NYC/DC isolation

Watching the recent press conferences of President-Elect Obama, one imagines how much more anxiety-provoking a similar conference would be if held by John McCain. In hindsight, I wonder how much of the election was based solely on the economy much earlier than people in NYC and DC realized (given their isolation from the economies of the rest of the country). As job losses and the recession started in earnest some time ago, I suspect that the bulk of the population was more nervous about the economy than those in NYC and DC. Especially DC as a change in administration has a much bigger effect on jobs than change in the economy.