Election 2008: Real Issues?

I'll be the first to say that I like that online journalism allows people to read more feature articles than in a newspaper. As someone that will one day write feature articles for a living (hopefully), it lets me know that people appreciate reading about a variety of things related to important topics.

During this presidential campaign, there have been dozens and dozens of feature articles written about Barack Obama and John McCain, their vice-presidential picks, and the election in general.

For instance, at CNN.com, there is an article by Roland Martin about some of the sensitive topics surrounding the upcoming election, such as race and gender.

At The New York Times.com, there's an article by John M. Broder about Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden's preparation for an upcoming debate with Sarah Palin.

These articles are quite interesting. However, I've realized in the last few months that not many articles have been written about the most important issue in the upcoming election. And that is our frail economy.

Forget the war in Iraq. Forget about global warming. Right now our economy is on the ropes and neither candidate seems to say much about it. Perhaps since no one in the media really presses the issue, both Obama and McCain continue to avoid it.

That's why I was glad to see an article written the other day about America's huge federal deficit. In this piece, David Lightman and Kevin G. Hall discuss how the government's over-spending has weakened the dollar, which feeds inflation and will raise the country's debt to over $10 trillion.

Why aren't more articles like this being written? Is it because they scare people? Is it because they aren't as light as say, articles about the candidates' families?

I'd like to make it clear that I'm not knocking the fact that feature articles are being written about the various topics surrounding this election. I'm just saying I'd like to see more things written about significant ones.