Last night millions of Americans tuned into the final U.S. presidential debate broadcast live from Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY. What was clear was the aggressiveness of John McCain’s personal attacks toward Barack Obama (one could argue that the attacks themselves seemed stale, tired, and completely off-topic). What remained quite foggy were the answers, if any, that John McCain had for our recession-bound economy. Johnny “Maverick” seemed rehearsed and anxious to score political points by attacking his rival at every turn (often completely altering the question in order to fit in some kind of smear against Obama).
Maybe it was just me, but I felt like McCain looked a lot like the fabled misguided hero, “Don Quixote” from Miguel de Cervantes' book of the same name. In that book, a formerly imprisoned "mad knight" named Don Quixote sets out on a quest to defeat an assortment of imagined foes (ie. he wildly attacks windmills throughout the peaceful countryside in his delusion, thinking that they are really malevolent dragons out to "get the people"). Does this kind of unrealistic fear mongering and ill-conceived crusading sound familiar to a party that has succeeded only in running this country into the ground? The GOP will apparently stop at nothing to scare people out of voting for Obama- they literally have nothing left to tell or sell us about their own candidate for the highest office in the land.
And what is Obama’s supposed dirty laundry? It has all been hung out to dry since the Democratic Primary (Barack can thank Hillary for that!)- he’s explained and clarified things that weren’t even yet brought up. I thought Obama did well in playing "high road defense", making McCain look like an increasingly erratic and grumpy individual who takes things very personally (ie. Sara Palin and her "Troopergate" misdeeds in office), and achieving the goal of soundly defeating McCain for a sweep of all three presidential debates (not to mention Biden winning the one VP debate). It seems to me that the majority of this country "Get's It". But we'll have to wait and see... Us voters will have the final say on November 4th.
While McCain and many of his closest supporters (esp. the staunch GOP “base”) probably thought he did a “heckuva job” lampooning Obama with everything from accusations of socialism to raising up, yet again, the dead horse of William Ayers to flog, others weren't particularly impressed. And then there is ACORN, who John McCain has no problem giving keynote speeches for (as he has in the very recent past), but whom are apparently “threatening the very fabric of Democracy” the moment that some of their workers try to pass off false voter registrations (which, are scrutinized and removed from the voter rolls before anyone actually votes!) in the selfish interest of an easier quick buck- the workers accused of falsifying voter registrations were being paid “per registration” and hence the false entries such as “Mickey Mouse”, “Tony Romo”, among others.
Obama made his plan very clear- if you, like 95% of America, earn less than a quarter million dollars per year (< $250,000.00), you will see you taxes decreased- moreso under Obama than under McCain- 3 times more savings according to independent reviews. McCain snickered about Obama saying he wanted to “spread the wealth” as if the Illinois Senator had demanded the nationalization of all privately owned businesses in America. What Obama was trying to illustrate, is that someone making $250,000 or more doesn’t exactly need a tax break of an extra 5-10k as much as the working class citizen who is struggling to get by on $24,000/year. It’s by no means “redistribution of wealth” or even “spreading the wealth around” (I thought those were a bad choice of words by Obama and they guaranteed a GOP talking point in this last debate). The refusal to lower taxes for those who earn far more than 95% of Americans is simply a matter of fairness. In the past 10 years, we have seen the biggest increase in the gap between the middle and upper classes. When the wealthiest people in the world (like Warren Buffet, who very recently eclipsed Bill Gates as the richest American) are supporting Obama and openly admitting that they don’t need the “tax cuts for the rich” that have become the hallmark of the Bush Administration, well, you’ve got a problem with “the Democrat wants to take your hard earned money” argument. Correction- the Democrat in this election wants to make the ultra-rich (and other wealthy individuals who can afford not getting another tax break to help pay for the BMW convertible collecting dust in the 3rd garage) pay their fair share. When you have 95% of people paying 30-35% of their annual wealth to the government, and the other 5% paying (in some cases) a small fraction of that, you’ve got a disparity problem- now more than ever, the government needs tax money to help dig us out of debt and reform the dilapidated state of many government programs. Reducing taxes for everyone across the board sounds like a good thing- but not if it leads to the kind of economic disparity that has been developing for the past decade. I say lower taxes for you and me, and the other 95%, and so be it if the Bush tax cuts expire for a few of the most well off- those folks are not going to be lining up at the unemployment office any time soon.
McCain sees the kind of smears his campaign has unleashed in recent weeks (and subsequent fervor of the “base”) as his last best hope at stemming the rising tide of Barack Obama’s campaign and Democratic politics in general amidst this mounting economic crisis. And it’s not over. In the absence of any sensible policy or any alternative recourse, over the final 19 days John McCain and his attack “Barricuda” Sarah Palin are going to do everything in their power to paint Obama as unpatriotic and unfit to serve as our Commander in Chief because of his very loose past associations with radical peoples (the Obama campaign (with the exception of the very relevant “Keating 5” documentary) could very easily point out that McCain and Palin can both be (much, much more closely) linked to very controversial reactionary and criminal figures….. but why would the front-runner have to stoop to that level anyway?). The trouble is, Independent and undecided voters have overwhelmingly rejected this smear and fear ploy. The only ones excited are those already voting for McCain- and with the current state of the race, that does not bode well for his presidential hopes.
Regardless of what happens in the final stretch or what happened last night (John McCain lost that's what)... I've had enough for quite some time.
I’m still voting for "THAT ONE".
http://www.reuters.com/article/blogBurst/politics?type=politicsNews&w1=B7ovpm21IaDoL40ZFnNfGe&w2=B7tmRCRJt2YFzDsa7MJ1CblL&src=blogBurst_politicsNews&bbPostId=BF6o6Ah6YbQsBzEEoxEXTVdiCzETk4D412NRcB8O16d734rO8&bbParentWidgetId=B7tmRCRJt2YFzDsa7MJ1CblL
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