I'm in Boston attending the annual meeting of the Financial Planning Association. David Gergen gave an interesting speech this morning, giving McCain about a 40 percent chance of winning the election and saying that attacking Obama won't be enough to make it happen. "McCain," Gergen said, "needs a plan for post-bailout." I agree, and would like to see McCain mention such words as "$53 trillion in unfunded liabilities" in discussing what the next financial crisis might look like.
Gergen also said: "The uniform experience of recent presidents is when you've been in office only a couple of months, your adversaries around the world are going to try to test you. And if they can, they will roll you." That's a key challenge Obama would face as president, and it will be a question of how fast he learns to deal with it. I agree with that, too.
