Senator McCain Forgot Who Is In the White House
I have been seeing John McCain ads that say things like "economy in shambles," "soaring food and energy prices," and "you are worse off than you were four years ago." I haven't been able to understand these statements because the person currently in charge is George W. Bush who is pursuing the same economic policies that Senator McCain has endorsed in his campaign.
It doesn't make any sense to tell people how bad things are if you intend to pursue the same policies that brought on the disaster. I mean Ronald Reagan was able to effectively use the line, "are you better off now than you were four years ago?" precisely because he was running against the person who was in the White House. It wouldn't have made any sense for Jimmy Carter to ask "are you better off now than you were four years ago?"
Anyhow, it finally occurred to me that Senator McCain must have forgotten who was in the White House. After all, if he can't remember how many homes he owns it is easy to believe he can't keep track of who is running things. This isn't a question of age, it's about being confused. My grandfather lived to be 90 and he was never confused. With his last breath he could have told you who was in the White House and exactly how many homes he owned.
Maybe, we can get someone with the McCain campaign to clarify the situation for the Senator so he will stop running these silly ads.
You are assuming an ability to correlate in the voting public that does not exist. Sen. McCain's "I know this hasn't worked for Dubya in the economy or the Middle East, but it'll work for me" message is an effective complement to his primary thrust, which proclaims that Sen. Obama is a frightening, dark-skinned, uppity, drug-using Muslim terrorist with friends who are also terrorists and gangsters.
August 25, 2008 8:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. H.L.Mencken, "Notes on Journalism" (1926)
August 25, 2008 9:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's a blogger born every minute.
August 25, 2008 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
The last eight years are not so much Bush's fault as the fault of the conservative policies he followed. It is silly to think that tax cuts will increase government revenue or that by invading a country we can make them like us; or by not regulating the mortgage industry everyone will benefit. Conservatism doesn't work and Bush was just stupid enough to believe it does, much like John McCain.
August 25, 2008 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
What leads you to conclude that Bush 1) is a conservative, 2) believes in conservatism, or 3) adopted conservative policies?
August 25, 2008 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you mean to say Neo-Conservatism. True Conservatives share nothing in common with the Republican Party of 2008. I only bring this up because, those true "Conservatives" in the Republican party need to understand that a vote for McNugget is actually a vote against their own principles.
August 25, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ellen:
Bush lowers taxes, appoints anti-abortion supreme court justices and guts regulatory agencies and starts and loses wars. Bush is the conservatives conservative, he did exactly what he was elected to do and none of it works, because conservatism is a failed political philosophy. kind of like communism only dumber.
August 25, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lowering taxes without lowering spending is not a conservative policy. And I'm hard pressed to think of a war ever started by conservatives (maybe Grenada but that was hardly a war, more like a Marine evacuation of Americans in strength -- with benefits).
Nor do I think it conservative policy to surreptitiously gut a regulatory agency rather than to do away with it, entirely.
I do agree conservatives would approve his judicial appointments but on grounds of the appointees' temperament and philosophy rather than of any particular cases which, as you rightly note, was Bush's intention.
In the end what you're listing are Republican Party politics radicalized by Bush, not conservative ones.
August 25, 2008 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
**Bush performed his job admirably. His goal was, as Grover Norquist so sweetly put it, "to get government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
First a city, now a nation.
I hope there's something left when these pricks get through with us. Conservative, my ass. Con is more like it. Lord, I hate republicans.
August 25, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Ellen, I thin you make a fine point! I think the point is clearly why have conservatives abondoned their tried and true policies of the past, small government/fiscal discipline, for the policies whihc have been adapted? It is as if the Republican party has been hijacked and no-one seems to care as long as a Republican is at the helm so to speak! Truly this is a worrying subject matter and the Ron Paul campaign has done some to try and reconcile these differences. The issue seems to be do any of the Republicans care? I mean my Dad is one, and he doesn't seem to notice except to admit the W has been an utter failure. Maybe I am missing something but John McCains plans on any range of issues at the least conceded down the same path that W followed, such as in education and Taxes, but does come to a different conclusion when it somes to other issues, such as Global Climate Change. But in issues where he has moved back to the center it would appear from my viewpoint that it is more window-dressing than an actual policy shift. His voting record just doesn't support change, rather it looks like his bark is much louder than his bite!
August 25, 2008 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can manage to get along with conservatives but never with Republicans.
Democrats come to town to make the government work.
Republicans come to town to work the government.
August 25, 2008 8:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
We don't need far-ranging discussions about the degree to which the Bush Administration is a fake versus a true conservative bunch. Nor need we assume that McCain, regardless of his age, "Forgot Who Is In the White House."
There is a simpler explanation for McCain's inane ads. He is aping the Rove strategy of systematically appealing to the least knowledgeable mentally competent 51% of voters in swing states. It worked for GW Bush and even McCain is not as patently unqualified to be president as Bush was and still is (Georgia).
August 25, 2008 2:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
We mock what is of course a very deliberate strategy of McCain to say "I feel your pain." It is a very serious strategy and will not crumble just because we make fun of it.
True his policies will do nothing to staunch the bleeding, but the point is to do a cognitive ju jitsu. It's the same bs as compassionate conservatism.
August 25, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is a mistake to let conservatism off the hook as a decent idea that has been mis-applied by Bush. Reagan was a big believer in deficits and created Bin Laden, not too mention right-wing death squads in Nicaragua.
Conservitism doesn't work, it doesn't matter who the president is if he believes in conservative principles the end result will be economic dissasters and moral lapses.
In other words McCain=Bush=Reagan=Hoover, they all suck
August 25, 2008 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
1. Bush thinks he's conservative.
2. Other conservatives thought Bush was conservative when his star was shining bright.
3. Other conservatives are feverishly scrambling to salvage their own reputations by desperately denying that Bush is conservative.
August 26, 2008 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink