In the face of calamity, a former maverick and a half-baked Alaskan lead the way. As Stevie Wonder once sang, “Heaven Help Us All.”
With the nation on the brink of economic chaos, the stock market teetering on the verge of free-fall, and banks failing left and right, John McCain made the supreme sacrifice on Tuesday and announced he was suspending his campaign for the presidency to concentrate totally on the proposed $700 billion bailout and asked that Friday’s presidential debate be postponed until a deal could be reached. He then waited 36 hours to fly down to Washington from New York – blowing off an appearance on David Letterman, but still managing to do an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric – only to arrive hours after a tentative agreement had been reached between Democrats and Republicans on the actual details of the bailout. Undaunted, he then spurred on angry House Republicans in time to gum up the works and stall the agreement, making demands that now threaten any chance of reaching an agreement in time for Monday morning.
Over the last ten days John McCain has gone from believing that the fundamentals of our economy were strong, to calling for the head of the SEC to be fired (apparently he was unaware that even the President cannot fire the head of the SEC), to being against the bailout of AIG, to then praising it as being necessary to the country’s best interests, and now, realizing how precarious a position the economy is in and fully able to read poll numbers, discovering that the ship is taking on water and listing badly to port. If this is any indication of how a McCain/Palin administration would govern were they to be elected, all I can say is this: I hope you all have your passports up to date; you’re going to be using them soon.
While I have never much believed in the altruism and principles that most politicians claim to have in abundance – I wasn’t born yesterday you know – I do have a right to expect some degree of consistency out of a candidate running for the highest office of the land. Even George Bush, for all the angst he has caused, has at least been consistent. Unfortunately for the nation, consistently wrong. The thing that has bothered me so much about John McCain is how much he has fallen from that maverick image he at least displayed in some small measure back in 2000 when he was running against then Texas Governor George Bush. Back then McCain stood up to the conservative base of his party. He called Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson agents of intolerance, said he could not in good conscious vote for the Bush tax cuts, and said that offshore drilling was not the solution to America’s dependence on foreign oil. But that was a different John McCain. That McCain lost to George Bush in the South Carolina primary, after a viscous rumor was spread that he might be the father of an illegitimate black child. Soon after he dropped out of the race and the rest, as they say, was history.
The lesson John McCain learned was if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. And joined them he has. Over the last few months he has sucked up to the base of his party, shamelessly burying the old gothic maverick image he once treasured so much. He has called the war in Iraq the central fight in the war on terror, despite the fact that even senior pentagon officials have publicly stated that Afghanistan and not Iraq is the centerpiece in the war on terror; he courted the endorsement of pastor John Hegee, a man who compared Catholicism to the great whore of the book of Revelation; he has fully embraced the Bush tax cuts, calling for them to be made permanent; he now supports off-shore drilling for oil, this despite the fact that current oil refineries are at or near 100% of capacity as it is; and now for the piece de résistance, with the wheels coming off the economy, he actually supports less regulation of housing markets.
As if things weren’t bad enough for John McCain, his vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin continues to implode with each passing day. Every interview she does exposes her more and more to the light of day. The latest debacle came this Wednesday when Katie Couric, not once, not twice, but three times asked the Alaskan governor to list one thing John McCain did that made him a “maverick.” Palin’s answer was stunning. “I’ll get back to ya,” was all she could come up with. Evidently, she must have mixed up the cue cards. That was John McCain’s response a month ago when he was asked how many houses he owned. Any wonder the McCain campaign wanted to postpone Friday’s debate to next week. With any luck at all they might even manage to postpone the vice-presidential debate all the way to December!
Seriously, this dynamic duo is about as scary as scary can get. It’s one thing to have a politician who sold his soul to win a nomination; it is quite another to have a running mate who really does believe in her own self-righteous destiny. Whether it be her claim that the fact that Alaska’s proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience, or the fact that she lied when she said she had never supported the bridge to nowhere, as well as her claim that she never tried to ban books while mayor of Wasilla; or the fact that she continues to fight an on-going “troopergate” investigation into the firing of Walter Monegan for what many have said was his refusal to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, who it is alleged had made a death treat against the governor’s father. You can go on and on. The more I see of this woman the more fearful I become. Having John McCain as the next President of the United States is bad enough; knowing this neophyte is a heartbeat away from the Oval office is enough to induce nightmares.
Tonight Barack Obama has only one task. Drum in to the collective electorate just how frightening a specter it would be to have a McCain/Palin administration. The economic turmoil has given Obama the ball on the five-yard line, first and goal. Anything less than a touchdown may prove catastrophic for the nation. Events have given him what every candidate dreams of: a platform to carry him into office. The election is there for the taking. Now is the time for great leaders to stand up and lead. FDR buried Hoover; Kennedy outdid Nixon; and Clinton exposed Bush. (Sorry for the pun!) Obama has no excuses left. The nation, already thirsty for change, expects him to do well. The bloom has already fallen off the Palin nomination and once more McCain looks predictable, tired and worn out. The polls show Obama ahead nationally and in all the important swing states. He must go for the kill tonight. To let McCain up off the mat would be criminal. In my line of work – sales – the mark of excellence is how effective you are at closing the deal. There are less than 40 days left before this nation makes the most important decision it has made since 1932. It is a decision Barack Obama can make a whole lot easier starting tonight.
