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Political Posturing vs. Realistic Leadership – McCain and Obama (Debate Deux)

Posted by TONY CAMPBELL, Columnist in At TMV, Politics.
Oct 7th, 2008 | Comments

My dear friends…

If I heard that line one more time, I would have been seriously blitzed. But seriously, tonight’s debate had the makings of an all-out slugfest, but turned out to be pretty one sided. Obama answered questions and McCain gave platitudes straight out of Ronald Reagan’s handbook…the only problem is that America is not a shining city on the hill anymore.

We have serious problems that even “The Great Communicator” would have problems dealing with today, and there were two different candidates on the podium tonight, a politician who chose not to answer several questions directly by attacking his opponent and a leader who answered tough questions head on (and may face repercussions in the press because of it).

There were several tough questions tonight but two that I will focus on – the sacrifice question and the one regarding priorities of the new administration. McCain answered the sacrifice question by shifting the focus to Obama’s earmarks – he never brought up the word Sacrifice or Service once. Obama gave a response that was reminiscent of President Kennedy when he said “I think the young people of America are especially interested in how they can serve, and that’s one of the reasons why I’m interested in doubling the Peace Corps, making sure that we are creating a volunteer corps all across this country that can be involved in their community, involved in military service, so that military families and our troops are not the only ones bearing the burden of renewing America.”

On the second point regarding priorities McCain said that we can pursue health care, energy independence, and entitlement reform all at once, which is unrealistic and fiscally not possible in our economic situation. Obama answered the question with a frank discussion on setting real priorities in the order of energy, health care, and entitlement spending.

As a fiscal conservative, I am not turning back flips over the new domestic spending policies that are proposed by Obama, but if the offset is that we can improve the lives and welfare of the middle class and we can use our military and intelligence assets more wisely, then I would rather have a President who will tell me what sacrifices I need to make to my face…instead of telling me grand stories about Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan when the sky is falling all around us.

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DLS

The sky is not falling. That's despite the idiotic sensationalism I saw on every newspaper I've seen today here in the Bay Area. (stupid Wall Street traders imitating a murder victim in a Hitchcock film)

Polimom

Tony, I also liked the sacrifice question. I've always felt that Bush's "just go shopping" suggestion was demeaning and condescending. And I've liked Obama's emphasis on increased civic involvement all along.

DLS

I'll just repeat (one last time) that this week's Economist makes Obama and his team look like a better candidate for the Executive Branch than McCain and his "team."

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CStanley

How is Obama asking for sacrifice when he spends all of the time on the economic question talking about how the middle class needs to hear that they're getting a tax cut (which is a nice trick for the 40-something percent of Americans who don't pay income tax at all- we're into negative tax rate territory there...how progressive!)

Unfortunately McCain is completely unable to articulate what most people feel in their gut- that the federal coffers are not to be used as our personal emergency account.

When JFK said "Ask not what your country can do for you," he wasn't just talking about creating the peace corps for idealistic kids to serve the country for a few years (however well guided that is.) At that time, culturally our society 'got it', that we each have to take responsibility for our personal lives and not look to government to bail us out for bad decisions.

It's to our great detriment (and I believe, our impending downward spiral) that we no longer see the world through that lens and that John McCain isn't able to lead us back there.

ChrisWWW

On the second point regarding priorities McCain said that we can pursue health care, energy independence, and entitlement reform all at once, which is unrealistic and fiscally not possible in our economic situation

Matthew Yglesias has been making a great point that we can't stop spending money during an economic squeeze. By doing that, we'll kill and prolong the suffering, because the economy won't grow, it will contract.

Also, right now it'll be relatively easy to get favorable loans for federal spending. Better to borrow when the terms are good, right?

And I agree with CStanley. Obama didn't make a good case for national sacrifice either.

CStanley

I'm trying to think of the date when the meltdown first started- I guess maybe use Sept 14 when Lehman and Merril Lynch went down-because I think a case could be made that both candidates still have a Sept 13 mindset, just like many people often use the "September 10 mindset" to describe a worldview that didn't adjust to the revelation of terrorism threat that came on 9/11/01.

To add to your first point there about McCain saying he'd address all three of those issues, Chris, I also think it's important to note that addressing entitlement spending is absolutely essential, and I don' t think Obama even mentioned it.

CStanley

And on the federal spending issue, am I the only one that is surprised that neither candidate floated the idea of increasing infrastructure project funding, a la the WPA programs of the depression era? Seems like someone would have threaded that needle, capturing the public's concern about aging (and failing) roads and bridges and fears about growing unemployment.

ChrisWWW

CStanley,
I think both candidates are being too careful in not resurrecting the ghost of FDR and end up looking like little Hoover's instead.

Both McCain and Obama are implying that striving for energy independence is the new WPA.

CStanley

Good points, chris. And I think they're partly right about energy (Obama as usual said it better with his analogy to the dotcom expansion of the economy, though that too is a dangerous rhetorical device when you consider how that ended ;-) )

But I still think it's a tack that one of them could take, if they just avoid the language that would evoke FDR and New Deal (esp since so many people today probably don't even know about WPA and CCC projects.)

ChrisWWW

It's unfortunate that the bridge collapse in Minnesota has receded so far from our minds.

CStanley

Yeah, I was just thinking about the comparisons of Hoover, FDR, Obama, McCain (in terms of, who's more like Hoover, and also thinking through where Hoover was wrong and where he was right, and the same for FDR) and yet really, if we can't remember something that happened such a short time ago then how in the hell can we think that voters are really going to know the history of depression era politics and to learn from that history?

ChrisWWW

Well.. the candidates could - but probably wont - attempt to actually educate the audience.

"We did X during the 1920s and it worsened the Depression."

Pretty simple really. The Great Depression isn't exactly recent history, but like WWII it still evokes grim imagery.

CStanley

Exactly! The single best question that should have been asked last night: "In what ways is our current situation similar to the economic collapse that began in 1929, and in what ways is it different? How do you see the policies implemented then, in terms of broad policies that helped and those that unintentionally made the situation worse?"

OK, that's two questions, but you get the point.

I don't know though, one of the two candidates seems a bit more like Hoover to me and it's not McCain (protectionism, raising top tax bracket and closing tax loopholes...") That's not to say that Hoover was all wrong and FDR certainly wasn't entirely correct, but the GOP and Dems don't match up very well with their cohorts from that time.

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