Things you can do if you write a crappy book

You get to say unbelievably stupid things in the newspaper

Perhaps, but Richard White Jr., a professor at LSU's Public Administration Institute and author of "Kingfish: The Reign of Huey P. Long," said that doesn't mean that Long and Obama didn't and don't invoke similar fears on Wall Street.

With Obama and a Democratic Congress, White said, Wall Street sees the return of a more tax-and-spend, redistributive regime in Washington with a dread that he believes helps explain the severity of the recent market collapse. "It's the New York Stock Exchange reaction to the certainty that Barack Obama is going to be elected president," White said. "They know there are rough days ahead."

Let's go ahead an assume that this article appears on Page 1 of today's T-P because the paper wanted to push a desperate McCain talking point. McCain says President Obama is a "socialist" who wants to "Spread the Wealth" so let's ask a bunch of people if he reminds them of Huey Long. Let's assume that this story was conceived of as a subtle hit piece designed to feature idiotic statements like the one quoted above.

I'm actually glad they did this because it's perfectly illustrative of the utter failure of the McCain campaign to make any message resonate. The more McCain and his surrogates talk about President Obama's nefarious plan to "spread wealth around" the more you can almost hear most Americans saying, "Yes that's something we're ready to do."

It's a fascinating phenomenon. McCain is pushing an Obama-as-populist message far more aggressively than Obama himself has. And as the public responds more and more positively to that message, it helps to shape President Obama's mandate. In a way, McCain's reckless flailing may have pulled President Obama's agenda further left than Obama previously intended. Maybe the real problem with this T-P article is that it compares the wrong candidate to Huey.