McCain and the poverty of ideas
One thing became crystal clear during last night's presidential debate: Senator McCain was a fool not to choose Mitt Romney as his running mate.
Why? Because Senator McCain is completely devoid of ideas, energy, and a chance of winning. People may point to Governor Palin as the weak link in the McCain/Palin ticket, but at least she brings energy and fortitude. McCain? Well, let's just say that he fell asleep some time ago and has not yet bothered to wake up and refresh his mind with the slightest clue as to what to do about domestic or even foreign policy.
It pains me to write this. I'm a conservative, after all. But I can't get excited about McCain. I kept wanting him to come up with a thoughtful suggestion as to how to fix the economy (not that I expect him to have The Answer - no one does); to provide a nuanced view of foreign policy; or say anything that sounded like it had been considered in the past decade or so. Instead McCain's policy proposals never climbed much higher than a dig at Obama.
Obama, right or wrong, came with some new ideas. Yes, most have Democratic ideology as their foundation, but at least they sounded like fresh refrains on an old song. I'm not sure I can vote for Obama, but I'm increasingly disinclined to vote against him, not when my option is McCain.
Romney wouldn't have given McCain electoral votes, and he likely would have angered Evangelicals for being (gasp!) Christian, but not their brand of Christian. Whatever. But he at least had ideas. He would have been the guy to have when the economy was collapsing. He's the sort of guy that gets better when shoved up against the wall. McCain? There's no doubt he can take a beating. But it's equally clear now that he has no idea how to respond to the beating constructively, with creativity and agility.
Even as a Republican, I have more faith in Obama's ability to handle the economic crisis than McCain. I still don't like Obama's social policy prescriptions, and I may even not like his financial proposals, but at least he has some. McCain? Not so much.
Jeff Waugh points out in a comment to my previous post that perhaps this ideological bankruptcy of the Republicans will lead to a renaissance of conservative thought. I hope so. If McCain is the best we can offer, we deserve to lose. Again and again and again.
3 comments:
I watched a bit of the debate and realized as I was watching McCain fumble over his words and Obama glide through the questions in a stately manner. A name came to my mind, Korihor. Yes Obama's ideas are fresh, kind of like his ideas that led to sub prime lending, and look where it got us.
I agree with you about McCain. Of course I think the republicans have been doomed. The era of instant gratification is intensifying and whichever candidate (the better debater and speaker) can "offer" that will be our next president. It doesn't matter what they've done in the past, so long as they can brush away weak attacks as easily as you would a fly.
Uh, the interesting, radical economic ideas in the Republican party have always come from the libertarian wing, not the conservatives. Just look at the definition of conservative:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=conservative
1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
It's like the definition of a proprietary sofware vendor! :)
There are definitely market-based approaches that could address a lot of the issues we are facing today, but a market requires a _finite_ set of rules to make it actually work, something that seems lost to both McCain/Palin (no rules!) and Obama/Biden (tons of rules!).
But given where we ended up, tons of rules is way better than no rules. You have mentioned that the cause of the economic slump is the government guaranteeing subprime loans, but the freddie/fannie bailout cost $200B in guarantees, most of which will likely be paid back, and these were loans that everyone knows were based on bad credit, look at he name - subprime! The credit crunch is caused by the subprime debt being mixed into mortgage-backed securities and derivatives based on those securities without disclosure to the point where nobody knows what is tainted anymore and so no one can trust each other's instruments. There should have been a big fat "Subprime" stamp on these securities, not "Grade A". Clearly a bad market that needs some basic rules, just like food in the supermarket has clear, government mandated labels that describe what's in it.
Peter
I hate the election and I am not even in the US!!! Our choices stink, our economy kind of stinks, and no one seems to be able to step up to the plate and fix anything! I still am thinking of voting for Matt and Brigham. I love you Your Mom who is conservative more or less.
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