A week — even a day — can make a world of difference in a presidential election. Witness the fact that nearly right up to the minute the still-unfolding Wall Street crisis came to a boil, the issue getting the most play in campaign speeches was oil prices. There was even a fair amount of speculation that one of John McCain’s primary motives for placing Sarah Palin second on his ticket was her geographic proximity to the Alaskan oil fields and her support of the effort to allow further exploration of them.
