US General Election: McCain vs. Obama

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LKD, I disagree with that on one point: the media profits greatly from it. Which sounds more profitable, a single one-hour special a week before the election highlighting the legitimate policy differences between the candidates, looking through history and political theory to see how they may work, etc. or a year or more of pointless personal attacks, made-up or blown-up controversies and the like, every evening on the nightly news? One takes a lot of work for one night, the other practically writes itself and lasts for a year or more, and is more likely to attract attention (people love a good scandal).

 

Prediction from a GOP insider - Gabriel Nathan Schwartz, a Colorado Delegate to the Republican National Convention - about his hopes for what a McCain Administration will look like: "Less taxes and more war," he said, smiling. Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country's resources. "We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money," he said. "We deserve reimbursement." Ah yes, the joyous synergy of going to war while making a killing ...

That moron deserves what he got.

 

Does that mean if he was a Democrat then what happened to him would be shame?

Never forget, the Democratic party is the party of compassion and tolerance

 

Snook, is there an edge of sarcasm in that reply? Don't lose hope; remember, it was FDR who manouvered us into WWII.

Ragusa, where did you find this booby? On national television, I suppose. Since Iran is twice the size of Iraq, we can only suppose it will be twice as successful. Twice the money. Twice the oil. Twice the number of flags. Is that ticker tape? Oh, sorry, it's fallout.

On a more positive note, Obama did get off a good line today. McCain's latest claim is that he'll get rid of the Old Boy network in Washington if elected. After several appropriately incredulous repititions. and after pointing out that McCain has seven major lobbyists working for him, Obama said, "In the McCain campaign, the "Old Boy network" is called a staff meeting."

 

Snook,
it's more the correlation of silly talk and a silly episode. I find political figures with a lot of lose cash on conventions interesting as far as campaign finance is concerned. And then this moronic talk on Iran... not ruling out historical precedents to the contrary, you don't get much stuff like that from D's nowadays. And it is always funny when one of the guardians of morals, as the GOP portrays themselves ever since their alliance with the Christian Right, goes down with a hooker, even a female one. So yes, I gleefully note such incidents.

You keep forgetting that I am no Democrat. I only happen to oppose the R's right now. The probably most effective presidential team foreign policy wise in recent memory was IMHO George Bush Sr. and James Baker. Their handling of the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact was superb, nothing less.

Such people - realists, centrists in general - today don't really have a place in the GOP any more. Rovian and Gingrichian politics have bred out moderates in favour of ideological purists. Look at who you find on McCain's staff. I see that as a fundamental(ist) problem with the GOP. This radicalism will eventually cost them elections, because voters tend to recognise an ideologue when they see him only long enough. Which is good, because it will force the party to reflect and adapt. But probably the initial result will be more marketing. Which is bad when they're elected anyway, because it will result in ideological policies. In foreign policy that invites doom. Because the US are so big, such doom will inevitably have a fallout that eventually reaches us. I have enough of that.

The D's have their share of ideologues, too, but right now they are less aggressive and less prone to say this particular sort of silly stuff. The D's are no peacenicks and have their share of hawks. Richard Perle is a Democrat. The D's have people who are perfectly capable of calling for war with Iran to spread liberty and freedom (and help Israel), or for intervention in Dharfur (how if I may ask). The realists, having been pushed out of the GOP, now only find a place of significance in the ranks of the D's. But better someone like Zbig Brezinski than Randy Scheunemann (and IMO better Baker or Scocroft than Brezinski). But as far as that goes, Democratic potential for bellicosity has been muted by the recent experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan. Right now the D's are IMO the better choice.

Funny bit: James Baker, one of his daddy's stalwarts, (very rightly) calls Bush ridiculous for his Syria policy. I think he's putting it very mild.

Extend that to McCain, because he won't talk with them either. The Syrians just too evil to be talked with. They don't deserve to be blessed by the beatifying attention of most noble representatives of the United States of America. In a person that attitude would be diagnosed as a narcisstic personality disorder. And never mind that their perpetually existentially threatened neighbour Israel can talk with them. Caught in their ideology and the demands of ideological electioneering the R's are near incapable of making rational or even functional foreign policy right now.
How was that in the republican primaries? I can be president because, like Jack Bauer, I am willing to kill and torture people for my country, and I also want to bomb Iran! HOOORRAAYYY!!! As it goes, the aforementioned Gabriel Nathan Schwartz was probably one of the enthusiastic cheerleaders for the arguably most demented of the bunch, Rudy Giuliani (and his advisor, Norm Podhorez, was kooky even by the McCain campaign's standards). Or just think of Bush's policies and McCain's declared views on Iran - just scary and irrational nonsense.

