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Before returning to Hawaii to visit his critically ill 86-year-old grandmother, Obama takes another shot at McCain’s and Palin’s economic proposals.

Obama takes time out to be with sick 86-year-old grandmother, lambastes Mccain on gop’s economic proposals

Starting on Thursday, democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama will be in Hawaii to be with his 86-year-old grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who helped raise him. According to recent reports, she has broken her hip and is near death. However, according to an ABC report, before Obama takes off to deal with his personal business, he wasted no time in slamming McCain’s economic proposals again.

Before heading off to Hawaii, Obama held a forum with key allies, including Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, a democrat, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, a democrat, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a former democratic presidential candidate, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, a democrat, Google chairman & CEO Eric Schmidt and former Fed chief Paul Volcker, one of Obama’s informal advisors.

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Here’s what Obama had to say about Bush’s (and by association, McCain’s) economic policies: “While President Bush and Sen. McCain were ready to move heaven and earth to address the crisis on Wall Street, the president has failed to address the crisis on Main Street – and Sen. McCain has failed to fully acknowledge it. Instead of common sense solutions, month after month, they’ve offered little more than willful ignorance, wishful thinking and outdated ideology”. Which one of these is most powerful? Willful ignorance. Being ignorant and not knowing it means that someone is naïve, but “willfully” doing so = deception.

Strickland chipped in, saying that “Ohio’s economy was suffering from the Bush administration policies”, adding that“I was in the same community where Joe the plumber lives. He said “you tell Sen. Obama that the ironworker is building a bridge for him to the White House”. This is significant because Obama failed to win over white, working class voters during the primaries and caucuses, with many choosing former rival Hillary Clinton.

Obama also hit back at Sarah Palin who said that “..now is not the time for socialism”, conveniently latching on to McCain’s claim that Obama’s tax credit plan is “another government tax giveaway”: “What he’s confusing is the fact that even if you don’t pay income tax, you’re still paying a whole lot of other taxes. You’re paying payroll, which is a huge burden on many middle class families. You’re paying sales taxes, you’re paying property taxes”. Obama is undoubtedly getting some of these ideas from working class politicians, including his running mate, Joe Biden and perhaps even former rival Hillary Clinton!