As of tonight, the polls show McCain and Obama each have 45.7% of the voters in their respective camp. Somewhat faster than anticipated, the healthy bounce the GOP ticket got from its convention has dissipated, party because the economy has tanked, never a good sign for the incumbent party; but also because V-P nominee Palin has proved unable to answer basic questions from reporters.
Additional factors involve Palin's increasing vulnerability from her "Troopergate" scandal in Alaska and the National Enquirer's cover story about her affair in Alaska. Probably the most damaging trend to the GOP is that Palin has become a stock character on the stand-up comedy set, after she claimed she could see Russia from her window, sold the state jet on eBay, and other nonsense.
But most elections are determined at the top of the ticket -- actually all elections -- but I have to say "most" because Palin has already had an unprecedented effect on the race, both good for the GOP and bad, so who knows what else will happen. And, McCain has not been able to create much credibility that he understands, let alone could constructively engage, with the President's role in setting economic policy and priorities.
I thought he was at his best today when he angrily denounced the greed on Wall Street that he said caused this mess, but he had no constructive policy suggestions at all. Meanwhile, Obama gave a much less effective and low-key speech, but there was some important substance. He uttered the dreaded "R" word -- regulation.
Americans don't like this word. It implies bureaucratic red tape, complications, socialist impulses. The problem is, when you have a "see no evil" administration in power, as we have suffered under these past 8 years, all kinds of misbehavior tends to occur. Think of the parent of teenagers who is MIA when a party is going on up (or down) stairs.
That's been the Bush approach. That would be the McCain approach.
Obama is a much better speaker than McCain, just as Palin is much better speaker than Biden. But talk is not action, and speaking does not equate with wisdom. I cannot trust the GOP generally, or McCain particularly, on economic regulatory policy. Obama is indicating a deeper sense of what needs to be done, despite his relative inexperience.
Plus he is very, very smart. Much like another recent young President, Bill Clinton, who did a great job of using regulatory sticks and non-regulatory incentives to preside over the best economy any of us alive today have seen in our lifetimes. That, at least, gives me the glimmer of hope that Obama gets it. That's a world better than his clueless opponent, now resorting to angry rhetoric, as if he hadn't been complicit these past 8 years in destroying what was once the strongest economy in the world.
He was. Because he covered his eyes.
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