It seems that John McCain has found his opening. He fires back at Barack Obama today–on raising taxes, slurping at the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac trough and trying to play the “present” game in a crisis. It is very tough stuff. A sample from his opening speech in Iowa:

Senator Obama talks a tough game on the financial markets but the facts tell a different story. He took more money from Fannie and Freddie than any Senator but the Democratic chairman of the committee that regulates them. He put Fannie Mae’s CEO who helped create this disaster in charge of finding his Vice President. Fannie’s former General Counsel is a senior advisor to his campaign. Whose side do you think he is on? When I pushed legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Senator Obama was silent. He didn’t lift a hand to avert this crisis. While the leaders of Fannie and Freddie were lining the pockets of his campaign, they were sowing the seeds of the financial crisis we see today and enriching themselves with millions of dollars in payments. That’s not change, that’s what’s broken in Washington.

. . .

Those same Congressional leaders who give Senator Obama his marching orders are now saying that this mess isn’t their fault and they aren’t going to take any action on this crisis until after the election. Senator Obama’s own advisers are saying that crisis will benefit him politically. My friends, that is the kind of me-first, country-second politics that are broken in Washington. My opponent sees an economic crisis as a political opportunity instead of a time to lead. Senator Obama isn’t change, he’s part of the problem with Washington.

When AIG was bailed out, I didn’t like it, but I understood it needed to be done to protect hard working Americans with insurance policies and annuities. Senator Obama didn’t take a position. On the biggest issue of the day, he didn’t know what to think. He may not realize it, but you don’t get to vote present as President of the United States.
While Senator Obama and Congressional leaders don’t know what to think about the current crisis, we know what their plans are for the economy. Today Senator Obama’s running mate said that raising taxes is patriotic. Raising taxes in a tough economy isn’t patriotic. It’s not a badge of honor. It’s just dumb policy. The billions in tax increases that Senator Obama is proposing would kill even more jobs during tough economic times.

And so it goes. McCain’s strength has always been as a counterpuncher and this is about as effective a message as possible. The problem, McCain wants to tell us, is politicians like Obama who take money from fat cats, don’t look after the public trust, and then duck the hard calls. Have we entered the political Twilight Zone? Wasn’t this Obama’s message? Yup.

But there was always a central problem with it: Obama’s own record doesn’t evidence any indication of reform-mided zeal, let alone bipartisan achievement. That’s hard to get people to understand–you are asking them to notice the absence of something. But in a sense this crisis is tailor-made for McCain because the specifics are almost irresistible (the second highest haul from Freddie and Fannie among all of Congress went to Obama) and it encompasses both personal attributes (leadership) and substance (liberal economic policy).

Obama and his MSM allies will have their response, but McCain and his team have figured out the way to make the best of a tough situation. Which, come to think of it, is their specialty.