McCain: Fundamentals Still Strong

Given the amount of crap he’s taken for it, I find it pretty shocking that John McCain is sticking with his “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” line, but here he is again:

Now the “to be fair” thing you’re supposed to say is that he follows up the fundamentals are strong line with acknowledgment that “these are very, very difficult times.”

But this of course raises the question, even being as fair as possible to McCain, of what the heck he thinks this means. The fundamentals are strong in what sense? Or, perhaps better, strong compared to what? America continues to be a very wealthy society and our citizens are much better off than most people around the world. You’d rather be an average American in 2008 than an average Chinese person or an average Indian. Is that all he means? Or does he have something in mind? The underlying financial system certainly doesn’t seem especially sound. To my ear, the current line just sounds like a compromise between one adviser who wants to appeal to the Luskin/Hannity element in the base and another adviser who wants McCain to sound normal, and nevermind if the resulting text makes sense.