Monday, April 07, 2008
Trust, Confidence and "Bad News First"
This strikes me as being at the core of a fundamental problem plaguing the Democratic Party today -- that is, it is dishonest with its most passionate constituents. The empirical evidence which supports free trade and debunks protectionism is now measured not in decades but in centuries of data. The last two term Democratic Party President, Bill Clinton, worked arduously on behalf of the North American Free Trade Agreement. It is among the Clinton Adminstration's better achievements. And here Hillary has to dismiss her best strategist because he advocates for free trade. How dumb is that? And furthermore, Obama finds himself in a pickle because he too has to speak with forked tongue on the subject, telling his constituency he opposes NAFTA in its current form, while his minions tell the Canadians not to pay attention to what he says on the campaign trail.
In the same vein, Clinton has to ignore her vote in favor of the Iraq War and invent a narrative -- as Kerry rather pathetically attempted before her -- to blame her vote on being misled, something which is almost pathologically untrue. This leads hers to pursue a stated policy regarding US force projection in the Middle East which is either stupid or a lie as well.
That is not leadership.
Why? Why the need to lie or project to doing dumb things? I will answer that later.
By contrast, John McCain has been brutally honest. He voted for Iraq and is in it to win it, as they say. When every other candidate lacked the gumption to support his or her own vote in favor, he reiterated his support for his vite and the Bush Administration. Furthermore, he critiqued the execution strategy for the post invasion management of the war, and lambasted its author, Donald Rumsfeld. Politically, McCain authored the Surge -- and now he's winning. When questioned on his political future six months ago -- which as we all know was gravely in doubt as a result of this position -- McCain bluntly said he would prefer to lose the election and win the war.
More recently, when Clinton and Obama both proffered mortgage market solutions which involved significant government intervention in private real estate and mortgage markets, McCain rejected those calls. He was immediately roundly criticized for his hardheartedness in the media, yet most subsequent polling suggests voters want the government to stay out of the mortgage market.
So let's return to the question above. Why is McCain in a position to "tell it like it is," while the others invent fables of every variety. Why is McCain fearless in telling his constituency what he believes while Clinton and Obama do not. Regardless of your particular variety of partisanship, this strikes me as a fairly objective observation.
Part of it, you might say, has to do with a more profound division in the Democratic Party than in the Republican Party on core foreign policy and economic matters. And that may be. I am, however, beginning to conclude that something else might be at work, another force, and one unique to McCain.
Great leaders thoughout history have been appreciated and forgiven for telling hard truths. They lead by inspiring their constituents to transcend and endure great challenges. McCain's advantage in the coming election is greatly underestimated, because voters of all political stripes will ultimately weigh leadership and character and experience more than individual policy positions.
When weighing matters of war and foreign policy, how can either Clinton or Obama be taken seriously when placed next to McCain? Not only has he served, which is of course well known, but one son is a Marine grunt in Iraq, while the other is at the Naval Academy. How can Clinton and Obama talk about the weight of committing the nation's sons and daughters to war (or contemplating it) in a way which can possibly measure up to McCain? some fool radio pundit called McCain a warmonger. Can there be a more absurd insult hurled at a man who spent 5 years as a tortured POW and who's son has been shot at in Iraq?
The list of issues in which McCain's gravitas dominates the puny resumes of both Clinton and particularly Obama is long - foreign policy, war, trade, immigration, the economy.
In my estimation, polling data will consistently underweight the magnitude of McCain's leadership advantage over his opponents. In part, it explains why he surprised so many in the Republican process. It may be more extreme in the general election. That 3am phone call advertisement -- which dented Obama somewhat laughably in light of its source -- is all about trust. And amongst these three candidates, that questions seems easily answered. Not with whom do you agree. Who do you trust?
8 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Apr 07, 01:26:00 PM:
Trust. While I may trust McCain more than BHO/HRC, that hardly makes him trustworthy. He has stabbed conservativees in the back so many times, our backs look like sieves.
By , at
Mon Apr 07, 01:55:00 PM:
Well, John McCain is more conservative than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.
But then he is more of a man than Britney Spears, too. :)
And this means....?
It's all pretty relative. McCain has been pretty consistent with....John McCain. Not necessarily with the Republican Party or with conservative ideals, but with himself.
He is, to put it succinctly, self-consistent. Which ought to count for something. Shouldn't it?
-David
By 
Georg Felis, at
Mon Apr 07, 02:04:00 PM:
I suspect it would be more accurate to state "because it was found out" instead of "because it turns". The Clintons have been masters of taking both sides of issues both political and financially, it would not suprise me a bit to find her opposing the free trade agreement while behind the scenes taking... contributions to mute her tones.
By , at
Mon Apr 07, 02:10:00 PM:
Yes.
