Obama Hits McCain on Credit Cards

Posted by: Gene M. | Jun 12,2008


There was already evidence that Barack Obama was going to take on the credit card industry as part of his platform.  Back in December, when there were still a number of candidates still in the running (remember that?  It feels like 4 years ago) Obama revealed his Credit Card Bill of Rights.  Back then, Obama didn’t really have any opposition to this idea, as Democrats generally come down on the same side of the issue re: credit cards.  

Now the situation’s changed and Obama railed hard against McCain yesterday about the issue of credit cards and lending practices:

“John McCain has been part of the problem not part of the solution. When he had the chance to help families avoid falling into debt, John McCain sided with the credit card companies. When he had the chance to protect teenagers and college students from deceptive credit card practices, he sided with the credit card companies. And when I fought against the credit card industry’s bankruptcy bill that made it harder for working families to climb out of debt, he supported it -- and he even opposed exempting families who were only in bankruptcy because of medical expenses they couldn’t pay.”

Pretty tough to counter that and really bodes well for Obama in the general if these types of issues are at the forefront.  Most know that McCain is a foreign policy candidate and the economy isn’t his strong suit.  Still, surprisingly, polls show that McCain polls better at handling the economy than Obama, which is why Obama’s in the middle of a 17-day campaign swing about the economy and hitting issues like credit card debt.  It’ll be interesting to see if those poll numbers head in the other direction in the next couple of weeks.  

McCain’s got his work cut out for him – because even if Democrats were culpable in the subprime mortgage fallout and credit crisis, it still happened under a Republican administration.  Basically, everyone was at fault for the mortgage debacle or it wouldn’t have been as widespread as it was, but Bush could have enacted more regulations and oversight recommended by some lawmakers.  That’s a pretty heavy anvil to have draped around McCain, so he should be thanking the polling Gods that he’s currently seen as strong as he is on the economy.  

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