“Listening to them, you'd think that we were in the middle of a Great Depression,” Mr Thompson said. The delegates laughed.
Mr Thompson had some reason to be optimistic. But a month later, with 25 days before Americans go to the polls, no one is playing down the severity of US economic woes.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com, told the Financial Times: “Recession is evident in most parts of the country.” Twenty-seven of America's 50 states are technically in recession, according to his data, and a further 14 are very close to that point.
Most economists believe that the past month's crisis on Wall Street will push the US into a full-blown recession later this year.
With credit markets seizing up, it has become difficult for businesses, as well as state and local governments, to borrow money to fund their daily operations.
California – the biggest economy in the union (and generally a safe Democratic state) – has had to go to the federal government for help with its funding needs.
“The financial crisis is not leaking into the real economy, it is cascading into the real economy,” said a Democratic congressional aide, reflecting on the soaring volume of worried calls from constituents.
Many Americans' retirement savings have been severely dented by falling stock prices – a particular concern for those aged over 50, who tend to vote in large numbers.
Slightly more than 750,000 jobs have been lost since the start of the year and the rate of losses increased from an average of 75,000 a month in the first eight months of the year to 159,000 in September.
Young people (aged 15 to 19) have suffered the biggest jump in unemployment – to 19.1 per cent from 15.8 per cent a year ago – a reason why this group may be keen on a “change” candidate.
The job losses are unremarkable by the standards of past recessions. But the combination of lost housing and equity wealth, lost jobs, lost access to credit and still high petrol prices adds up to what Richard Berner, the co-head of global economics at Morgan Stanley, calls a “perfect storm” for US households.
However, while most parts of the US are grappling rising unemployment, falling house prices and sluggish consumer spending, there are big regional variations. Many of the key swing states in the presidential race are suffering disproportionate economic pain.
For example, Florida and Nevada have been among the hardest hit by the housing crisis. Home prices in Miami and Las Vegas fell respectively by 28.2 and 29.9 per cent on an annual basis in July, according to Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller index.
While the unemployment rate was well below the national average in both states only two years ago, it has since soared above it, from a low of 3.3 per cent in 2006 to 6.5 per cent in August this year in Florida and from 4.1 per cent to 7.1 per cent over the same time period in Nevada.
In “rustbelt” swing states such as Ohio, Michigan and parts of Pennsylvania, the mortgage meltdown and high petrol prices – which have crippled automobile production – have added to the longstanding problems in labour-intensive heavy industries.
Although that has been partly mitigated by export-led growth in other sectors of manufacturing, export growth has not been very labour intensive and these regions have some of the highest unemployment rates in the country, with 8.9 per cent in Michigan and 7.4 per cent in Ohio.
On the other hand, a number of states have held up economically during the downturn. But their political significance is muted since most are reliably Republican or Democratic.
Much of the Midwestern farmbelt and parts of the mountain west, such as Wyoming and Montana, have benefited from the high prices of agricultural products and other commodities, including oil.
Texas, a transport and information-technology hub as well as a beneficiary of high commodity prices, has the same unemployment rate – 5 per cent – as two years ago. These states are expected overwhelmingly to back John McCain.
In the north-east and parts of the south, larger-than- average healthcare and education sectors have helped insulate regional economies from the brunt of the pain, though there are fears about financial centres such as New York City and Charlotte, North Carolina. The north-east is expected overwhelmingly to vote for Mr Obama.
Three swing states appear to be straddling both universes. Colorado combines a high rate of foreclosures with a boost from the commodities boom. Virginia has also fallen foul of housing crisis, but can still rely on its defence industries.
Iowa has benefited from the agricultural boom, but some of its older manufacturing businesses are suffering from the same problems as their counterparts in the rustbelt.