KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Never mind the shiny new economic stimulus package coming out of Washington. Presidential candidates these days can't help being all economy, all the time.

"That's why The Wall Street Journal, in a survey of economists, recently wrote that the majority of economists thought that I could handle the nation's economy best," Sen. John McCain of Arizona said in Thursday night's GOP debate.

And never mind that the next president won't take office for another year, presumably long after Washington enacts some sort of recovery plan, and perhaps after an actual recovery. With stock prices, home sales and retail sales tanking, the economy has rocketed into the pre-eminent position among national issues, and the presidential candidates have noticed.

No wonder the political airways these days are full of words like "stimulus," "jump start" and "long-term fix."

It's still the economy, stupid.

"Those things that are the most immediate are usually the issues that are the most significant," said Kansas State University political scientist Joe Aistrup. "The economy usually trumps just about every other issue if it's a problem."

It's as if hardly anyone still wants to talk about Iraq or terrorism, concerns that dominated the polls for months.

CALL FOR TAX CUTS

Democrat John Edwards talks about the need for "green" jobs. McCain touts middle-class tax cuts. Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton calls for spending $30 billion to stave off home foreclosures.

"The Bush economy is like a trapdoor — too many families are one pink slip, one missed mortgage payment, one medical diagnosis from falling through and losing everything," Clinton says in a new TV ad now airing in Missouri.

Republicans and Democrats head in different directions with their plans, although nearly everyone is lukewarm at best on the new stimulus package.

Typical was former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican, who said yesterday that the plan is "better than nothing." He said the money could better be spent widening Interstate 95 from Maine to Miami, a corridor that carries a big chunk of the nation's traffic.

AVERTING FORECLOSURES

Republican Rudy Giuliani said simply of the plan, "It doesn't go far enough."

Democrats spar over who has the most effective economic stimulus package.

"We need action across the board," Clinton said in a statement Tuesday. "And it's imperative that the president and his economic team instill confidence in the competence of our government to take on what is clearly now a global crisis that could very well thrust us into a deep, long recession. We've got to do everything we can to avoid that."

Sen. Barack Obama in a Monday debate said: "It is absolutely critical right now to give a stimulus to the economy."

Clinton's $70 billion plan includes $30 billion to help avert home foreclosures, $25 billion for home heating grants for the poor, $5 billion for job-creating energy conservation grants and $10 billion for unemployment insurance. If the economy doesn't pick up quickly enough, she would allocate $40 billion more in tax rebates.

Obama's plan includes a $1,000-a-family tax credit, elimination of income taxes for elderly workers making under $50,000 a year and repealing Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina, was first out of the gate with an economic-stimulus plan that he proposed before Christmas. The cornerstone of his plan is $25 billion to encourage green-sector jobs.

"One difference between what I have proposed and what my two colleagues have proposed is I have done something that not only stimulates the economy, but creates long-term benefits, investment in green infrastructure," Edwards said.

On the Republican side, McCain calls for middle-class tax cuts and repeal of the alternative minimum tax, which was aimed at ensuring the wealthiest Americans pay some income taxes, but now affects growing numbers of upper middle income households.

Huckabee has not laid out a specific stimulus program, saying his plan is for the long term and involves tax cutting.

Republican Mitt Romney advocates a three-step plan that calls for a reduction in the lowest income-tax bracket, elimination of payroll taxes on seniors and making middle-class savings tax-free. He's already up with a new TV spot in Florida that touts his life spent "in the real economy," running a business and the Olympics.