Your Money, Your Vote; Left to Die
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, the economy from the gas station to the assembly line to a Starbucks near you, new alarming evidence about just how much people are hurting. Paying more, losing jobs, losing homes, and losing hope.The question is what are our leaders and the presidential candidates doing about it? We'll examine that tonight. Also Barack Obama campaigning today for Evangelical votes and he's reaching out to Evangelicals with house parties and some policies which might anger liberals. We'll show you his strategy and chances for winning over religious voters. Later, "Breaking News," a spree killer caught, this man Nicholas Sheley now in custody, was being hunted in connection with eight killings in just a week's time. Moments ago, police wrapped up a news conference. They caught him just a short time ago. We're live with the latest on how Sheley was caught, what he's charged with and what comes next. And left to die, a woman collapsing in a hospital waiting room and what happened next? Nothing, people just sat there looking at her or ignoring her. Almost everything that did happen will make your blood boil. We're "Keeping them Honest" tonight. We begin with your money, your jobs, your retirement. More and more Americans saying they're watching it all slip away. Today, we got more evidence of that. Word of plummeting car sales a day after stocks finished their worst month since the great depression. Home prices keep falling. Foreclosures keep coming and gas prices keep rising. That's what people say they care about most, not John McCain's war record or Barack Obama's church life. Or even another terror attack. And said the bottom line for most people seems to be exactly that, the bottom line, your money, your vote. The question tonight, what are the candidates going to do about it? Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: In the end, the presidency may come down to this -- which one will fix the things that ail the economy? Who hears the high anxiety?</s>SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've talked to families who are having to make different choices about the food they buy because they're out an extra $100 or $150 or even $200 a month that used to go to groceries now goes to the gas tank.</s>CROWLEY: Which one feels the pressing nature of an economy gone sour?</s>SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, (R) PRESUMPTIVE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Who's suffering the most? Who's bearing the brunt of this? The low income worker on fixed income that drives the oldest cars. Those are the largest gas consumption cars, we know that. The brunt of this, of this incredible increase in the cost of a gallon of oil is being borne by the lowest income Americans.</s>CROWLEY: The economy now dominates the campaign trail as it dominates American households. In the latest CNN Opinion Research Corporation poll, 58 percent of registered voters said the economy was extremely important to their vote. Eight points higher than Iraq, the largest gap since the war began. The campaign trail, once separated by who was for and who was against the war is now littered with ten-point plans and long-term proposals.</s>MCCAIN: America's dependence on foreign oil was a troubling situation 35 years ago. It was an alarming situation 20 years ago. It's a dangerous situation today.</s>CROWLEY: John McCain wants a huge step-up on the production side of the energy equation. That includes more nuclear power plants and offshore oil drilling. In the short term, he favors temporarily lifting the federal gas tax. Barack Obama's plan leans more heavily on alternative energy, calling for a $150 billion infusion for research and development. He envisions an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050. He opposes the gas tax holiday and offshore drilling.</s>OBAMA: I want to provide tax breaks to working families; $1,000 tax- break for a family so that 95 percent of voters will see their tax bill go down in an Obama administration.</s>CROWLEY: For a long-term boost to the economy, Barack Obama would extend the Bush tax-cuts for those making $250,000 a year or less. He promises to restore fairness to the tax code and give an immediate stimulus to the economy with tax relief for middle income families. John McCain proposes making all the Bush tax cuts permanent, reducing the corporate tax rate, and doubling the exemption for dependents. Both favor a plan to help homeowners whose mortgage is larger than the value of their home. It is an awesome set of challenges, but as detailed as ten-point plans may be, they are political documents designed to win votes. The question is which man will actually deliver when it comes to policy? Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.</s>COOPER: So who's connecting with the voters on a pocketbook level? Here for our "Strategy Session," GOP strategist and CNN contributor, Ed Rollins, Marcus, Mabry International Business Center "The New York Times" and Democratic strategist Robert Zimmerman. Marcus. let's start off with you, are either of these two candidates doing as much as they can on the economy?</s>MARCUS MABRY, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Anderson, I don't think they are. I find it incredibly surprising, a little consternating frankly. Clearly, McCain has a bigger problem here, because he has an association with the current president and the current administration. Of course, on the economy George Bush gets incredibly low marks. However, McCain has been the one who in the last few days we've seen him in factories in Pennsylvania talking to working class Americans. We've seen Barack Obama somehow out in Independence, Missouri, the home of Harry S Truman, defending his own patriotism record. Now I understand why Obama is doing that, the Republicans are attacking him in many states saying that he lacks patriotism, saying things that aren't true, such as he doesn't salute the flag when saying the Pledge of Allegiance. However, I think we can take a lesson here from the Bill Clinton first campaign, which is it's the economy, stupid. And I don't understand why the Obama campaign has not consistently hit over and over and over again on the economic message. Why have we not seen Barack Obama in factories, in swing states, going through Appalachia, talking to white working class voters?