Why we need John McCain, and why he doesn't have a chance
Topics: Campaign2008
28 Aug 2008
From: Ervan Darnell
Why we need McCain (more or less in order of relevance):
1) Divided government is much better than unified government. There are
several reasons for this:
a) It does less and since virtually everything Congress does is for the
worse, less is better.
b) The conceit of power to run amok with various sorts of corruption is
greatly limited.
c) The argument for any change must be made more clearly and more
convincingly, as the other party must vote for it. This limits run away
ideological votes. Polls show the Dems likely to take even more of the
Senate and the House. The only hope for some balance is a Republican
President (I'd prefer a Democratic President and a Republican House, but
that's not a choice this time).
2) Personal tax policy: obvious. I've already written about Obama's
folly on capital gains and social security. The National Taxpayers Union
(grading previous voting record) gives Obama 16% (an "F"). McCain gets
an "A" at 88% (for the latest available data, 109th Congress, 2nd session):
http://www.ntu.org/main/misc.php?MiscID=13
Of course tax rates are nonsense at some level, as the real tax rate is
the spending rate, one way or another, but Obama also proposes far more
new spending that McCain.
3) Corporate tax policy: Obama berates McCain's wanting to give
corporations a tax cut. Any corporate tax is a foolish idea. It's just
an income or sales tax depending on how it gets split. Obama wants to
raise corporate tax rates. That will just send companies, and jobs,
overseas faster, and not reduce the real tax burden at all. It's not
even obvious that it's a progressive tax.
4) Health Care: Obama's plan is (at the most charitable) to force people
who cannot afford it to buy it any way (by forcing their employers to
buy it for them and then ultimately cutting their salary), or more
likely in the long run, socialize it. McCain's plan is offer
deductability for private health insurance. I've argued before why this
is a really good idea for lots of reasons.
5) Trade policy. Obama is in favor of higher tariffs on imports (in the
indirect form of taxing companies that "send jobs overseas"). Obama has
mumbled about renegotiating NAFTA to be less useful. McCain meanwhile
favors free trade.
6) Energy: Obama's plan is to "hope" we stop wanting to use so much.
McCain's policy is to actually produce some more.
7) Every other economic issue, I don't need to exhaust them. It's the
same story.
8) What about the Supreme Court? As argued recently here (in Ragnar),
it's not clear that a liberal judge would do any more to preserve
individual liberty than a conservative one. Also, Obama has really had
little to say about civil liberties, so it's hard to parse. He did have
this to say about the Constitution (in his book, the Audacity of
Arrogance, or whatever he called it, thanks to Cormac for pointing out
the quote):
9) What about Iraq? Without debating the particulars of their policies,
I'd say it doesn't matter. At this point, everyone, Obama, McCain, and
Iraq itself want the U.S. troops out as soon as possible. Maybe Obama
would leave abruptly and McCain in four years. It doesn't really matter
that much, casualties are down. The political damage is done. We're left
quibbling over saving Iraqi lives versus short term U.S. spending (most
likely).
> What the framework of our Constitution can do is organize the way by
> which we argue about our future. All of its elaborate machinery – its
> separation of powers and checks and balances and federalist principles
> and Bill of Rights – are designed to force us into a conversation,
> "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what
> it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what
> it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or
> old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my
> judges."
In other words, he has contempt for the Constitution and doesn't believe
in the rule of law. I thought that was charge liberals made against Bush.
----------
Why McCain is in trouble:
1) Voters blame Bush, and by association the Republicans, for the
economic fallout of the mortgage meltdown. As I've previously argued,
this is ridiculous for not really being his fault, being myopic in time,
blaming the President above Congress, and failing to compare to the
available alternative (the Dems) versus absolute standards (real
economic growth every single year). Nonetheless, that's how voters
think. McCain's real advantage over Obama is on the economic front, and
that's where he's least liked.
2) Even more incredible, polls show Americans blaming Republicans for
the price of gas. This is doubly foolish. It was the Republicans who
have been in favor of drilling and the Democrats who were opposed. And,
as noted on the economic front, it's the Dems who have been in control
of the House and Senate during the period gas prices have risen (if one
is inclined to blame the party in power). I'm not here arguing that we
necessarily should drill ANWR, but only saying it's hypocritical to
think high gas prices are bad and to blame the Republicans for them.
3) Obama has shown great ability to deceive people (aka "give a good
speech"). Now that he is turning that talent on the general electorate
rather than Dems, I expect to see his poll numbers rise.
4) Negative campaigning works. Therefore a track record is a bad thing.
McCain has a long record and Obama a short run. That plays in Obama's
favor because McCain's mistakes will be hammered and his successes given
less attention (again, because voters fail to properly normalize).
5) Campaign money. In a craven act of hypocrisy, Obama has declined
federal campaign financing. He'll have a lot more money than McCain.
Money does buy elections (usually, that's a good thing, but not this
time; I suppose one might still say it's still a good thing in the sense
that there a lot of liberals highly motivated to do maximal damage and
they will get some ersatz warm and fuzzy feeling for succeeding in doing
so, which is a good of a sort).
6) Free lunch folly. Obama is promising a free lunch on health care,
retirement, and trade among others. McCain, despite lots of gimmick
policies and hesitant support for free markets, at least occasionally
acknowledges there is no free lunch (e.g. telling Michigan voters heavy
industry jobs are gone). That bit of honesty will hurt him.
7) The motivation gap. Obama motivates the most naive (i.e. young)
voters to the polls. College turnout for Obama has been unusually high
(I don't have any hard data on this one, so I'm open to something
specific). McCain has no corresponding boost. So there is a torque,
versus the usual turnout, in favor of Obama even without his moving the
political center his way. As an aside, I always wonder how much damage
government education loans due by creating a generation of voters who
are used to a handout and vote accordingly without any sense of the
cost. I'd ban students on government aid from voting as surely as I'd
ban welfare recipients from voting due to a conflict of interest.
--------
Yes, McCain has lots of faults, being in favor of censoring political
speech the most egregious. But Obama favors that too. I live in a state
where my vote doesn't count, so I'll be voting straight ticket
Libertarian as always, but were I in a swing state, I'd have to think
about that more carefully.
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