All eyes are on Wall Street this morning to see what signals it’s going to send in respect of the prospects for a recession. The news yesterday from the overseas markets was certainly sobering, and many New Yorkers spent the day trying to reach their brokers. No doubt at least a few of the sellers read Senator Clinton’s interview with the New York Times, in which she vowed that if she were to become president she would push the top marginal tax rate back up to 39.5% and try to get back “the appropriate balance of power between government and the market.”

President Reagan used to say that the most frightening words in the English language were “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.” But a government agent talking about “the appropriate balance” over power between the government and the markets is right up there. The enormous executive pay packages Mrs. Clinton is bellyaching about, after all, were crafted with equity compensation because the government, seeking an appropriate balance, sought to limit tax deductibility of big salaries corporations might have paid.

These kinds of ironies are all over for the exploiting by the agile campaigners as the presidential race unfolds. Much of the stress on American markets has come from Sarbanes-Oxley driving business offshore. Add to that the chatter among the Democrats — and some Republicans — attacking big business and suggesting that the temptation toward protectionism is in the air. This includes not only the resistance we hear about the various trade pacts but also the resistance to immigration, legal or otherwise.

This all strikes us as a great opportunity for those with the supply-side instinct. Mayor Giuliani, who has been largely silent in the early weeks of the campaign, launched his campaign on overtly supply side themes. Mr. Bush has shrewdly put tax cuts at the front of his stimulus package, but the whole scheme is riddled with Keynesian spending, as Senator McCain has noted. This is a period during which politicians are going to be remembered for the stands they took. Whether a recession strikes or just the fear of one, the voters will be looking for someone who understands business and capitalism and markets and who maybe even has led a government out of a recession, qualifications that belong not only to Messrs. Giuliani and Romney but — let us not count him out — our own Mayor Bloomberg.