Much of crisis management, any executive or PR consultant will tell you, has nothing to do with substance, but with tone, demeanor, body language, and a projected air of candor and confidence. Who seems like he can sit down and figure this out? Who doesn’t seem rattled? Who’s the grown-up? Those are the questions the public is mulling over as we lurch from crisis to crisis and failing company to failing company this week.

Let’s face it: in a week in which we went from injecting “moral hazard” ( i.e. the need for business to assess and be held accountable for risk) into the system (no Lehman Brothers bailout) to deciding AIG was “too big to fail,” there is no operating ideology at work. Maybe that is too much to ask, or even unwise, when you are struggling to keep the economy from collapsing.

But it’s not just the government which lacks an overarching plan here.  If there is a gameplan, let alone a single specific proposal, from either presidential candidate that isn’t entirely self-evident (e.g. refashion our regulatory system) I haven’t seen it. So if voters were hoping to find “substance” in this crisis, they may be disappointed.

Still, there is something to be said for temperament. On that score it was unfortunate for Barack Obama that this week’s events came just as he was being pressured to “hit back” and whittle down John McCain’s post-Convention bump. So what we saw from Obama were the harshest rhetoric and the nastiest ads of the campaign season. The question is: does this sit well with voters who are jittery and trying to assess who operates best in a crisis?  Does the natural aversion which independents have to angry, partisan politics increase when there is a real crisis which requires calm and thoughtfulness?

We’ll see in the days and weeks ahead. But both candidates would do well to think of something constructive to add to the debate. And barring that, they might both want to consider whether now is the best time for a blistering round of negativity.