As long as they're not bombing people and participate in a conflict, Bush's policies have made the US irrelevant in foreign policy. I doubt McCain will be any more 'moderate' than Bush, to the contrary. The Bush administration (and the McCain team) lament aloud about aiding Georgia and condemn Russia - and do nothing. That's because they can't. There is obviously a bottomless abyss between the faith in omnipotence as expressed in their rhetoric and a vastly different reality. The peace deal between Russia and Georgia was solely brokered by the EU under French leadership. The US were nowhere to be seen or heard. And then the moronic refusal to talk with Syria.
This US irrelevance in foreign policy also has a flip side - like in the Middle East and in the talks with Syria, that way the US with their decidedly pro-Israel bias won't spoil negotiations by tilting the table towards Israel (which is probably why Israel has always refused EU brokering. The EU is way too sober about what Israel does, and so Israel insisted on the far more pliant US taking the role of a mediator). Well, maybe something undistorted comes out of it this time. Ironically, and inadvertently, Bush does Israel good, by forcing them so sort out their own mess themselves.

 

They both like to argue that the other isn't about change yet both have lobbyists working for them :http://www.nydailynews.com/money/2008/09/16/2008-09-16_john_mccain__barack_obama_both_have_advi.html

And what happened to that great uniter who was going to bring the country together? http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/09/14/2008-09-14_barack_obamas_big_blunder.html

As far as james baker, a known factor for having an Anti-Israel viewpoint: http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/11/will_james_baker_stay_true_to.html

 

martaug,
first, it isn't so as Israel doesn't do things worth criticising, so perhaps Baker simply does see shades of grey?

Second point is that you apparently miss that Baker is actually in approval of the Israeli talks. To wit: The lead broker between Israel and Syria is Turkey. What Baker bemoans is the US not participating, and thus not undertaking any efforts to bring in US interests. That is a disadvantage for the US. Baker is not sentimental; he just thinks in terms of utility.

 

Is the worm turning again? It appears that McCain's post-convention, post-Palin bounce seems to be wearing off. In the two weeks following the convention when Americans were first introduced to Palin, McCain's polling numbers shot up. He went from down 6% to up 2% in the matter of a week. To rise that much in such a short period of time is truly spectacular. The question everyone was asking was this just the Convention bounce, or was this a turning point in the election? We will need some more polling to know for sure, but at the moment in appears the latter is the case. In the latest polling, Obama is up 5% again.

Here's another couple of things I noticed about a poll conducted in California (who knows if the results here are applicable to the rest of the country). None of the results were particularly surprising, but I think it bears mentioning. It appears that Palin has had a polorizing effect on the election (so much for reaching across party lines). Republicans overall said they are now more likely to vote for McCain since he picked Palin has VP, while Democrats have said they are now more likely to vote for Obama with Palin as the VP. Since most Democrats and Republicans were going to vote for their party's candidate anyway, that peice of information doesn't tell us much. What is telling is that most independents said that the selection of Palin makes them more likely to vote for Obama. If that is true, Palin's selection could be a deciding factor in this election. (Republicans were already saying that, but this is the opposite direction that they were asserting.) The thing is, as more and more information comes out on Palin, the less people seem to like her. This may turn out to be a rather large tactical error on McCain's part.

 

I don't trust the polls, especially not the 'most recent' polls. Since my wife is a counselor and has taken classes on the psychological and sociological basis behind polls, I've gotten the whole spiel about how easy it is to bias them and how hard it is to make sure they aren't biassed. On top of that, when one poll puts Obama 5% up and the very next (by a different group) puts McCain 5% up, I start asking questions.

 

NOG,

I will agree insofar as it is still nearly 7 weeks away from the presidential election, and history tells us that what the polls show today are not a particularly good indicator of what will happen in the general election. Sure, states like Hawaii, Maryland, and Illinois which are hugely in Obama's favor are not going to wind up in McCain's column on November 4th, just as there's not way states like Alaska, Utah, and Arizona are going to wind up in Obama's column.

On the other hand, there about 15 states where the race is very close - where Obama or McCain have leads of only a few percentage points, and calling those states seven weeks in advance of the election is sure to lead to some inaccurate conclusions.

While I am inclined to agree that it is pretty easy to bias polls, history also shows that polls get pretty darn accurate when you get three weeks away from the election. With the exception of Truman's famous upset of Dewey in 1948, where the polls are in mid-October is pretty much where they stay in the general election. In fact, since 1948, the only presidential election where the clear majority of polls didn't call the winner was Bush's win over Gore in 2000. In that election, there was about an even split in the polls predicting who would win, which makes sense when one considers how close that election was.

So I am inclined to agree that one should not put too much faith into the polls right now, but the same cannot be said a month from now. After all, if we look at mid-October polls since 1950 that correctly predicted Eisenhower in '52 and '56, Kennedy in '60, LBJ in '64, Nixon in '68 and '72, Carter in '76, Reagan in '80 and '84, Bush in '88, Clinton in '92 and '96, and Bush in '04, I'd say there is reason to place some trust in them.

