On NBC’s “Today” show, Matt Lauer, from the floor of the New York Stock exchange, described Monday’s 500-point drop as a “bloodbath” and asked Mr. McCain how he could say that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” while his campaign released an ad saying that the economy is in crisis…

Mr. McCain replied by saying that when he spoke about the fundamentals of the economy, he was referring to the workers – which is different from how he has described the term before.

“Well it’s obviously true that the workers of America are the fundamentals of our economy, and our strength and our future,’’ he said. “And I believe in the American worker, and someone who disagrees with that – it’s fine. We are in crisis. We all know that. The excess, the greed and the corruption of Wall Street have caused us to have a situation which is going to affect every American. We are in a total crisis.’’

Mr. Lauer asked if there was something wrong with the fundamentals of the economy that was causing the difficulty.

“There’s nothing wrong with the workers of America,’’ he said. “I believe that they’re the fundamentals. You may not, others may not. I think that the worker of America is the reason that we’ve been the preeminent economy in the world for a long, long period of time. America is in crisis today.’’

“We need a 9/11 commission, and we need a commission to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it,’’ he said. “And I know we can do it and how to do it.”

He continued the reformulation – that when he says the fundamentals of the economy, he is referring to the workers – at the rally here. “The working people of the state of Florida and this nation are the most innovative, hardest working, the best-skilled, most productive, most competitive in the world,’’ he said. “And this foundation of our economy, the American worker, is strong. But it’s been put a great risk by the greed and mismanagement of Wall Street and Washington.’’