Obama, McCain face off in Wall Street Journal

Barack Obama and John McCain, here in the final debate last month at Hofstra University, wrote dueling columns.

(CNN) - Both major party presidential candidates made a final pitch to readers of The Wall Street Journal on Monday on the newspaper's opinion page.

The columns penned by Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama echoed their stump speeches, with the Democrat charging that McCain's economic policies would be a reprise of President Bush and the Republican saying Obama would raise taxes and restrict trade.

But they were in agreement in their opening paragraphs as each candidate said the nation is suffering the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Obama called this "a defining moment," while McCain declared it "a pivotal moment."

Obama and McCain both called for a break from the Bush administration.

Obama: "At a moment like this, we can't afford four more years of spending increases, poorly designed tax cuts, or the complete lack of regulatory oversight that even former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan now believes was a mistake. America needs a new direction."

McCain: "But we cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight: waiting for our luck to change. We have to act immediately. We have to fight for it."

The Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls diverge on who would be best to fix the economy.

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