Our economy is in shambles.  The market has fallen as much as 800 points at one time today, and closed more than 300 points lower in roller coaster trading.  Credit is virtually non-existent.  Unless your score is well above 700 (the average is about 680), you aren’t going to get a loan for a new car or a new house.  Unemployment is rising.  GNP is expected to fall in the fourth quarter.  Those of us who live on Main Street, USA, know this, and have known it for some time.  We’re in trouble.

Let’s see what the two presidential candidates think we ought to be talking about today, though?

Republican party nominee Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, think we ought to know that their opponent knows some guy named Ayers who helped found a radical political group a few decades ago.

Democratic party nominee Sen. Barack Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, think we ought to be talking about their opponent’s association two decades ago with Frank Keating, the owner of an Arizona savings and loan association that failed, and a man who went to jail for bank fraud as a result.

It begs too many questions to raise in a single column how any of those subjects quells voter fear about their future.  None of what the candidates have been chatting it up about today helps us sort through the falling Dow, or how people are going to keep from losing their jobs, or if they do lose their jobs how they will feed their families and keep their homes.  None of the candidates is walking voters through the steps they will take come January to right our economic ship of state.

Neither party’s presidential candidate has a clue or has presented a substantive proposal to do so.  Perhaps the politics of pretend will work for them – pretend the economic turmoil doesn’t really exist, talk about something else, misdirect attention, tell us why the other is bad for us rather than why they are good.  Pretend is not going to fill anyone’s bag with groceries at the market this week, or help them sleep tonight.

It’s a sad day when Saturday Night Live articulates economic issues better than the real candidates do, and that is what happened this past weekend.  Sure, Gov. Palin took another Tina Fey hit, although most of Fey’s words actually did come out of Palin’s mouth.  The clips are available online, and if you want to know a little something real about our economic pain, check SNL out before you listen to McCain or Obama – - you’ll learn more.

Both party’s candidates continue to fail us with their campaign tactics and language.  It seems fairly obvious what they should be talking about on the campaign trail.  The headlines in every newspaper and every online news source has something to do with the tumbling market and the precarious world economy.  Everyone is talking about that, worrying about that, wondering about that, except the candidates.

“World Markets Tumbling” is the number one headline; the number two headline, depending on the paper you read, is either McCain’s “Keating Five” story from 20 years ago, or “Obama Knew Ayers” nearly forty years after Ayers was a WeatherMan.

Which headline means more to us on Main Street today?