When this should be his moment, Obama has so far failed to come up with a series of phrases which pin economic failure on the Republicans.
And he is still being far too professorial and polite to McCain.
But the tide of the times is now flowing in Obama's direction.
Wall Street is a largely Republican animal and McCain's efforts to disassociate himself from it and his party's legacy is forcing him into all manner of contortions.
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Witness the row this week when he said that the "fundamentals of the economy are sound".
You can see what he was trying to do, not wanting to talk down the economy and attempting to look reassuring on a subject in which he has little experience or even interest.
No matter, in the context of Wall Street carnage he just sounded remote.
Now there are to be congressional hearings within weeks, with Bush administration officials being grilled along with disgraced Wall Street former masters of the universe such as Mr. Fuld.
I cannot wait for the public hearing involving Fuld, the Lehman Brothers chief executive and financial ex-genius.
One of the best features of muscular American capitalism is the ritual humiliation served up to the powerful when they lose lots of other people's money in a questionable fashion.
Get ready for another round of punishment in public and Congress laying the ground for an overhaul of financial regulation.
This suits Obama, as the political climate is set to change.
Even many of the voters who a few weeks ago were enlivened by the appearance of the moose-hunter in lipstick are going to look at McCain and Obama in the weeks ahead and ask: which of this pair appears more associated with the era, now ending, of rampant irresponsibility and calamity and which looks more like the kind of figure who, in time, might be a focal point for the generation of some confidence, optimism about the future and recovery.
That gives Obama the advantage.
None of this was John McCain's fault.
But he even looks a little like Herbert Hoover, the Republican on whose watch the Great Depression began.
