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Sunday, November 2, 2008
Second-guessing the McCain nomination
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They’re asking the political professionals at The Arena an interesting question: Could any GOP candidate be doing better than McCain?
Personally, I think the answer’s no, not a chance. The Republicans nominated the only candidate who could have hoped to make it close, the only candidate who could credibly claim to be, well, a maverick Republican. A lot of the pros say the John McCain of 2000 would be doing better, but that discounts the impact of that old McCain on the GOP base.
The latest Gallup poll, by the way, puts the margin at nine among likely voters. And John Zogby, who yesterday sent conservative hearts fluttering by announcing that McCain was making a big surge, now says nevermind, just kidding. “”Obama has consolidated his lead over McCain.”
As to yesterday’s excitement, says Zogby: “A special note to blogger friends: calm it down. Lay off the cable television noise and look at your baseball cards in your spare time. It is better for your (and everyone else’s) health.”
He has the margin at 5.7 percent.
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Time to stop stealing from our future
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ve had my differences in recent years with the NYT’s Tom Friedman, but his column this morning nails it:
“I can’t remember a presidential campaign that was so disconnected from the actual challenges of governing that will confront the winner the morning after. When this election campaign began two years ago, the big issue was how and for how long do we continue nation-building in Iraq. As the campaign comes to a close, the big issue is how and at what sacrifice do we do nation-building in America.
Unfortunately, you’d barely know that from the presidential debates. … McCain says giving everyone a tax cut will save the day; Obama tells us only the rich will have to pay to help us out of this hole. Neither is true.
We are all going to have to pay, because this meltdown comes in the context of what has been “perhaps the greatest wealth transfer since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917,” says Michael Mandelbaum, author of “Democracy’s Good Name.” “It is not a wealth transfer from rich to poor that the Bush administration will be remembered for. It is a wealth transfer from the future to the present.”
We’ve been stealing from our children and grandchildren, taxing their futures with neither their knowledge or permission. That’s how we’ve financed our tax cuts, social programs, wars, etc. The national debt has essentially doubled — from $5 trillion to $10 trillion — just in the past eight years.
And a reminder: Play nice.
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