Oh, crap. Isn't Halloween over?
McCain and Obama – I'm no happier now with this choice than I was back in February.
A lot of Obama's supporters appear quite taken with the man, which mystifies me – he strikes me as a smooth, bland politician, adept at reading speeches. (I appear to have some defect in this area – I have never been able to understand the appeal of any politician in anything other than policy areas.) I suspect that this blandness more easily allows his supporters to project their wishes and desires for a candidate onto him, and permits the sort of creepily ecstatic and millenial fervor that seems more common in this campaign than in any other I can remember. I suppose, though, that Obamaesque smoothness is preferable to McCain, America's Cranky Old Grandpa, mercurially charging off in favor of whatever shiny bauble happens to grab his attention at any given moment (trample the first amendment! save the bailout! pay everybody's mortgage! etc.)
"Change" is the big theme of this election, with both parties promising lots and lots of change. McCain has a harder time pulling this off, because it's pretty hard to ignore that the ship of state ran aground on the economic shoals with his colleague holding the tiller (not that they haven't tried). But, as far as I can see, Mr. O. and his colleagues would have held the ship of state on pretty much the exact same course, with occasional minor leftward corrections that would have done nothing to avert the current crises, because at a more fundamental level, both Obama and McCain both support the same basic status quo. As my AWOL co-blogger has said:
"McCain pretends (or actually believes) that we have a free market, not crony capitalism, and Obama will pretend that instituting a few more (corrupt, bureaucratically metastatizing) redistributive programs will mean that all those (strictly rethuglican, of course) plutocrats have been put on the run."I don't get the sense that either candidate appreciates the severity of the crisis that we appear to be in, or, if they do, has a solution that doesn't involve selling all our remaining assets to China, shipping all our remaining well-paying jobs to India (other than high finance and government, of course), and giving all our low-paying jobs to illegal aliens. After that, Obama will presumably give the restless populace bread and circuses 2.0 with all that wealth-spreading he proposes – I'm not clear on what McCain would do.
So I'm not sure what to do come Tuesday. I could truly embrace my new-found political crank nature and vote for some third-party candidate, except they're all crazy and/or odious. A dilemma.
David - Now I know who you dislike -- both candidates. And I know that you think we are in a great economic crisis. But I don't know why you hold those views. (Or why you do not mention foreign policy.)
In fact, the only part of your argument that I understand is the part where you say you find some of the support for Obama creepy -- and there we are in complete agreement.
Posted by: Jim Miller on November 3, 2008 08:07 AM
McCain is better on foreign policy. He is lousy on economics, but haphazardly so, whereas Obama seems to have steely self-discipline when it comes to accumulating and using governmental power. Also, Obama seems to me to be a sociopath whereas McCain is merely a jerk. Obama's campaign uses thuggish tactics (telephone DDOS attacks on radio talk shows; threats of lawsuits against TV and radio stations; the public rectal exam of Joe the Plumber) against opponents, which I think presages how an Obama administration would treat critics.
Even in economics McCain at least pays lip service to reasonable positions (cutting cap-gains taxes; increasing nuclear energy and other power production; expanding oil drilling) while Obama tends to support increased taxes, lawsuits and Luddism.
These are both weak candidates to be sure, but I think McCain is much better than Obama.
Posted by: Jonathan on November 3, 2008 07:37 PM
But I don't know why you hold those views...
Ok, sloppy, hurried, hyperbolic writing. I get an 'F' on this essay, er, post. I apologize - you'll just have to take my word for it that I really don't have the time to go into details here.
But there is something that I prefer, in general, that I can get with McCain that I don't get with Obama, and that's a split government - the legislature controlled by the D.'s and the executive by the R.'s. I do like the idea of that a lot more than a House, Senate, and Presidency all in one party.
Back to work now.
Posted by: David Fleck on November 3, 2008 10:06 PM