Chocolate or Vanilla?
Did you know that Quakers introduced ice cream to this country? Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson all ate it. That’s right, ice cream is one of those many all-American things that America stole from someone else and rebranded as our own.
When the 2008 primary season narrowed to two candidates, Dems had a choice between two flavors of premium, handchurned, high-fat-content (16%) ice cream: Chocolate Dream and Valiant Vanilla. Life seemed filled with sweet possibility way back then.
One problem with eating ice cream is that if you're not careful, brain freeze can set in. For some Democrats, brain freeze was prompted very early on by Jesse Jackson Jr. For other Democrats, brain freeze hit like a Mack Truck when Obama caved on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But those events now seem like child’s play compared to the recent global financial meltdown sparked by Wall Street’s stunning failures.
I watched the Obama/McCain debate last night, and this is what I learned: President Obama will “kill bin Laden and crush al-Qaeda.” President McCain will know when to send “America’s most precious asset, American blood, into harm’s way.” After all was said and done, however, I learned something much more profound. Just to be safe, I double-checked the debate transcript to make sure I had heard right.
Obama: “Everybody knows now we are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression”; the environment, climate change, and green jobs are “one of the biggest challenges of our times”; we can’t deal with the “climate crisis if our only solution is to use more fossil fuels that create global warming”; “Georgia is on the brink of enormous economic challenges”; we have to do something about the “health care crisis that so many families are facing”; the next commander-in-chief needs to make “sure” he can “see some of the twenty-first-century challenges and anticipate them before they happen”; we have to be “much more strategic if we’re going to be able to deal with all of the challenges that we face out there”; the “nature of the challenges we’re going to face are immense”; and they won’t be the challenges we expect: They will be the challenges we don’t expect.
McCain: American workers are the “innocent bystanders” in the “biggest financial crisis and challenge of our time”; heath care is one of the “really major challenges that America faces”; how the economic crisis affects our peacemaking abilities is “one of the challenges that America faces,” but knowing when America can “beneficially affect the outcome of a crisis” is a challenge; as is Russia; as are the Iranians who “continue on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons.” The “challenges that we face are unprecedented,” and “there are challenges around the world that are new and different.”
As a kid, I attended public schools in Ohio, and they occasionally served ice cream in the school cafeteria. We had a choice between chocolate or vanilla. It came in the form of a small block of deep-frozen dairy product wrapped in paper, or in a small cardboard cup with a difficult-to-yank-off cardboard lid. Either way, we were given a wooden toungue depressor in the shape of a spoon to eat it with. In order to partake of the delicious dessert, we had to chisel off dime-sized pieces of the rock-hard substance, and if those chunks didn’t fly off the spoon onto the floor, we could savor each tiny nugget as it finally melted on our tongues. The trouble was, no matter which flavor you chose, it always tasted like the wooden spoon.
After watching the debate last night, it’s clear to me that the question has changed since the primaries. The question now facing us seems to be: What flavor wooden spoon do we want?
What?! No Fleur de Sel Haagen Daaz? I'll pass thanks.
Great post Gasket :)
October 8, 2008 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oooh, thanks for reminding me, dij. I still haven't tried that one. (By "that one" I mean Fleur de Sel, of course.) I'm a Dulce de Leche addict myself. Since I found the debate to be super depressing, it might be time to pick up some meds in the frozen aisle of the grocery store. ;-)
October 8, 2008 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sorry, there are major differences between Barak Obama and John McCain; if you can't see them, then listen closer. This post was BS.
October 8, 2008 4:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmmmmm. If I can't see them, I should listen closer. Does this mean that if I can't hear them, I should smell better?
Give me hope.
October 8, 2008 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Way beneath you, quinn. This post was bullshit based on a sophomoric view of the American electorate and what Obama has to do to navigate it.
October 9, 2008 6:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
New around here, are you?
October 8, 2008 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn, Jason messed up your joke, NCSteve. (Which I thought was pretty funny, btw.)
*sigh*
October 9, 2008 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agree. Garbage from someone who can't deal with his HRC addiction (and they say Obama supporters drink the Koolaid! Holy shit). What a stupid post.
