Is it still, "it's the economy, stupid"?

Conventional wisdom says that voters vote their pocketbooks. Yet here we are in the midst of a severe downturn. The stock market is down steeply. Credit is hard to get. The unemployment rate is higher than it has been in maybe over a decade. Some people have compared this situation to the recession in the late 80s. Some, perhaps to the Carter recession.

By the conventional wisdom, Obama should be way out in the lead. But he’s not. He may even lose.

Is he an inept politician? Is it racism? Does the economy no longer matter? Has McCain managed to wall himself off from being a Washington insider, so he can say he represents a new and different way of fixing the economy?

Right or left, Republican or Democrat, what’s your analysis of the impact the economy has had on this campaign?