Regulate, baby, regulate

So the economy is in the toilet big time today and I'm listening to McCain's speech in Florida where he says, among other things, that Wall Street needs more regulation. Huh? Because the Republican party is all about regulating private industry. He's either flat out lying, and has no intention of suggesting such a thing once he's elected, or he's really bucking his party. Of course the audience duly applauded, as they do no matter what McCain or Palin say. Here's how the NY Times covered it:

On the campaign trail on Monday, Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, struck a populist tone. Speaking in Florida, he said that the economy’s underlying fundamentals remained strong but were being threatened “because of the greed by some based in Wall Street and we have got to fix it.”

But his record on the issue, and the views of those he has always cited as his most influential advisers, suggest that he has never departed in any major way from his party’s embrace of deregulation and relying more on market forces than on the government to exert discipline.

While Mr. McCain has cited the need for additional oversight when it comes to specific situations, like the mortgage problems behind the current shocks on Wall Street, he has consistently characterized himself as fundamentally a deregulator and he has no history prior to the presidential campaign of advocating steps to tighten standards on investment firms.