[Peace-discuss] How McCain Blew It

[C. G. Estabrook]

[McCain could have aligned himself with the popular opinion (i.e., against the 
expansion of the war and against the bailout) but instead chose to put aside the 
polls and support what the US elite want -- US hegemony in the Middle East and 
transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in the bailout (positions which 
Obama supports at least as enthusiastically). And "Obama should be setting forth 
a new agenda. Instead we got Bush/Cheney-speak from the Democrat..." --CGE]


	Weekend Edition
	September 27 / 28, 2008
	CounterPunch Diary
	How McCain Blew It
	By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

In whatever years remain to him – and the health prognoses for McCain are cloudy 
at best – McCain should look back at the 48 hours up to and including Friday 
night’s  debate in Mississippi as the Rubicon he was too frightened to cross. He 
spurned a huge chance to turn the tables on his all-too-decorous opponent.

McCain should have furiously denounced the bailout. There was no ideological 
impediment, since the Arizona senator has no firm convictions beyond the 
precepts of his bankrollers – which can be quickly summed up as: less taxes for 
the rich. Everything else, the thundering about earmarks, the calls for an 
abolition of “cost plus” in defense contracting (actually, a truly radical 
proposition if McCain believed a word of it), is hot air.

A McCain “No” to bailout would have put Obama in a difficult position, exposing 
the timidity of his own posture, and leaving him with the options of continuing 
as  Wall Street’s errand boy, his role to date, or if he tried to outflank 
McCain from the left, as a wild-eyed radical.

But McCain’s nerve failed him. In the opening exchanges of the debate even the 
sedate Jim Lehrer became impatient as McCain and Obama fled the all important 
matter of the economic crisis and the proposed bailout and retreated into 
campaign boilerplate about earmarks and tax cuts.  Sacrifices? It should not 
have been hard for Obama to say, right up front in stentorian tones, “You ask, 
Senator McCain, what I propose to cut in this hour of crisis. John, I propose to 
cut the war in Iraq. Here’s what it has cost to date...” Long minutes went by 
before he even touched on this issue.

Weirdly, McCain refused to look at Obama. It was a big mistake.  A couple of 
straw polls from CNN and CBS right after the debate  called it for Obama. In the 
CNN poll “undecided” women and older people plumped solidly for Obama. It’s in 
these sectors that the race will be won.

I’ll bet that a lot of those pro-Obama votes from women stem from McCain’s 
inability to look Obama in the eye. How many women have had to put up with that 
crap from sulky male spouses and partners? Ask Cindy. Ask any woman.

The biggest win Friday night was for dullness. The two candidates trudged 
through their dutiful exchanges with even more tedium than the chorus in a Greek 
tragedy hashing over the whims of fate.

The post-match analysts said that McCain seemed asleep at the wheel during the 
initial exchanges on the economy, the $700 billion bailout proposed by the Fed 
and the Treasury, but got snappier when the topic shifted to Iraq and Iran.

Indeed it was clear McCain had forfeited his best shot at turning the tables on 
Obama the moment he declared that he would vote for the $700 billion bailout 
package for Wall Street proposed by Bernanke at the Fed and the US Treasury 
Secretary Paulson  and endorsed by President Bush.

The bailout is hugely unpopular across the United States. In the past four days 
I’ve not been in a cash register line in any supermarket where vivid 
denunciations of  Wall Street haven’t mingled with sarcasms about the tycoons’ 
hirelings in Congress now trying to commit taxpayers’ money to bail out their 
losses. All this while the hoppers riffle through the National Enquirer for news 
of Sarah Palin’s love life and about the Youtube films of Bristol.

Every politician in Congress is being told by their office staffs that phone 
calls are running at least 90 to 10 against the bailout. This is why the 
Republicans in Congress have found it east to resist the frantic appeals of 
Paulson, formerly of Goldman Sachs, and instead to say No, leaving the Democrats 
to whinge and trim, with half-hearted “conditions” attached to the bail-out and 
fake populist squeaks about reducing executive compensation. Will the Democrats 
also demand that the tycoons surrender all the money they stand to make if a 
bailout sends the value of their stock holdings soaring? I don’t think I see the 
bankers’ whore, Senator Charles Schumer, insisting on that.

Last  Wednesday McCain woke up to a thunderbolt crashing into his campaign hq. 
It arrived in the form of a Washington Post-ABC poll reporting showing that for 
the first time, among likely voters, Obama was leading McCain by 52 percent to 
43 percent. A week earlier the race had been even. This sudden crushing lead 
told McCain and his campaign managers that the “Palin bounce” had evaporated. 
The worst financial crisis since the Depression had taken center stage and the 
voters were clearly assessing McCain as being out of touch.

Perhaps as a relict of his days as a navy pilot, McCain is capable of quick 
decisions and drastic changes of course. His pick of Palin, snuffing out 
Obama’s post-Denver glow, showed that. That Wednesday morning, amid the ghastly 
shock of the Washington Post-ABC poll McCain seized the initiative. The nation 
was in danger! He would speed to Washington. He urged Obama to do the same. The 
debate would have to be postponed.

Obama was already meekly playing along, with talk of bipartisanship. And then 
... McCain blew his golden opportunity. Since he’s now lagging ominously in the 
ratings, McCain needed to ignite at least one or two firestorms Friday night, 
starting with the bailout. Now the chance has gone.

The first function of any presidential debate is to demonstrate to the Big Money 
that both candidates are “safe”, first  on the matter of keeping the rich secure 
from worry. The second function is to assure all relevant lobbies that they are 
ready and willing to blow up the world if American “security” requires it.

In the requisite demonstrations Obama and McCain sang in unison. They are as one 
with Wall St. They are ready to blow up the planet. Three times Obama said he 
completely agreed with the elderly madman opposite him. The interactions became 
progressively more hackneyed and absurd. Obama pledged to “take out” Osama bin 
Laden. McCain vowed to prevent another Holocaust of the Jews. Obama respectfully 
agreed with McCain that Putin is a potential problem and that plucky Georgia 
needs America’s succor. It was nauseating. Most of the world and its problems 
didn’t feature at all. Latin America? Free trade?

Between the two of them, the candidates affirmed, often in identical terms, 
almost every lunatic policy position that has doomed George Bush’s presidency 
and made America an object of derision and loathing among the nations.

It should have been a no-brainer for Obama simply to chain his opponent to all 
the disasters of the Bush years, about which the American people have reached a 
firm and hostile verdict. Obama should be setting forth a new agenda. Instead we 
got Bush/Cheneyspeak from the Democrat about taking out Osama, repeating all the 
disasters of Iraq in Afghanistan and invading Pakistan presumably when President 
Zardari is in Alaska, pursuing Sarah Palin...

A born trimmer, Obama is incapable of going for the jugular or even sounding as 
though he can take a firm stand on anything. This guy’s no leader. He comes 
across as a trimmer and a wimp.   McCain looks decisive by comparison.  He’s a 
throat slitter by temperament. He nicked Obama a couple of times, but the Wall 
Street tycoons went unscarred. At a ripe tactical moment McCain declined the 
role he affects to love. When the chips are down, he’s no maverick...