NASHVILLE, TN- For months now, Democrats have been repeating the accusation that Senator McCain is out of touch with the economy, but the truth is that he has a better sense of the current financial mess than anyone else in Washington at the moment. One need only look at his poll numbers, tanking apace with the stock market, to see that he understands the pain of recession all too well.

Over the last ten days, the McCain campaign has fallen behind in five key swing states. More and more it seems that McCain, like the economy, has been beset with a string of bad luck. As a matter of fact, McCain was lucky to even make it to the debate on time. According to sources close to the Senator, the group spent most of Tuesday afternoon stranded in a small Tennessee town making emergency repairs to the Straight Talk Express campaign bus. Apparently, the wheels had come off.

During the contentious debate, moderator Tom Brokaw asked McCain how he planned to repair the ailing economy when he has admitted freely that he has virtually no knowledge or expertise in financial matters

"I admit that I don't know much about the economy," said McCain sheepishly. "But there is one thing I do know: Barack Hussein Obama sat at a table in the same room as former Weatherman Underground member Bill Ayers, and according to the Bush doctrine, that makes him a terrorist."

With that, McCain stepped away from his podium and refused to continue the debate until security personnel had given Obama a full body cavity search. However, McCain's gambit seemed to backfire when Obama consented to the procedure and officials failed to find William Ayers hiding up there. McCain was speechless. After spending eight years ticked inside George W. Bush's rectum, he was sure that Obama must be hiding someone in the dark recesses of his colon. He insisted that they check again, but by then it was clear that he was losing the crowd.

Moments later, an audience member asked McCain if he wanted to respond to widespread rumors that the Senator, who recently said that he was unsure of how many homes he owns, cannot even balance a checkbook. Before he had a chance to answer, Brokaw quickly reminded him that once again relating the issue back to his time as a POW would not be an acceptable answer.

"My friends, for five and a half years I wasn't allowed to- Oh ... Cindy pays the bills," he admitted. "It's all her money, anyway. But you people keep changing the subject. You keep bringing the discussion back to the economy when we have a bona fide terrorist right here on stage tonight. You're ducking my answers with your questions."

It was some time later, in response to an audience member's question about his position on credit default swaps and naked short selling, when McCain lad it all out- his theory that Ayers and Obama had secretly worked out an elaborate plan to destabilize the American economy and thus put the Republicans at a steep disadvantage in November. To McCain, it all seemed too neat a coincidence that the Wall Street meltdown should occur during the last act of a Presidential election cycle. It was Obama and Ayers who forced brokerages to over-extend themselves on margin, Obama and Ayers who caused lenders to grant mortgages to borrowers barely qualified to buy a pack of gum, Obama and Ayers who pulled out the last Jenga block that sent the whole of Wall Street tumbling.

Astonishingly Obama denied nothing.

It was at this point, according to the Drudge Report, that Obama opened his suit coat and detonated his suicide belt, taking the lives of everyone in the auditorium- or something like that. I didn't actually watch it.