For all the ink and air time about to be lavished on Sarah Palin, this election won't be about her. She electrified the evangelical base of the Republican Party and gave McCain a much needed boost of energy. But very few voters are going to cast their ballot for or against Sarah Palin. Americans will vote on which presidential candidate seems the most plausible source of change.
Underneath all of his faux populist bluster, McCain's essential argument is that Washington needs better management. The election isn't "about issues," as his campaign manager said, it's about biography. McCain is the lone maverick, willing to take on his party, ready to shake up Washington, and clean up the bureaucracy. Iraq wasn't the wrong war; it was just mismanaged. Our spending priorities aren't distorted; they're just wasteful. Our global economic and national security strategy aren't wrong-headed; they just need greater credibility. The president's national security prerogatives should not be curtailed; they should just be exercised more wisely.
Not surprisingly, his convention speech was virtually devoid of policy - as was his choice of Palin, who brings éclat but so little policy substance that she has to be hidden from the press. The pitbull with lipstick is there to extol McCain and assail Obama to the Republican base.
McCain's policies are pretty well defined - more of the same isn't just a political insult. He'll continue the Bush tax cuts, and add more top end and corporate cuts. He'll continue the Bush trade policies. He'll continue the Bush war in Iraq, while being more bellicose towards Russia and Iran than even the administration. His "drill now" posturing fits Cheney's energy policy, although he also pledges to add support for renewable energy. Conservation - a leading source of jobs and energy savings - doesn't cross his lips. His budget priorities - with more spending on the military and less at home - track those of Bush. And of course, he'll extend Bush's social conservatism, particularly his choice of right-wing activists to the Supreme Court and federal bench. He continues Bush's emphasis on privatization - and the crony capitalism it spawns, and on deregulation -despite the financial debacle it created. He echoes Bush on privatizing Social Security. On health care, he is worse the Bush - actually calling for taxing your health benefits as income - a $2-3000 tax increase for many families - in order to accelerate the unraveling of employer based health care.
What's the change? McCain pledges to manage it better. He'll shake up the bureaucracy. He pledges to freeze domestic spending, eliminate programs that waste money and, of course, veto earmarks (at $20 billion or so, basically a rounding error in the federal budget). Why is a 72 year old man who has spent a quarter century in Washington plausible as an agent of change? Because he is a hero, the lone maverick. With Americans convinced most of their tax dollars are wasted, this argument strikes a chord.
Obama has a compelling biography but his argument is about direction. He's a cautious reformer, but inevitably challenges the Bush priorities. The war in Iraq was wrong and must be ended. We need a national health care plan, with a public alternative to private insurance, and should pay for it by reversing Bush's tax breaks for the wealthy. To generate jobs and growth, we need large scale public investment on energy and infrastructure, on education and training - not more corporate tax breaks. The shadow banking system must be regulated, not just bailed out. The plunder and fraud of privatized warfare in Iraq should be exposed and curtailed. We have to change course on our trade policy. We need to empower workers to organize and lift the minimum wage at home. And as a social liberal, he'll reverse Bush's gag orders on contraception, support choice, and save the Court from becoming a right-wing bastion.
There is an irony in this contrast. As demonstrated by their campaigns, Obama is a far better manager than McCain, who nearly mismanaged his way into defeat in the primaries. And despite his managerial conception of change, McCain strikes a far more populist tone than the cautious Obama. The same temperament that makes McCain a dubious president makes him a good candidate.
With the economy getting worse, job losses growing, housing values sinking, foreclosures rising, the cost of home heating and gas hurting, Afghanistan deteriorating, the coming debates should make this choice clear, but only if Obama sharpens his assault on the failed policies of the past with the same punch that McCain uses to assail a Washington that is broken. Will Americans looking for help go with the gnarled old white warrior that they basically like or the brilliant, African American leader that they barely know? That choice won't be decided by Sarah Palin. It is likely to be determined by whether Obama can succeed in convincing folks he really does represent the change in direction that they are looking for.
Follow Robert L. Borosage on Twitter: www.twitter.com/borosage
I wonder what they will disguss? Will he ask Bill for permission to replace Biden (who will fain an illness and back out) with Hillary and ask Bill to convince her how much she is now needed? In which case Bill should again say "go pound salt". You had your chance and you blew it Obama......
This election might be different because there are some Republicans who don't want to wish ill will towards McCain, but they would like to see him get elected then die because they really want President Sarah.
I got so tired of not knowing which possition was his real possition that I decided he would not get my vote. McCain - at least - stays consistent - and he is NO Bush !!!!!
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.†(Matthew 7:15).