October 8, 2008 9:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny, I hopped over to Politico to see everyone except Michael "Ain't the Surge Great?" O'Hanlon declaring this the worst most boring debate ever.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14396.html
And basically, they agreed with Gasket:
==================================================
The day after leaves behind a puzzle: How the hell did candidates manage to be so timid and uninspiring at a time when American troops are in two problematic wars, the world financial markets are in scary free fall and the Dow has lost 1,400 points since Oct. 1? This is a moment history rarely sees — and both men blew it.
....
When Sarah Palin dodged questions with scripted messages and folksy one-liners in her debate against Joe Biden her nonresponsiveness was often glaringly obvious.
With McCain and Obama, you have to print out the transcript and read carefully to fully appreciate how they glided past sharp questions. Because both have gone through dozens of such encounters over the past couple of years, and because Obama in particular is an exceptionally fluent speaker, their answers can sound plausible — even when the fog machine is going full blast.
....
It is hard to imagine a more relevant question for the moment than the evening’s first, when an audience member asked for “the fastest, most positive solution” to help older people, whose economic standing is most imperiled by the crash in home values and markets.
To this specific question, Obama offered a generic answer about the perils of excessive deregulation, the need for health care and the scandal of junketeering executives at American International Group, one of the companies bailed out by the government.
McCain was at first no more responsive as he called for energy independence and low taxes. When he pivoted to a specific answer, it was with a breathtakingly ambitious idea to “order the secretary of the Treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America” and renegotiate the terms so that people have to move. But the actual details of this unprecedented intervention — the cost, logistics and philosophical rationale for protecting people from unwise purchases — were murky. And, amazingly, neither McCain nor Obama, nor Brokaw, returned to the subject.
October 9, 2008 2:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
ReBlowGas:
You will never stop parading your post-Hillary disappointment, will you?
October 8, 2008 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tell us, how do you differentiate Obama's pledge to send more troops to Afghanistan from McCain's pledge to send more troops to Afghanistan?
And did it warm your soul to see Obama putting on the pressure so his colleagues in Congress would back the $700 billion giveaw... I mean bailout? I guess we have to stand behind our president in time of war and economic crisis. At least that's what George always told us. I suppose it will still apply under President Barack as well. Don't want to be a traitor (nor racist).
October 9, 2008 1:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's called running for office in America. McCain can say "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" and still be taken seriously. Did you guys just wake up and miss the last 40 years?
October 9, 2008 7:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. You're supposed to say (and I'm paraphrasing, for all you literalists), "We're going to invade Pakistan if we have bin Laden in our sights" to be taken seriously these days.
McCain is so out of touch!
October 9, 2008 9:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
That isn't what he said, so your intellectual dishonesty continues. Provide a single quote where Obama advocated "invading Pakistan" at any time. You won't, because you can't.
October 9, 2008 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was back in August 2007 and his comment garnered a lot of negative attention. Catch up already.
October 9, 2008 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
He didn't say we would invade Pakistan in your link. That is a sophomoric characterization of his stance that we would pursue Bin laden into Pakistan if the Pakistani government refused to act. Not the same thing as advocating we invade Pakistan.
October 10, 2008 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
A fair point, that. I do not differentiate them. I think that we have already spoiled the Afghanistan effort and at this point Obama's plan to put more troops there is just a matter of throwing good money after bad (albeit less of it than McCain plans to throw after the bad money in Iraq). It is a, I agree, a typical example of a politician saying something dumb simply because it will appeal to a certain (dumb) segment of the electorate.
I do think that various commentators on this thread, however, are right to see in this post a subtext of "don't you wish we had Clinton in there instead." If this is a misperception on my part, then everything else that I am about to say is totally off base and M. Gasket will be entirely justified in dismissing it with the usual scorn my occasional comments seem ever to elicit. That said, I guess my sense is that Clinton would be disappointing us all just as much at this point as Obama is. After all, she was obviously prepared to just that early in the primary process when, convinced of the inevitability of her candidacy, she told the YearlyKos attendees that if they did not like her Iraq vote they could lump it.
I do not like the compromised Obama as much as I liked the uncompromised version, but I think it is unfair to compare the one stuck in a position where he is obliged to compromise himself to the other candidate who was afforded the liberty of not needing to make such compromises. Apples and oranges, and all that...
