Forget the relative skills, races, proposals and funds of Obama and McCain. Does an awful economy doom the nominee of the party in power, short of a calamity for the challenger? Probably yes, as Air America's 7 Days panel discusses. Events are in the saddle.

Political economist Edward R. Tufte of Yale has posited a simple model that has predicted every presidential election since 1980 except one – if the economic growth rate is greater than 3% in the year of the election, the party controlling the White House wins – and if it isn't, it doesn’t. (The exception was 2000 when Bush somehow hung Lewinsky around Gore.)

It’s John McCain’s misfortune to inherit a weak economy that’s growing at under 2% but that also endures:

^gas prices at $4-$5 a gallon due to international speculation and inadequate conservation;

^home foreclosures up 50% over last year, due to lender fraud and borrower exuberance;

^unemployment rising last month more than at any time in the past 20 years, as high energy prices ripple throughout the economy;

^a level of wealth & income inequality not seen since the 1890s and 1930s, due to the decline in unions and tax policies shifting the tax burden from capital to labor;

^millions losing health care insurance as employers drop coverage;

^climate change creating weather extremes because we’re hooked on a carbon-based economy;

^the collapse of Bear Stearns and near collapse of other investment banking firms;

^and a falling dollar and rising trade deficits as American live beyond their means and can no longer make up the shortfall by using credit cards or borrowing against their shrinking home equity or getting spouses to work for second incomes.

Listen: 7 Days In America: Bernstein, Huffington, Green & Reagan

Many Democrats are fretting the fact that while a generic Democrat presidentially beats a generic Republican by 15 points, an Obama-McCain contest now is a near-tie, with RealClearPolitics putting the electoral math at 272-266 for Obama. But the Democrat is significantly stronger than today’s polls indicate. While he certainly sounds good, as was said of Wagner’s music, he’s even better than he sounds.

Listen: Mark Green with Michael Dukakis

Scott McClellan’s book What Happened has been a feast for cable talk shows and commentators everywhere, with much discussion veering off on his motives. The Bush Team went into overdrive with its smear gear. Disgruntled? Money grubbing? Out of the loop? Off his rocker? A Manchurian author controlled by his North-Korean-like publisher? In a laughable attempt to blame the radar gun for the speeder, apologists Michele Bernard and Michael Smerconish actually argued on MSNBC that the big story was whether McClellan wrote the book in order to defeat McCain.
Listen: 7 Days In America: Zimmerman, Huffington, Green & Conason