama climbs in polls

updated 3:48 p.m. ET Sept. 21, 2008

WASHINGTON - Five days from their first presidential debate, Democrat Barack Obama has climbed in the polls as Republican John McCain fumbled his response to a looming U.S. economic cataclysm — one that threatened to match the financial catastrophe of the 1930s Great Depression.

The U.S. Congress and the administration of President George W. Bush were grappling with a proposed $700 billion bailout plan to save the U.S. economy from full collapse, feeding anxiety among voters who already were far more concerned about their financial futures than any other issue in the 2008 presidential campaign — including the intractable U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After withholding his response while the Bush administration put together its program, Obama on Sunday placed seven conditions on the rescue proposal which he said came with a "staggering price tag" but no plan to guarantee the "basic principles of transparency, fairness, and reform" to taxpayers who will pay for the huge bailout.

Administration pressing Congress
The Bush administration is pressing Congress to pass the bailout measure by the end of this week, even as Obama joined others in Congress in suggesting the proposal faced obstacles to quick enactment.

"This plan can't just be a plan for Wall Street, it has to be a plan for Main Street. We have to come together, as Democrats and Republicans, to pass a stimulus plan that will put money in the pockets of working families, save jobs, and prevent painful budget cuts and tax hikes in our states," Obama said during a campaign stop in North Carolina.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, meanwhile, resisted the Democratic push to add additional help for households, saying financial markets remain under severe stress with an urgent need for Congress to act quickly without adding other measures that could slow passage.

"We need this to be clean and to be quick," Paulson said in an interview with ABC television. He told Fox television that America had been "humbled, humbled" by allowing its economy to slide into chaos.

On Saturday, as the depth of the U.S. financial crisis was settling in on the country, Obama declared McCain was in a panic, realizing that he and his Republican party were philosophically responsible for the near meltdown of the U.S. financial system. The Arizona senator, a 26-year veteran of Congress, shot back that his first-term Illinois Senate colleague was resorting to scare tactics.

McCain has history of deregulation
But McCain faces the daunting task of trying to square his long history of advocating corporate and financial deregulation — the sort of loose controls many blame for the turmoil on Wall Street.

Obama seized on that during a campaign appearance at Bethune-Cookman University in Florida.

"There's only one candidate who's called himself 'fundamentally a deregulator' when deregulation is part of the problem," Obama said.

McCain now says more controls are needed to prevent a repeat of the turmoil that sent the stock market plunging, as he tries to recover from a series of gaffes this week, starting with his Monday assessment that U.S. economic fundamentals were strong.

National polls indicate that McCain's edge in the U.S. presidential race has slipped since the market upheaval. The latest Gallup Poll daily tracking survey also showed Obama ahead, with 50 percent to McCain's 44 percent. Last Sunday, a day before stocks took a dive on Wall Street, McCain and Obama were in a statistical dead heat with McCain's 47 percent against Obama's 45 percent.

Both candidates are busy preparing for their first nationally televised debate on Friday at the University of Mississippi, which offers McCain a chance to reverse his recent slide in the polls.

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