BETWEEN THE LINES
Jonathan Alter
Crushed by the Elephant
Picking Palin was a confession that McCain did not have control of the Republican Party.
In a season of ironies, the greatest of all might be that John McCain lacks the toughness to get elected president. During the summer, when he had his best chance, he wasn't tough enough to remake the Republican Party in his own image; instead, he surrendered to a cynical assortment of lobbyists and right-wingers who insisted on a strategic blunder that McCain would recognize from his reading of military history—fighting the last war. In 2004 President Bush won by rallying the base and destroying the Democrat as unpatriotic. They would try to do it again.
But the free-market party of Reagan is dead (thanks to the financial crisis) and the resentment party of Nixon (in the form of the ugly attacks unleashed by McCain and Sarah Palin) may find that its best days are behind it. Where is the party of McCain? The man who survived five and a half years as a Vietnam POW and a thousand political battles is being crushed by a dying elephant.
Sure, the market would likely be melting down McCain's campaign no matter what he did. But he'd have a better chance if he canned the character attacks on Barack Obama. Aside from being offensive and desperate, they don't work with undecided voters. And they're confusing to McCain's own stoked-up partisans, as he found in Minnesota last week, when he told a woman who said she was scared by Obama, because he was "Arab," that she was wrong and his opponent was actually a "decent family man." McCain's own crowd then booed him.
But most voters this year aren't much interested in William Ayers or other distractions. Times are bad and the greedheads are to blame. "They know only the rules of a generation of self seekers," Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his 1933 Inaugural Address, referring to the GOP thinking of the 1920s. "They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish."
Roosevelt's biblical references, as he rallied the country against "fear itself" during the last banking crisis, underscored the break he was making from the Grand Old Party of Coolidge and Hoover. Obama would likely do the same. "The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization," FDR said. "We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."
Restoration. It's a powerful vision, and one that McCain understood in 2002 when he tried to force the money contributors from their high seats in the Capitol as part of McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform. In those days, McCain built a powerful independent brand in American politics. He recognized that the conservative movement was going off the rails. He voted against Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy because they offended his "conscience," and talked with Tom Daschle about sitting with the Democrats in the Senate and with John Kerry about going on the 2004 Democratic ticket.
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Member Comments
Posted By: TruthForward @ 10/28/2008 7:08:58 PM
Comment: Has anyone noticed that Obama seems to be catching up in Arizona? And he is doing better than expected in Texas. McCain may loose his home state.
Posted By: haynessemperfi @ 10/18/2008 2:10:23 AM
Comment: PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE TO BE HELD SUNDAY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
The Free and Equal Elections Coalition (FREE) and the Columbia Political Union are pleased to announce that a Presidential debate will be held this coming Sunday, October 19th, 2008, on the campus of Columbia University.
ALL SIX of the Presidential candidates who appear on enough state ballots to acquire the 270 Electoral Votes needed to become President are invited. They are as follows (listed in alphabetical order by affiliation):
Constitution Party Candidate: Chuck Baldwin
Democratic Party Candidate: Barack Obama
Green Party Candidate: Cynthia McKinney
Independent Candidate: Ralph Nader
Libertarian Party Candidate: Bob Barr
Republican Party Can John McCain
The Columbia Political Union will present the debate from 8:00pm to 10:00pm in the Altschul Auditorium, located at 417 International Affairs Building. The debate will be moderated by Pacifica Radio's Amy Goodman, the host of "Democracy Now!". CSPAN will cover the debate, and live radio broadcasts are expected.
"The Columbia Political Union is committed to energizing political discourse on Columbia's campus," said Allon Brann, Columbia Political Union Publisher. "As a non-partisan organization, we work to provide students with opportunities to encounter and engage with political ideas across a wide ideological spectrum, and on a wide range of issues."
"It is with these goals in mind that we have organized this Presidential Debate: to give all candidates-- either within or outside of the political "mainstream"-- the opportunity to speak directly to students about their goals on the issues they deem critical for this country."
"We have invited all eligible candidates, and it is our sincere hope that all will participate, to ensure the substance and rigor of the dialogue which we believe is crucial at this time."
Certified letters officially inviting each candidate have been sent to the respective campaigns.
The Free and Equal Elections Coalition and the Columbia Political Union await the response from the candidates. All candidates' supporters are encouraged to contact the Presidential campaigns and urge them to attend.
The Columbia Political Union seeks to enhance involvement in the political process, domestic and international, and draw every member of the campus community into an ongoing discussion of political ideas.
FREE is a coalition of political parties, independent citizens and civic organizations formed to promote free and equal elections in the United States.
http://www.freeandequal.org/events.php?id=7
FREEDOM ISN'T FREE
Posted By: haynessemperfi @ 10/18/2008 1:33:19 AM
Comment: Comment: by Ralph Nader
October 10. 2008
Rolling the Dice on Derivatives - The Nader Page
The derivatives markets of today have become a high stakes casino of unimaginable magnitude. Wall Street???s bets have gone bad, and now the whole financial system is in peril. In a best-case scenario, it appears, the taxpayers will be required to rescue the system from itself. This is why Warren Buffett labeled derivatives ???weapons of financial mass destruction.???
Amazingly, there seems to be some lingering sense that current-day derivatives properly perform an insurance function.
Case in point: Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chairman. Greenspan says the world is facing ???the type of wrenching financial crisis that comes along only once in a century,??? but, reports the New York Times, ???his faith in derivatives remains unshaken.??? Greenspan believes that the problem is not with derivatives, but that the people using them got greedy, according to the Times.
This is quite a view. Is it a surprise to Alan Greenspan that the people on Wall Street ??? said to be ruled only by the opposing instincts of greed and fear ??? ???got greedy????
http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/rolling-the-dice-on-derivatives-by-ralph-nader/
www.votenader.org