Time for full disclosure in this ordinarily apolitical blog: up until a day or two ago, I had been supporting McCain.
Now I'm probably not.
It's sad. I'd been for him more for the "independent voter" reasons: I saw him (and Palin) as the best hope for reform in Washington. After all, they'd actually been doing reform in their respective roles before this.
Obama had only been talking a good game, and Biden had been heavily part of the system needing reforming (i.e., all that earmarked spending for Delaware, etc.).
Now however, it's becoming clear to me at least, that a President McCain would not be a good idea. Some egghead I saw on TV who had worked with McCain said he approached every issue with a fighter pilot mentality. He took risks. He takes risks.
Granted, they are calculated risks, and sometimes pay off. But his decisions tend to be more on the "risk" instead of the "calculated" side of things.
This approach showed up in the campaign, for example, in his pick of Palin for VP. At first, it seemed a great political move. Risky, wily. But as time went on, some supporters started getting nervous. She couldn't even seem to hold her own in media interviews. How would she do in a debate with Biden?
One conservative columnist commented that Palin showed herself to be "out of her league" and ought to drop out.
This, I am afraid, is true.
(Now, tonight is the VP debate, so maybe my view will change. But I doubt it.)
The point the aforementioned egghead was making was that high risk-takers make good fighter pilots, or even U.S. Senators. But usually not presidents.
A bit scary, if you think about it.
Latest polling shows other voters are starting to doubt McCain too. Obama's up by seven points or so.
And maybe this all will work out for the best. Untested people have been known to rise to the occasion, and Obama's always been a careful political player, a pleaser if you will. Despite his rhetoric, he probably won't be too extreme.
And an Obama presidency could do wonders for race relations in the USA.
Could, I say.
Ah well. As Lincoln said in his Second Inaugural, God rules in the affairs of men. You have to believe He's in charge of these events too.
Now I'm probably not.
It's sad. I'd been for him more for the "independent voter" reasons: I saw him (and Palin) as the best hope for reform in Washington. After all, they'd actually been doing reform in their respective roles before this.
Obama had only been talking a good game, and Biden had been heavily part of the system needing reforming (i.e., all that earmarked spending for Delaware, etc.).
Now however, it's becoming clear to me at least, that a President McCain would not be a good idea. Some egghead I saw on TV who had worked with McCain said he approached every issue with a fighter pilot mentality. He took risks. He takes risks.
Granted, they are calculated risks, and sometimes pay off. But his decisions tend to be more on the "risk" instead of the "calculated" side of things.
This approach showed up in the campaign, for example, in his pick of Palin for VP. At first, it seemed a great political move. Risky, wily. But as time went on, some supporters started getting nervous. She couldn't even seem to hold her own in media interviews. How would she do in a debate with Biden?
One conservative columnist commented that Palin showed herself to be "out of her league" and ought to drop out.
This, I am afraid, is true.
(Now, tonight is the VP debate, so maybe my view will change. But I doubt it.)
The point the aforementioned egghead was making was that high risk-takers make good fighter pilots, or even U.S. Senators. But usually not presidents.
A bit scary, if you think about it.
Latest polling shows other voters are starting to doubt McCain too. Obama's up by seven points or so.
And maybe this all will work out for the best. Untested people have been known to rise to the occasion, and Obama's always been a careful political player, a pleaser if you will. Despite his rhetoric, he probably won't be too extreme.
And an Obama presidency could do wonders for race relations in the USA.
Could, I say.
Ah well. As Lincoln said in his Second Inaugural, God rules in the affairs of men. You have to believe He's in charge of these events too.
posted by Ted | 6:59 AM
4 Comments:
So what did you think of the debate? I thought she handled herself pretty well considering who she was debating. I did what I did last debate - I watched it on CNN, then switched between Fox and CNN... once again, CNN and the people they had on said he crushed her... and on Fox they said she crushed him.
Fox News' viewers just showed a poll that 86% of viewers thought she won -- CNN's viewers showed that 46% of their viewers thought he won.
I'm not sure who is going to win the election but I'm not sure it really will affect anything (having lived here in DC).
Interesting. We can't get Fox News here and we started out watching CNN. Then I realized they were going to have the focus group reaction going on at the bottom of the screen while we watched. I thought, "I don't CARE what your focus group thinks: let me judge for myself." So I switched to PBS. I liked the PBS commentary afterwards and basically agreed with them. They seemed evenhanded and not all hot under the collar trying to score political points. Anyway, they seemed to agree that if your were scoring the debate on points, Biden won. But politically, Palin won. It's the old thing of expectations. A CNN poll (which actually was of viewers of all networks, as I understood it) showed that while most viewers thought Biden won, 86 per cent thought Palin did better than they expected. So she's seen as a winner, the McCain campaign gets a little momentum, and grumbles on the right about Palin will cease. (A writer on the neo-con Weekly Standard website did a "round by round" analysis of the debate. He scored it 9-9 but since Palin was so underrated beforehand, he said she "won.")
I guess my own position now is, maybe I have been persuaded to marginally back McCain/Palin again. As another writer put it, she seemed to have come across as a "plausible" VP. She'd be smart enough and gutsy enough to do what she had to do if a President McCain ever keeled over.
By the way, at the same time as the VP debate, Canada was having the English language leaders' debate for the Canadian federal election Oct. 15. All the talk here was about how Canadians were going to be watching the Biden/Palin debate instead! I watched part of the French language debate last night and the four leaders (Liberal, BQ, NDP, Green) ganged up on Harper, but he seemed to keep his cool. Same thing happened tonight apparently. While the Conservatives briefly were getting close to majority territory in the polls (they'd need 42-43 per cent) now they're back to 35 with Liberals about 28 or so. Another minority government coming. The party leaders were livid (it seemed to me) because Harper had been such a tough and savvy politician over the previous two and a half years--the longest federal minority gov't in Canadian history. He'd been able to get a substantial amount of the Conservative agenda enacted while coming across as a strong leader and pleasing various minorities by showing some class (publicly apologizing for the gov't-backed residential schools for aboriginals, for instance. The Liberals who'd been mainly responsible for that mess, had been too proud to apologize.)
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