vagyakartha

There will be a lot written over the next few days by those who know a lot more about these things than I do. So, let me get my two bits in right away.

I can’t recall an American presidential election, I have been following them pretty closely since 1968 (when youthful America last spoke up) and have been a participant since 1990, as multidimensional as this one. Yes, the Bush economy had a lot to do with this one. Race had both more to do with this election and less than people may think. The people to whom race matters a lot don’t matter a lot. Not anymore. And, there were a host of other factors, including the great red herring, experience.

Some key factors were just not spoken out aloud. I am not talking about race, but about McCain’s intelligence, competence and temperament. I read that he graduated 894^th in a class of 899 at the Naval Academy, after being cited and disciplined numerous times for unacceptable and unruly behaviour. Seems to me that anyone else would have been kicked out, the Academy is a tough place. But, they don’t give the boot to a grandson and son of an admiral. When he graduated and his behaviour didn’t change much, he just couldn’t be fired. They just don’t do that to a grandson and son of an admiral. When his plane was shot down, more out of recklessness than anything else, his record didn’t point that out. He acquitted himself with extraordinary courage and discipline during the five-plus years that followed. For that, all was forgiven. Others who had suffered similarly returned to a hateful country, (I lived in America then), but he received a hero’s welcome. He wasn’t the only naval officer to have been imprisoned and tortured for five years. But, can you recall a single other such hero’s name? One just doesn’t speak ill of a genuine hero, not when he is a grandson and son of an admiral.

He married, after cheating on his wife, a rich and powerful heiress from Arizona and chose to enter Congress. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t have been beaten. No wonder he has decades of experience in Washington. Ted Stevens of Alaska has even more. Nevertheless, McCain’s Senate career can’t be dismissed summarily. He certainly doesn’t rank in the bottom percentile.

His temperament has always been questioned, though not enough. The questions became louder as he started to trail seriously and so were those on his judgment - it’s OK to question a hero’s judgment, particularly after Palin. The average American voter is generally viewed to be a dunce who can’t even find his cap, mostly by people who don’t live there. They tend to forget that more Americans voted for Gore than Bush. Adlai Stevenson, a certified intellectual whose sentences were not merely complete but long, won 44.3% of the vote against Eisenhower in 1952. So, these voters can figure out what’s what and, I strongly suspect, they figured out in increasing numbers that McCain didn’t have what it is going to take to tackle America’s problems. The financial collapse merely clarified that.

America’s economic problems had become evident much earlier, when Obama was running against Hillary Clinton (most economists predicted early in the second quarter that a recession would begin in the third). Race was clear from day one. Yet, Obama the inexperienced beat Clinton the inevitable. Obama the black beat Edwards the white prince in pristine white Iowa. All that was so long ago that we have forgotten.

The Bush years, after a promising start, continually set new lows for presidential performance. They would have set new lows for character as well, but even Cheney can’t beat Nixon. An extraordinarily good Republican candidate could have won this election. A mediocre Democratic candidate could have lost it – Democrats are skilled at losing elections even without extraordinarily bad candidates. Neither McCain nor Obama fit the bill for a Republican victory. Clinton didn’t either, but many would have found it easier to dislike her than Obama.

McCain will lose because he fully deserves to do so. Obama will win comfortably – 360 electoral votes? - because he promises to be extraordinarily good. Time will tell if he fulfills that promise. I sincerely hope he does, for the sake of all concerned.

Labels: Barak Obama, election, McCain

# posted by Vagyakartha : 8:45 AM  0 Comments

With long nights and longer nightmares fast approaching, this may not seem the time for daydreaming. Even less so when the nebulous dream's protagonist is Senator McCain. But then, isn't a realistic daydream an oxymoronic waste of time?

Senator McCain recently pulled his campaign staff out of Michigan. RealClearPolitics’ poll of polls shows that he trails Senator Obama by just over 10 percentage points there. The recently released New York Times-CBS News poll shows him trailing Senator Obama by 14% nationwide, against the RCP poll’s 8.2%.

It may be unseemly and premature for Senator McCain formally to concede the presidential race at this stage, the consequences for future Republican candidates would be severe. And, the Grand Old Party certainly does not deserve to become the Capitulate And Run Party.

Nevertheless, I dream of him calling off his campaign, returning his unspent federal funds as his symbolic contribution toward shrinking the ballooning deficit and announcing in a national address that he will work with Senator Obama and his party colleagues in Congress in putting the country first.

It seems almost a certainty that Senator Obama will be the next president, one with an almost unassailable majority in Congress. That majority is likely to be far more left-leaning than any congressional majority in recent memory. There is a clear and present danger in that. Senator Obama’s apparent tendency toward sensible economic policies, even when the stimulus of a large deficit is warranted, could well be overwhelmed by Speaker Pelosi’s strong leftward lurch.

However vociferous the Republican opposition may be to such pulls, it is unlikely to be effective and will sound like the whines of sour-grape losers.

McCain, given his earlier well deserved reputation and stature, is in a strong position to convert a partisan donnybrook into a laudable, bipartisan “Country First” effort. In fact, no one else can come close.

In return for abandoning his incredibly ill conceived tax plans, he could help ensure that all incentives for wealth creation aren’t wiped out by a vengeful Congress. In return for completely abandoning the fundamentalist fringe of the Republican party, he could assist in pulling the Democrats away from their irresponsibly populist fringe, if populist is the right term for it. He could permanently banish Appallin Palin to political oblivion and work on the sensible energy and environmental policies that America and the world need with desperate urgency. He could work to convince his party colleagues that unless America works hard at educating and training tomorrow’s workforce, so they can be more productive and value-effective than those of all other countries, both the relative and absolute declines in the real wages of blue-collar and service workers cannot be arrested. He could even join the president in convincing the world that few Americans are as innately bellicose as Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush. He may even be helpful in convincing the world that American exceptionalism is at best a ridiculous notion, not a defensible doctrine.

There is just so much he could do, if only he were to choose to do so. I strongly suspect that he will find a willing and highly capable collaborator in another losing senator, Hillary Clinton. Imagine Obama, Biden, McCain and Clinton working together in serving the country.

Oh well, a recumbent retiree can dream, can’t he?

Labels: Barak Obama, McCain, US Elections

# posted by Vagyakartha : 2:41 AM  0 Comments