Analysis: Events help both candidates on the economy

WASHINGTON (CNN) ­ -- Sen. Barack Obama's trip abroad was a very smartly stage-managed extravaganza, and it may well have accomplished the goal of the campaign: to assuage Americans that Obama can stand toe to toe with foreign leaders.

It's not as if he got a great bounce out of the trip: While his poll numbers did increase slightly, some of the numbers in key battleground states appeared to close. So it's hard to tell this soon.

What we do know is that neither Obama, the presumed Democratic nominee for president, nor Sen. John McCain, the probable Republican nominee, can get to the magic 50 percent number in the polls, and that's not great for either fellow.

Both know they have lots of work left. And it's on the economy.

Obama had barely landed from London, England, when he was playing host to a D.C.-based economic confab including some of America's best-known economic gurus -- Warren Buffet, former Fed chairman Paul Volcker and former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin (can you spell Hillary Clinton supporter?), not to mention Paul O'Neill (who wrote a kiss-and-tell about his days as George W. Bush's treasury secretary).

The Obama campaign understands full well that, despite his need to shore up his commander-in-chief credentials, he also needs to let voters know he can handle their economic anxieties.

Both fellows need some help, and they're getting it. In fact, it's ironic, in a way, that neither candidate's strong suit is the economy: McCain once famously admitted that it's not his area of expertise, and Obama has a very short history of dealing with national economic issues. Watch advisers debate who would be best to handle economy »

In McCain's case, there's lots of chatter that the best way he can get that help -- and put it front and center -- is from Mitt Romney. There are even folks in the campaign who feel the same way (and then there's the small matter that Romney can actually help McCain win the important state of Michigan). But I digress.

The economic issue can morph into just another way to prove a candidate's leadership credentials or, in other words, whatever a candidate wants it to be.

In McCain's case, the economy has become a dual matter -- of national security and competent management.

When McCain talks about lower gas prices (aside from his hokey gas-tax holiday), he talks about offshore drilling as a key option. More production will eventually (years down the road) mean lower prices, but also -- and even just as importantly -- McCain makes the case for energy independence.

That, he says, is a matter of national security -- and Americans get it.

Voters also understand that a projected $482 billion budget deficit is not a good thing.

Here again, McCain can turn this bad news into a two-fer, a way to show how his leadership as a reformer (i.e. against pork-barrel spending) who could reduce the deficit. He can also use the bad news as a way to distance himself from veto-shy President Bush.

Both could help his quest for the support of fiscal conservatives.

Obama, of course, has an easier case to make. He can turn the economy into a natural case for change.

He doesn't have to prove he's different from President Bush on the economy; he is.

He opposes the extension of the president's tax cuts; he's for cutting corporate tax loopholes. He'll have to explain, of course, how the country can afford "tax cuts for the middle class," but lots of hurting voters won't be asking that question now.

McCain is making the case for a balanced budget; Obama's lack of interest in making that commitment probably won't hurt him much with hurting voters.

This presidential election, like most, will come down to questions of character and leadership. And it's not just on the war in Iraq. It's about people's lives.

The nation's economic problems are a way for voters to test their candidates: They want to be reassured, and they're looking for answers, not pabulum.

All About National Economy • Barack Obama • John McCain