A week after McCain asked for my vote*, Obama plans to do the same. Perhaps with tea that's less weak?

Bloomberg:

Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama plans to give a speech on the financial crisis and issue a ``rescue plan'' for the middle class, his campaign said.

``Our economy is facing its greatest uncertainty in over 70 years,'' the Illinois senator's campaign said in an e-mail to reporters this morning. ``Families who saw their incomes decline by $2,000 in the economic `expansion' from 2000 to 2007 now risk seeing deeper income losses.''

Declining incomes from 2007 to 2000 -- now, who was President up 'til 2000; let me see... -- isn't "uncertainy" at all; it's certainty.

So, think the speech will include HOLC, as so many recommend?

The devil, as always, is in the details, and I'm guessing No. What we needed was a systematic and coordinated solution, because borrowers (homeowners) and lenders (banks) are two sides of the same coin. With the Bush + Reid + Pelosi + Obama + Paulson bill, what we got was "flexibility":

[Goldman Sachs alumnus] Treasury Assistant Secretary Neel] Kashkari said the Treasury plans to take advantage of its broad powers under the new law.

``Treasury worked hard with Congress to build in this flexibility because the one constant throughout the credit crisis has been its unpredictability,'' Kashkari said.

Indeed they did. Unfortunately, as Obama economic advisor Paul Volcker says, we're going to "come together to protect our big banks," and that's where the "flexibility" is being applied, not on behalf of homeowners.

Well, people noticed, and there may be a political cost:

In an arena sandwiched between the cattle barn and the tractor show, U.S. Representative Jim Marshall, a three-term Democrat, defended his decision to back the legislation that draws so heavily on taxpayer dollars.

The Democrat has come under a fierce attack from Republican challenger Rick Goddard, a retired Air Force general, who is aiming to capitalize on voter outrage by hammering the plan as a $700 billion sop to Wall Street.

Marshall, 60, said his vote Oct. 3 was the ``adult thing to do'' even if it was ``wildly unpopular'' with his constituents, and he now has less than a month to win over unhappy voters.

The stock market's drop since the plan was approved by the House has made it tougher for Marshall and other lawmakers who supported it on the grounds that it would stabilize the economy.

Marshall has begun a television ad campaign defending the vote.

``I don't like this rescue plan any better than you do,'' he says in the ad. ``You elected me to do what's best for America, not what's easy.''

Outside the World Famous Redwood Log House, a house carved out of a tree trunk, Luke Raines, a 68-year-old plumbing contractor from Cordele, said he isn't convinced.

``That's a bunch of crap,'' he said. ``You don't hear nobody that says, `Oh, I'm glad they did it. They mad as hell.''

So, it looks to me like Obama pushed up his Next Big Speech from 10/29 to today in response to the political problems working the phones for the bailout created for him.

Oh, progressives! Progressives! You've got leverage now!

TROLL PROPHYLACTIC * I don't say McCain's plan is good; I said he asked for my vote with it. What would be nice, and unexpected, would be for Obama to, in essence, work the phones for the homeowners as he already did for the banks.

UPDATE I fully understand the "need for speed" argument, which Krugman exemplifies today:

What can be done to stem the crisis? Aid to homeowners, though desirable, can’t prevent large losses on bad loans, and in any case will take effect too slowly to help in the current panic.

However, it's also crystal clear that the "desirable" also needs to become the possible -- see under Politics, the art of -- for any solution, ultimately, to work; banks and borrowers are two sides of the same coin (unless one advocates debt peonage, of course).

And yet, while the ad hoc solutions are being cobbled together, I don't see any concerted push for the "desirable" at all in the Village, or in its wannabe suburb, the progressive blogosphere.

To me, that means it won't happne. By the time Hank Paulson gets done pissing that trillion away on the banks, there may not be anything for anyone else (a very "desireable" outcome for some, I am sure). Can anyone think of a good reason to wait for Our Betters to look after our interests? I can't. We don't need another round of $300 stimulus checks: We need universal healthcare (so we don't go bankrupt and lose our homes) and we need HOLC, to put mortages and home values back in balance, and clean up the banks balance sheets as well.

In other words, we need change, and not some crappy rhetorical simulacrum of it.