Investors may not support Barack Obama, but they do expect him to be the next president of the United States. The smart ones do anyway.

If the polls are to be believed, Obama should easily defeat John McCain. Even the ultra-conservative talking heads on CNBC seem to have accepted this reality. Carl Quintinilla recently asked Pennyslvania Senator Bob Casey whether Obama will be "pulled to the left" if the Democrats win in a landslide. Why not ask Casey, who is pretty conservative as Democrats go, about Obama's five-year plan? I guess it's no surprise that the business network has Steve Forbes as a guest host on "Squawk Box." The Arizona senator needs all of the help he can get.

The market already -- wrongly in my view -- views Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal ready to suck away their capital gains and wrap America in bubble wrap to protect it from the ravages of world trade. The truth is more complex than these stereotypes. Obama plans to cut taxes for most Americans and favors fair trade policies. Markets, however, anticipate the future and people are scared. That explains why the Dow Jones industrial average is down more than 29%.