The McCain Trap and Obama's Debate Challenge
Co-authored by Kathleen Frumkin
John McCain knew that there would be no bailout agreement before he announced that he would go to Washington, supposedly to help promote such an agreement in the spirit of bipartisanship. We smell a trap. Bush, Paulson, and the Congressional Republicans lure the Democrats (and Obama) into supporting a proposal based on a taxpayer bailout of Wall Street. The Congressional Republicans then come out as apparent populists riding the wave of a taxpayer revolt against Wall Street and they identify the Democrats and Obama as supporters of Wall Street. McCain can then come to the debate and say:
1. that he is a maverick for not supporting the Bush proposal,
2. that he is a populist for being against a bailout by taxpayers,
3. that real populism is cutting taxes and getting rid of regulation, which is the Republican proposal, and
4. that this is "real reform".
If Obama just says the Republican proposal won't work (following Paulson and Bernanke), he will still be tagged as an elitist friend of Wall Street. The debate will not have time to go into the details of why economists say it won't work, and McCain can emerge smelling like a populist rose.
Of course, Obama is the real populist here, insisting on conditions to help homeowners and to return the money to taxpayers by giving the government equity in the corporations. McCain can simply call this socialism and more big government.
Obama has to undercut this possibility from the start. He has to come out with the populist proposals as central and the question of who pays and how as a technical economic question that cannot be solved by partisan ideology. He also has to characterize the Republican proposal to cut regulation and corporate taxes as even more as more of what got us into this mess. And he has to say out loud that McCain knew about the breakdown of negotiations before he went to Washington, and that the trip was an attempt to revive a failing campaign.
In the foreign policy segment, Obama has to avoid helping McCain. McCain will claim that "the surge worked." Obama should come out calling the surge from the start of the discussion "a political failure", and later mention that it has been only a partial security success -- partial because, in any other country, over 100 attacks a month would be called impermissible violence, and that's how many attacks the surge has resulted in. Given that we have 12 times the population of Iraq, that would be like having 1200 bombings a month in America. Would you call that "working" if it occurred here?
Obama needs a response to McCain's call for "victory." A possible response is "Victory over who?" "What enemies would you sign a peace treaty with?" The people of Iraq? They mostly want us to leave, as does the elected government.
Obama also has to take the foreign policy debate out of the purely military arena, and talk about the hardest problems in the world that cannot be solved by military means: global warming, global economic issues and poverty, hunger, the oppression of women, ethic cleansing, water, and so on. Our troops, as great as they are, cannot solve most foreign policy problems. Foreign policy requires president with vision in all these areas.
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Forget it. This is too complicated for most voters. Obama looks composed and fluent on the issues. The disagreement between Dems and Reps on this is esoteric as far as "low information voters" are concerned.
I think that smart voters will know that this "bailout" operetta was designed to confuse and divide the Democrats. Republicans like Eric Cantor of Virginia will be able to go home to his district boasting that he fought back "socialism"!
well, mccain hasn't supported anything, let alone actually understand the issue
if i were obama, i would toss the question back and say,
"ok, tell us all EXACTLY what you propose. you came in and raised doubts about the current proposal, yet supported neither the current nor the republican proposal. what EXACTLY do you propose as a fix, and how do you implement it?"
if he is going to storm in and raise hell, throw a wrench into things, he better have a real solid alternative. and he doesn't
he just wants to shoot things down, offer nothing concrete, then take sides with the winner.
Well I guess it is up to the moderator to pursue that kind of thing.
And I don't trust moderators.
Too late...The Bailout Bill is already being called the Bush/ Obama Plan.
No it isn't.
We'll know if Barack is a reader of the HuffPo in the first five minutes of the "debate." Scripted though it may be, Lakoff is correct about the framing issue. If Obama is to win, he's got to get some points on the board first.
We'll see firsthand if Barack can recast his lawyerly language into everyday mom-and-pop-speak.
I'm also hoping O has more solid rejoinders for McPalin up his sleeve. I'm really ready to watch this duel. Quite the shootout!
Which came first, the surge, or the awakening? McSurge doesn't remember correctly.
In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations.
I like what Boadicea said about the surge; however, it may be too wordy. Might take too long to explain for our American fast-food attention span.
Foreign policy is about WAY more than military matters. It's about trade. It's about global issues like climate change. It's about human rights. Mc says he knows how to win wars. Does he know how to win the peace?