</s>COOPER: Robert, what about that I mean you're a Democrat. Why isn't Obama doing that?</s>ROBERT ZIMMERMAN, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE MEMBER: Well, actually he has been doing that. He's had 16 months in this Democratic primary process where the focus has been the issue of fair trade versus free trade, how to revive the economy, development of green jobs, tax cuts for working middle class. The issue here is, though is not to understand where Marcus is coming from because right now the Obama campaign is in a different stage than the McCain campaign. He's just become the nominee. He's introducing himself to the American people. And so he's connecting with them in a personal way, introducing himself biographically, talking about patriotism and his life story, talking about faith and what it means to him -- and what it means to him personally and what it means to America. And at the same time, he's also been highlighting the economy and other environmental issues as well.</s>COOPER: Ed, do you agree with Marcus that John McCain is at a disadvantage of this because of a linkage with George Bush?</s>ED ROLLINS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, John McCain has to basically have an empathy for ordinary people. We have a perfect example. He mentioned the Clinton campaign. The other side of that is George Bush, who is a great international president, could not relate to ordinary people. People did not want to throw him out but they didn't think he related to their lives. John McCain, he's going to Colombia, he's going to Mexico, talks about NAFTA. How does that relate to ordinary working people here? That you're trying to basically to make sure that Colombians and Mexicans have jobs as opposed to Americans have jobs. The next 19 weeks, 18 and a half weeks that we have left here, every single day if I was running this campaign, I would be talking about jobs. How do you rebuild the infrastructure? Neither of these economic plans, and neither the economic expert, Robert has rich friends, I don't have rich friends. But at the end of the day, no one knows which of these plans is going to work. But what people want to know is do you understand how much I'm hurting and do you care and are you going to try and make my life a priority?</s>COOPER: Marcus, in reality, is there much the president can do about the economy?</s>MABRY: Well, this is a debate that we hear over and over again. And while usually the argument is no, the president gets blamed for the economy, however, the president actually is surprisingly helpless to really make a difference in the economy. I don't really believe that. I think the pro-growth policies that a president can establish thus makes a difference. I think certainly Ed can talk about history here and expertise. He can talk about the realities of them, for instance, what Ronald Reagan thought when he came into office and what were the realities once he got to office. I think presidents do make a difference because presidents set policies. They either allow the economy to grow or make it so the economy has to overcome that president's policies.</s>ZIMMERMAN: I think the best example of Marcus's point is the economy that George W. Bush inherited and what his economic policies and his tax cuts for the very wealthy really produced amongst other agendas that he pursued economically. But the point here that I think is significant is that both the McCain and Obama campaigns are presenting two very different economic philosophies. What those struggles will be if either one is president after Congress reviews them remains to be seen. But we clearly have two very different economic agendas Candy laid out in her set-up piece. John McCain is certainly advocating tax cuts; continuing the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy. That's his belief. Barack Obama is certainly talking about tax cuts for middle income workers.</s>COOPER: It is to your point, though Ed why they're not out there every day talking about this; or certainly John McCain at least I mean it is strange because they hear about this every day. I mean in town hall meetings, this is what people are talking about.</s>ROLLINS: John McCain has hurt himself so badly by saying, I don't know anything about the economy as opposed to saying I've been chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. There have some of the answers he's been even chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Commerce relates to everyday business. That's what he ought to be talking about. Here's what I am going to do as chairman of the senate commerce -- here's what I am going to do as the president, I'm going to put people back to work, I'm going have us rebuild our infrastructure, I'm going to help reset priorities of this country and that's what's going to be very important. Americans going back to work by Americans spending their money, buying American goods and the government basically saying defense contracts, building fences, whatever, building bridges, we're going to do it with American dollars. We'll go a long ways to stimulating this economy.</s>COOPER: We're going to have to leave it there. Marcus Mabry, Robert Zimmerman, Ed Rollins thanks very much, good discussion, good conversation. You can join online as well in our conversation. We're blogging throughout the show. Just go to our new Website, ac360.com. The conversation is already under way. Up next, Barack Obama trying to capture Evangelical voters. Now he spoke out on faith today, got behind one of President Bush's faith- based programs and a lot more. Up next, you may be surprised though to hear how Barack Obama is reaching out to the faithful and how it's likely to play. Also, tonight a breaking story, unfolding as we speak; the capture of a suspected mass murderer, this guy, eight killings, one suspect, late details coming up. And new details on a woman's death in a hospital waiting room all of it caught on tape. You see her collapse there on the right hand side of the screen. How do you die in a hospital without ever getting help? Well, you're looking at it. We're going to look at how it happened and why didn't anyone in the waiting room at least get up and try to help her? We're "Keeping them Honest" tonight on "360."