Candidates need to focus on economy

It's the economy, stupid.

Now that the nation's long primary season is over, Barack Obama and John McCain would do well to remember that phrase, coined in 1992 during Bill Clinton's successful run for the presidency.

During the same week that Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president -- and his rival, Hillary Clinton, threw her support behind him -- the economic news was anything but bright. Consider:

• The nation's unemployment rate jumped to 5.5 percent in May, the biggest one-month jump in decades;

• The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 390 points;

• Oil prices rose more than $11 on Friday, capping oil's biggest two-day gain in the history of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gas prices at the pump remain at the $4 a gallon and higher mark;

• The value of the dollar fell.

And that was just the news from Friday.

Also last week, Elk Grove Township-based United Airlines announced plans to slash 1,400 to 1,600 jobs, while also reducing its fleet. And retailers said in an Associated Press article late last month that they would need to cut back on inventory, increase discounting and possibly look at more store closings and layoffs in the second half of 2008. Analysts expect more than 10,000 stores across food, drug and apparel categories may close between now and 2010.

With all that as a backdrop, our politicians need to focus on how to turn things around. Political strategy, choosing a vice presidential candidate, concentrating on what their ministers say, even debating the war may all take a back seat to debating ways to improve our country's economy in 2009 and beyond.

"We've had something like five consecutive months of job losses. … It's a difficult time for consumers," Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Trust and Savings Bank in Chicago, told the Daily Herald's Michael Sean Comerford in a Sunday article. "There was some hope that tax rebate checks would somehow jump start some consumer spending; unfortunately, that was upended when the job picture looked pretty bleak."

Indeed, it appears that more needs to be done to help the economy. President Bush is considering further plans to energize the economy, according to reports last week. They can't come soon enough -- if they work. And neither can a fresh look and approach to our economy -- one brought by a new president.

What is going to help the economy, over the long term, is the tone set by Obama and McCain. A lot of what goes into growing an economy is citizens' confidence in it. Obama and McCain have to gain that confidence. Good presidents do that, and we come out of these economic downturns looking strong and confident again.

That is their challenge. Whoever is up to it will likely win come November.