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.

Comments

[Seth Grahame-Smith - Huffpost Blogger]

This is just about the smartest thing I've read all day.

[Pete Cenedella - Huffpost Blogger]

I think you're right. I've been saying all week that if the Dems, and Obama in particular, don't seize the Bailout moment to grab the mantel of populism, they are in bad shape indeed.

[nellie]

With everyone's bank collapsing­—min­e went under yesterday—and people being thrown out of their homes, I don't think the lawless environment of deregulation is going to have much appeal.

[adam56]

Obama will be ready for this. If it's been thought of here, it's been thought of there. Remember "the fundamentals are strong" even though we're headed for a "depression" on monday. Obama can neutralize this with his most powerful lines already "McCain must think the American people are stupid." That will resonate.

[kamijcm]

"3. that real populism is cutting taxes and getting rid of regulation, which is the Republican proposal"

Are you kidding me? He'll get laughed off the stage if he so much as hints that he'll push for deregulation as an answer to this mess. Especially after Wall Street went down the tubes and he spent the last week suggesting that he's been the driving force behind government regulation­... A spurious declaration indeed, you can ask Sarah Palin if you're not convinced.

[Smirk]

Sadly, many, if not most, of McCain's supporters will believe every word he says.

[Leah McElrath Renna - Huffpost Blogger]

Please tell me you are actually working with the Obama campaign..­.please?

[neo1]

Ain't that the truth!

[DinahMoeHum]

Thank you, Leah!!
If Lakoff wants to impress me, let him get out of that ivory tower he lives in and actaully MANAGE somebody's campaign. Until then, he can just shut his pie-hole.

[Whatashame]

Point well taken.

[Boadicea]

It was not the surge that reduced violence in Iraq. That is the truth that Obama needs to speak.

The so-called surge was nothing more than a military police operation which divided up neighborhoods with ten foot high cement blocades so that people couldn't get at each other. (That's what the extra soldiers did, put up the blockades.­) That mess may have prevented the odd neighborhood dustup, but other factors, including mass genocides and other factors beyond American control, resulted in the reduced violence in Iraq.

We've allowed McCain to get away with this long enough. Time to start showing the photos of what we did to neighborhoods in Iraq. I've seen the footage; everyone should.

[CaptainStormfield]

I know you are right but Im not sure you can sell that to the "values voters". I think thats one of the toughest issues to take on. Even tho most americans want to leave Iraq. They always spin it as Victory.. We must have Victory. They need to start showing that video of Bush saying.. oh no I never said Saddam was responsible for 9/11.

[billkarwin]

That's true, and we've seen confirmed reports that the ethnic cleansing by Shiites has simply eliminated or driven away the Sunni targets.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/19/satellite-shows-ethnic-cl_n_127854.html

However, politically it would be a negative to frame the issue this way. "Violence dropped largely due to ethnic cleansing, less due to US troop efforts" can be twisted by Faux News into "Obama says to US troops: no thanks to you!"