People bitch constantly about politicians who change their stances with the polls, or indeed even with the make-up of their audience of the day. They're shifty and deceitful snake-oil salesmen whose opinions are dictated to them by Gallup.
But then people bitch when politicians behave according to their own system and pay no attention to the polls and audience of the day. They're ideological heretics who get their jollies from backstabbing constituents.
You can't have it both ways.
By Christopher Chambers, at
Mon Apr 07, 03:17:00 PM:
Gravitas? I'm still trying to parse this as you've presented it.
OK,so that word makes McCain a better presidential prospect? Hell I'd bet he'd even blush at that (as I suspect he will be taking rabid numbskull right wing bloggers, radio hosts to task in bigger numbers). He's been in the Senate longer. That's his qualification. Being shot down and tortured by our newest trade partner/cheap goods/tourism pal Vietnam might qualify him to endure an interview by Sean Hannity, but come on.
I recall another Illinois politician whose "gravitas" was questioned by folks also laughed at him. His name was Lincoln. The ancestors of you red state righties decided to declare war on the Stars and Stripes when he surprised you and was elected. Lord I wonder what you'll do when Barack takes the oath of office? Word to the wise: you won;t be able to hide behind war criminals like Bedford Forrest and Jesse James this time. But if he loses McCain'll still be there. He has what most of you don't--class. Let's go on. Theodore Roosevelt...I'm trying to think what his foreign policy "experience" was beyond grandstanding in Cuba where more men died from mosquito bites and bad water than Spanish bullets. yet he somehow cobbled his act together and led us into the 20th Century. I don't think anyone mentioned "gravitas."
Th G word. Is that what our current president posseses? Lemme think. NO. Riddle me this--did he convery gravitas and his minions, proxies and folk like you chopped ol' John McCain to pieces in campaigns past. Did you ever stop to think that this history is why McCain keeps mum on the hatchet jobs done to Obama? Could be...could be. His frosted blonde daughter has said as much.
So, either you've been drinking too much mud from the Mississippi floods, or your latent (pick a label...) can't hide beneath the usual gauze any more.
Pick another battle.
By , at
Mon Apr 07, 08:55:00 PM:
I agree with much of what you say (as a progressive liberal) and loathe the hypocrisy of my parents' boomer liberal generation. And yet... one must remember McCain has the luxury of not having to fight for primary votes anymore. At this point, Clinton or Obama are desperate to get traction against each other and it's not always going to be pretty.
The problem with McCain is not a matter of experience, but of attitude. As a student of the American Revolution, I would ask you to consider if the Brits' problems in that conflict were the result of a lack of foreign policy expertise. Do you think that if they had been more clever in applying the Stamp Tax that the colonials would have failed to notice anything and would have acquiesced? Do you think that if there had only been a few more liberal-minded members of Parliament when the Americans asked for representation there that the revolution could have been avoided? The answer is of course, no. The seed of the conflict began in the hubris of King George and his advisors at the very top, and could not have been averted any other way except by a change of attitude among those few individuals.
McCain is welcomedly distinct from Bush, but I do believe his general approach will continue to be of the neocon variety. Regardless of whether one approves the invasion of Iraq or the success which we are beginning to see now, I don't see how anyone, even a conservative, could regard the Iraq War as anything but an utter failure of conservative thinking and values. (The way the enemy and its populations have been studied and understood, the way power and control has been delegated, the "dead certainty" of our course, the cultural insensitivities, and yes, the hypocrisy represented by Abu Graib and Guantanamo.)
Think of Obama after Bush as "good cop" after "bad cop". There's a wily strategic sense in suddenly changing our policies from a series of hard hits from the right, to a bunch coming from the left.
By Eric, at
Mon Apr 07, 10:58:00 PM:
Squeeler: "I don't see how anyone, even a conservative, could regard the Iraq War as anything but an utter failure of conservative thinking and values."
Actually, it's the opposite: I say as a liberal that if Operation Iraqi Freedom fails, it would be a failure - and rejection - of liberal thinking and values.
As far as the disconnects in the Democrats' populist electioneering versus their possible actual policy beliefs, I'm reminded of a TV (CNN?) roundtable in 2004 after the Democrats were shocked by the re-election of George Bush. James Carville commented that Kerry lost because his substantive positions on the war tracked too closely with President Bush, and for the Dems to win the 2006 and 2008 elections, they needed to project a narrative (key word) to the public that was polar opposite to Bush's policies. That strategy was validated in 2006, so it's no wonder they've continued it into 2008, even when it seems that what they say to the public is (or may be) different from what they believe.
The Dems want to win the White House, and they can't do that by admitting - as Kerry did in 2004 - they'd basically continue what the Bush admin started.
By , at
Tue Apr 08, 06:37:00 AM:
Chambers, did you just compare Barack Obama favorably to Lincoln and TR?
Pardon me while I go laugh uproariously.
