We need to take a deep breath, step back from personal attacks and have courage.

I keep a copy of Franklin Roosevelt's "Fireside Chats" on my desk. Last week was a week when I needed them for reassurance.

On Monday the Dow Jones average dropped 370 points. On Tuesday it dropped 508 points. Wednesday 189 points. Thursday 579 points.

On Friday the Dow ended up "only" down 128 points after being down as much as 700 points late in the day. It was the worst week in Wall Street history.

Jim Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, noted the panic in the market, remarking "Money, like sex, brings out much heavy breathing and little stored knowledge."

Let us hope that sober reflection over the long weekend will bring some buyers into the market in coming days. I believe the fundamentals of our economy are sound.

The several medium-sized businesses with which I am involved continue to be strong, benefiting from off-shore markets and a weak dollar.

The Fed actions are appropriate and should build liquidity back into the banking system. I am a buyer in this market. Where are my fellow readers of Roosevelt when we need them?

But that wasn't all that was scary about the week. You will remember that we are in the final phases of a presidential election.

The crisis in financial markets has resulted in a surge of support for Barack Obama. One of the most reliable independent political tracking sites, www.fivethirtyeight.com, has Obama at 349 electoral votes (270 are needed for victory).

Certainly Obama's calm and steady approach to the economic crisis has contrasted with McCain's lurching from one position to another.

McCain has yet to articulate a coherent policy on the economy, and he is paying a price for this at the polls.

Apparently as a result of this shift in voter sentiment, the McCain camp decided that its only hope was to attack Obama's character.

Both McCain and Sarah Palin started to use their rallies to whip up the party faithful by calling Obama one who consorts with terrorists (a claim stemming from Obama's volunteering on an education improvement group that included a university professor who was, 40 years ago, part of a radical organization called "Weathermen").

Every investigation of these claims suggests Obama's association was akin to that of someone with whom you or I might have served with on a school board or town council. However, these tactics incensed their crowds to shouts intimating violence to Obama.

The clips played over and over again on You Tube were ugly, and potentially dangerous to the first black candidate for president.

By late in the week McCain realized things were getting out of hand and moved to tone down the rhetoric, thank God. He apparently admonished Palin to do the same.

Nonetheless, it was yet another demonstration of absence of sound judgment.

It has hurt the McCain candidacy. More accurately, if it hasn't hurt the McCain candidacy, we Americans have a greater reckoning coming to us than either the election or the economy. We will have abrogated any claim to moral leadership in the world.

It is time for all of us to take a collective deep breath or two both on the economy and on the election. Most times things are not as bad as they seem to be.

On the electoral front we will get to the election soon, three short weeks. Whichever candidate wins, the Republic will survive.

Obama may have better policy options and a reassuring sense that he will be a good steward of our trust, but John McCain is a credible, experienced politician who has the capability to be better than his recent actions.

Whoever wins will inherit an economic situation that will demand a steady hand on the tiller.

Despite the promises of each candidate, either's first term will be focused on restoring confidence and liquidity in the financial system, to minimizing the effects of a sure recession, and to dealing with issues in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran that are both urgent and intractable.

At this time it is helpful to remember Roosevelt's words: "Confidence and courage are the essentials of success in carrying out our plan. You people must have faith; let us unite in banishing fear. It is your problem, my friends, your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail."