The Economy and the Emerging McCain Comeback

"Just because I am losing, doesn't mean I'm lost, doesn't mean I'll stop."—Coldplay. Yesterday's nearly 1,000-point gain by the Dow industrials, I think, was partly due to a recognition by Mr. Market that Mr. McCain might actually pull this thing out. (Yes, yes, the rebound in the commercial paper sure helped, too.)

Polls are tightening. McCain-Palin has been given message clarity by the emergence of Barack Obama's "spread the wealth" message, opposed by more than 80 percent of Americans. I also think voters are realizing that Obama plus a Democratic Congress (as the old Russian proverb goes, "You don't buy a house, you buy a neighborhood") might mean a kind of lurching change to the left that a basically center-right nation might not want (such as getting rid of the tax benefits for 401[k] and other retirement plans like IRAs).

And hey, it's not just me. Here is what liberal blogger Noam Scheiber of the New Republic says:

In the last few days, pretty much every tracking poll I trust...several I either don't trust...or don't have much of an opinion about...has shifted toward McCain, in some cases sharply... My immediate concern is twofold: That McCain is getting some traction with his liberal/socialist/redistributionist charge—the WaPo tracker shows McCain narrowing the gap on the economy over the last week—and, in light of this, that Obama is striking his high-note a few days too early.

I will also add, though, that I am not seeing signs of a rebound in the betting markets. Intrade still has Obama at an 88 percent probability of victory.