History repeats itself. Republican Party zealots are not today’s true agents of the change the People need. They are our enemies, today’s false prophets, and real psychopaths. Under the reign of George Bush, the middle class and poor, with John McCain’s help, have endured eight years of torture, with no let up in sight.
The People will not be afraid or fooled this time. We know who the ravening wolves are. They have heaped too much damage on us, and all in the name of Jesus. In his day, Jesus was a community organizer. He came to heal. He too knew who his enemies were. They mocked then crucified him.
The simple truth is we are not better off today than we were eight years ago. Our only choice for meaningful change and restoration—on all issues important to the People—is to elect Barack Obama our next president.
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up…†(Ecclesiastes 3:1-3).
Add to that Sarah Connor, the Terminator from Alaska. Perky, spunky, not afraid to take on Obama or lie outright and keep right on lieing. No problems there 'cause won't she make a great story in People magazine? She sure will, that little vixen. She's like the little engine that could, grown into a voracious rhymes-with-rich monster.
And Obama/Biden are trying to run an intelligent, fact based campaign. LOSER. Play dirty, get James Careville, plead with the Clintons for help, get pit bulls everywhere, ask Oprah to do more. This is a race based on emotion & personality, and we're loosin' bad.
Remember, too, a whole lot of Americans aren't voting for a Black man for president. I'm a minority group member myself, travel around the US, and Texas, Florida, Idaho, are as bad as they were 50 years ago, and I won't even attempt Missippi, Misouri, Tennessee, etc. Racism lives and is flourishing, despite what polls say.
Jesus Wept.
Game is up Palin !
This Power Hungery Diva is truely McCain's SOUL MATE !!!!
BBFN Palin. Call me K ! LOL
http://www.nationalenquirer.com/_palin_family_shockers_what_sarahs_really_hiding/celebrity/65407
It's official: John McCain and Sarah Palin are up in the latest polls now that the conventions are over. This is a positive development. It will give the Obama-Biden campaign incentive to get serious. It would have been a disaster for Obama-Biden to come out of this past week ahead. It might have prompted them to kick back and be complacent.
McCain-Palin have nowhere to go now but down, and I will tell you exactly how this will happen. They can run away from President Bush, but they can't run away from the Republican Party. The Republicans will be regarded from now on as "the party that wrecked America." Over the weeks ahead, as carnage in the economy and the financial markets ramps up, it will become increasingly clear. It is important that this meme be spread through the internet. I urge all commentators to adopt and spread the idea that the Republicans are "the party that wrecked America." It will work because it is the truth. Use it freely. Just spread the word. Get the meme going.
I can't believe how much effort and energy is being wasted on the "Bridge to Nowhere." Who cares? So by October you manage to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Sarah Palin - did exactly what? Embellished the facts with a little self-serving rhetoric for her adoring fans, like all politicians do all the time? Who the hell cares? Nobody.
This is just sick. There is nothing happening on the Democratic side but an attempt to smear Palin on a load of minutiae that would put any normal person to sleep.
Unfortunately, the largest sector of voters on both sides are not going to make a rational, informed decision. Decisions will be made around the bait and switch non issues churned out by the MSM. Like whether Obama should apology for saying 'lipstick on a pig.'
Obama's success thus far has been predicated on his ability to raise the level of debate beyond the gutter tabloid and lobbyist- driven propaganda sewer. And he could not have succeeded, despite his oratory talent, without the blogs and websites willing to be a forum for genuine issues of relevance.
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I hope you're right. But I've been deeply disappointed by the extent of the stupidity of the electorate in the past. Heck, even though most of America now realizes that Bush actually lost to Gore in 2000, there were still far too many people who voted for that idiot ...and not just once, but again in 2004 which, by the way, he happened to steal again by stealing Ohio.
Republicans do seem to have a penchant for stealing, don't they?
And, this is where Obama fears to tread. Come on, man. Step up to the plate. Because it won't be just Obama losing this election. It will be the entire country. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And that time is here.
obama's entire campaign is grounded on pure emotions. other than how he makes you feel what else is there to point to? nothing.
his supporters are no different from the zealots who supported george bush in 2004. they ignored the facts, uninterested in hearing anything other than how great, how much they believed in their candidate, their messiah. it's just this kind of self-righteous detachment from reality, this kind of arrogance that will lose the election for obama. and good riddance. should have picked hillary.
What does the fact that McCain has officially hired Karl Rove say to you? I think it says McCain doesn't care that Rove refuses to testify under oath, thumbs his nose at the rule of law and therefore must be a liar with something to hide.
McCain has something to hide too! He picked an extremist to be his running mate and he didn't care enough for our Country to even vett the woman!
Why do people basically like McCain? He just seems like a grumpy old man to me. If Americans are looking for help they should go with the candidate who is actually planning to do things differently. It only makes sense to me.