White House foes Barack Obama and John McCain vowed to crack down on Wall Street excess Tuesday but slammed one another as unfit to fix the economy.
Democrat Obama vowed to purge a financial system and accused his rival of doing nothing to prevent the meltdown sparked by the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, and condemned McCain's comment that the economy was still strong.
McCain bemoaned recklessness and "corruption" on Wall Street and pledged to end the corporate "greed" that he said had damaged the US economy, and his campaign said Obama brought nothing new and pessimism to the debate.
Each candidate is trying to leverage the latest crisis, and the punishing debt, foreclosures and rising job losses hurting the US economy to their own political gain, just 49 days before the election.