With the financial sectors taking a severe beating, both presidential candidates are doing their level best to position themselves as the antithesis and saviors of the government manufactured mayhem.

It's a tough sell for both candidates. The party holding the executive branch tends to get credit for the good and blamed for the bad. This hurts John McCain. However, we have a majority Democratic party in Congress with even lower approval ratings than the president.

John McCain is trying to gain traction by citing his call, two years ago, for reform legislation of GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. McCain's bill never made it out of committee.

On the other side of the aisle, Barack Obama is selling himself as the agent of change. In this case, Obama will have trouble convincing anyone paying attention. Before GSE CEOs walked away with millions, they wrote substantial checks to the Obama campaign. The top three Freddie and Fannie cash recipients were all Democrats. Obama was number two on the list.

GreenFaucet proprietor and Red County contributor, Chip Hanlon spelled out his thoughts on this week's market fallout in a recent GreenFaucet post entitled, Why John McCain May Have Already Lost. This is a perspective worth noting, as Hanlon knows the financial markets like Obama knows hope.