O needs to hammer him with sharp, one-liner truths. Keep it honest and above board, not misleading, but short and sweet. Send this Mc guy and his surge packing.
It's also about neighbors, and villages and towns, and looking out for one another. McCain has not a clue.
It's easy to start a war. It's hard to never need one.
Why are the bailout negotiators meeting with such privacy and why are only 4 represented ?
Iraq is calmer due to the Suni awakening and ethnic cleaning !
McCain keeps throwing one hail mary pass after another and tonight Obama needs to intercept one and take it to the House! The White House that is....
Obama should also tie the war in Iraq with the economy. How is sending hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars to Iraq not going to impact our economy and national debt?
Yup! Yup!
Why does the daily suffering in Iraq only get mention, from both sides, when trying to score political points? You would figure after 5 1/2 years that their infrastructure would be back to normal or close to it if the concern for the Iraqi people was real. And now the rumblings are that the Iraqis should pay for the shoddy and outrageously overpriced rebuilding effort that has only enriched American companies, disgraceful.
Well thought, well said.
The Democrats have already lost their opportunity to frame the issue. They keep painting themselves into a corner where their only options are to capitulate to the Republicans or to do nothing, seemingly unconcerned that both of these are political suicide. Sure, something should be done, but not something stupid, and certainly not a mere conversion of private sector debt into public sector debt, which lets bankers off the hook for what are essentially gambling debts but does not actually fix anything in the economy. How many times do they have to get burned giving Little George a blank cheque before they learn?
I agree structural changes are absolutely needed. I'm also convinced that emergency is real. Not because the administration says so but because there is enough evidence to convince me. We need to give the capital markets confidence that the problems are being addressed so that the capital begins to flow again. A bridge loan, so to speak, to the next administration. I agree that paying off the bad gambling debts is abhorrent but the issue is so complex we will have to wait for the next congress to solve. Hopefully a LARGE Dem. majority.
Barack, Just say "NO".
Something wicked this way comes. The Republicans have something up their sleeves. Chop off their arms before they have a chance to reveal what it might be.
Yes.
I just caught a part of Lou Dobbs. He is calling it the Bush/Democrat bailout plan and wondering what the Dems are doing. The trap is springing for the present and the future by either makiing sure Obama is tied to it and has no money or McCain can wreck the government because it has no money. McCain can say, sorry, we have to take away more support for workers and middle classes because we have no money.
He is talking about how much moey Frank and Dodd have taken from the industry, Guess, what they have ! He is asking, and rightly so, why the 4 lead negotiators from Congress are meeting in progress ?
Now he is wondering why they are buying into the chicken little scenario ?
I am asking too since anybody with sense knows the Administration has no credibility but some how the stupid Dems believe they do !
Of course, Bush wanted to make sure the markets stayed calm today to give McCain cover. After the debate, they will let the market fall to get what they want !
Let me sell you a book of sin. .... Silly, Silly fools !
Wellllll .....WaSu DID collapse today, last night whatever. It doesn't look good at all. Frankly, I'd take a Great Depression if we could have our jobs, schools, roads, heathcare system, rule of law, etc and, most important of all our Constitution back.
Lou Dobbs is a tool.
I beg to differ, McCain has made himself look bad from the begining, he will look bad tonight. Actually he looks bad everytime I see him and can't bear the thought of having to look at him for another 4 years.
Yes, to anyone who has an I.Q. of >90, it is obvious that McCain pays NO attention to what he says, content to get along on catch-phases and sound-bites. But to a sizable number of the American public, whose I.Q. appears to be about the same as that of the typical chimpanzee, catch-phrases and sound bites are about all that they can understand. How else could we have gotten 8 years of the Village Idiot & Friends?
About the only thing consistent about John McCain is propensity for greed. He has been in the pockets of big oil, banks and the telecom industry for 26 years. His role in the Keating Five was not an aberration but behavior which has been typical for him. While he was Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee (1997-2005) he introduced the McCain-Feingold campaign contribution reform bill WHILE HE WAS ALSO TAKING MONEY FROM THE VERY BUSINESSES THAT WERE UNDER THE PERVIEW OF THE COMMERCE COMMITTEE! He'll spout any old crap that he thinks will get him over, we are to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Obama needs to tie national security with the ballooning budget and Iraq. The spending in Iraq potentially dwarfs that of the bailout. Don't know if he will or that will work, but that's how I see it.
You right! Enemies within.
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