 

Aldeth, don't confuse us with facts.

 

McCain's healthcare plan

Indeed! If America marketises health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry! Like right now.

Of course, as the GOP candidate McCain has to pander to his voters by running the standard talking points here.

IMO the GOP's (and the neo-liberal's) ideology on the free market is long past rational. For them the free market is an article of faith that justifies itself. They are missing something: The market is a vessel for individual freedom. Freedom and freedom rights are there for individuals. Corporations have freedom and freedom rights only because they represent organised individuals. The market is no good or end in itself. It serves a function and has a purpose. It is unreasonable in the extreme to turn a tool into an end.

And as for self regulating. The market is run not by itself but by people who do silly things like inventing stuff like AAA papers that are worth zilch, but are traded for billions. The market does eventually punish such silliness - but at a high cost to the economy (as in: "socialization of risk" accompanied by "privatization of reward") - just look at the current economic crisis. A crash is self regulation at work. What an awesome sight.

It is IMO quite a stretch to simply stick to the dogma that government and government regulation is inefficient by default while corporations and business practices are not. It is worth noting that, as the market is run by people, so is the government. Large corporations can be quite inefficient. Government can be quite efficient if run properly. Prussian civil servants held the ethos of frugal government and incorruptibility. The dedication and work ethos of civil servants is a thing that is often underestimated if not outright ignored.

It is often lost that a good deal of the government inefficiency is actually a thing to be desired. My employer has just entered a tender with a government entity. I was involved in collecting and creating the required, extensive, documentation - the reason for my overly long hours lately. The reason we had to go through this hassle is that the entity is required by law to judge on rational criteria that are to be transparent to auditing committees and eventually a parliament. They need to justify their decisions and thus require, extensive, documentation. That cost is the result of a transparency process. That costs us money, and them as well, as they'll have to sift through all that paper. Is it inefficient? Sure. Is it a bad thing? I don't really think so.

In a company the CEO says 'Deal' to a no bid contract, and nobody except perhaps his shareholders can demand a justification. If he doesn't have shareholders maybe his partners ask. Ok, and maybe a regulatory body. But that's it. The public has no business knowing. And why, if they aren't shareholders. Is that efficient? Sure. But do you want that in government?

/rant
/

 

Better than obama's "oh we will just tax more to pay for the universal healthcare"
Yeah, thats gonna work.

 

Wait a minute, I thought Hillary had campaigned for universal healthcare. Obama had wanted universal coverage for children. Also, what taxes has Obama said he would increase to pay for healthcare?

And, by the way, it certainly can work. Using money to solve a problem is a fairly standard procedure. In fact, where governments are concerned, it is either that or doing it by force, which imo is much less likely. Actually, given the large percentage of GDP that the US spends on healthcare - notably more than some Western European countries do - it might be more a matter of optimizing the existing money in the system rather than just, you know, putting more into it.

 

Which one is going to do a better job of sorting out all this economic mess, (now that I assume you all believe me that the economy was heading for a judgement day when I was raving about this like a madman a couple of years ago)?

 

Well, I doubt it would be McCain - though I can't claim to be 101% objective, I really don't think his economic team is that good. Given how well deregulation has worked recently, I wonder if Obama's plan is not worth trying out.

 

I seem to recall that it was McCain (and someone else) three years ago that proposed legislation to regulate Fannie Mae after their book-cooking fiasco. He even said that, if the legislation wasn't passed (which it wasn't), market collapses were guaranteed in housing and investment (as they have). I also recently learned that two of Obama's economic advisors were ex-Fannie Mae execs that helped put it into the current situation.

As always, I may be wrong or not entirely informed on these items. If anyone knows more, I'd be eager to learn.

As for universal health care, I think Obama supports gov't provided health care for children and mandated but not provided insurance for everyone else. Either that or it's provided insurance for children and nothing for adults. I don't remember. He's proposing raising taxes on the rich, on corporations, and removing Bush's tax cuts, which amounts to raising taxes on the middle and lower-middle class and on the death tax, estate tax, and a few others I don't remember.

Anyway, all this amounts to nothing more than policy differences. There are intelligent of people who would speak to support or attack all the positions listed above, even hiring the ex-execs to advise you on the economy (they managed to manipulate it well enough to make a killing and walk away, after all).

 

LOL

 

You mean like this guy?

Really, NOG, you should be careful where you step....


http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=5835269&page=1

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Edit: I remember, HB. I have not forgotten your comments. But IMO, the Republicans dug the hole, now it's going to be someone else to dig us all out of it. But then agiain, no, let's just keep voting for "more of the same," some say....

 

BTW, while I was browsing GoComics.com I came upon something quite decent http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/crsst/2008/crsst080917.gif

Oldie but goodie, eh?