October 9, 2008 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
NB: What I am about to say contains no scorn whatsoever.
I wouldn't expect Obama loyalists to wish Clinton were running instead of Obama, and I would never write a post proposing it. It's not a serious subtext, even for me. I do believe Hillary would make a capable president, but that's neither here nor there. It's not my point.
I think the seriousness of this country's fiscal crisis has stripped away the effectiveness of the rhetoric from both (current) candidates so that they end up sounding alike now. The game has changed but the candidates haven't changed their rhetoric. They are on automatic pilot. Therefore, I think they both men sound somewhat hollow.
During the debate, Obama repeated many of the campaign stump talking points he used before the bailout; meanwhile, the audience knows how freaking bad the economy is, and they want someone to say something that aligns better with the facts on the ground. It's like they want the doctor to tell them exactly how bad the disease is and what the very first step of the painful cure will be. Saying "I know you're hurting" isn't good enough from either candidate. Generalities aren't good enough from either candidate. Both candidates were somewhat tone-deaf to the audience.
October 9, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe Gasket has raised THE critical issue facing America today - one missed by both debaters yestereve. Personally, I prefer my little wooden ice-cream spoons (hereafter LWICS) made from quality. Endangered if possible. Extinct, if the price isn't too too high.
For instance, Ancient Redwood is always lovely - the bouquet carries on long after the sap is gone - though Redwood has a nasty tendency to splinter. Old Growth Pine, equaly delicious to the palate - but once I began seeing toilet paper certified as coming from OGP, it rather took the edge off. I once had a salt-impregnated, fossilized oak TWICS. The 10,000 year old petrified wood harvested by local Nova Scotians, their footwork exquisite as they leapt ahead of the onrushing Fundy tides, plucking the ancient oaken roots from the momentarily uncovered mud - and let me tell you, THAT was a treat. Thrilling. The thril provided by the addition of (their) personal danger certainly made up for any reduction in the fat content.
Ow. Owwwww. OWWWWWWWWWW G-d d-mn m-ther pl-cker, my HEEEEEAD!!!!! OW OW OW. Damn you Gasket.
Brain Freeze - Another #1 challenge facing America today.
October 8, 2008 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny riff, quinn, especially the Nova Scotian part.
By the end of this year, a little brain freeze will seem painless compared to what's bound to come.
I take a walk every day that meanders through a very pretty part of Elizabeth, NJ. Much more upscale than my neighborhood. Big houses that were originally built for rich people and are still inhabited by rich people. Weedless, complex landscaping maintained by hired help. Not a lot of For Sale signs. But a few. But even if there's no sign, you can tell an occasional house is empty by the state of the lawn.
October 8, 2008 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think they topped themselves today. Obama rejected McCain's homeowner rescue plan because Obama thought of it first. McCain proclaimed us all his fellow prisoners.
Billy Glad's Law. We can't all escape at once.
Good post.
October 8, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought the Man In The Box was supposed to keep us from having to become... Prisoners In That Box?
Politics is confusing me. Further.
October 8, 2008 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Box? That's a great idea. Let's box.
October 9, 2008 1:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gasket,
Very well-written. I remember the stick-spoons well. However, the subtext is paper-thin. Since both McCain and Obama employ the use of bromide-peppered talking points during a lawyered-up debate appearance, which is nothing more than the political status quo, we're to extrapolate that there would be no difference in the way the two would govern? Do you really believe this to be true?
Shades of disgruntled "no difference between Bush/Gore" (or Bush/Kerry). Does anyone honestly believe, after the last eight years, that this is accurate?
Don't get me wrong, the debate was boring as hell, but did you really expect something else?
October 8, 2008 6:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know there would be major differences in how Obama and McCain would govern, as well as what they would consider as their priorities and which issues they would try to tackle during their administration.
However, as I listened to the debate, I was struck by just how bottomless the hellhole is that we're in right now compared to a few months ago, before the $700 billion bailout, before Wall Street self-destructed and global markets stumbled. I'm not saying my mind was changed by the debate; but I'm thinking the next president is inheriting a catastrophe of vast proportions regardless of his ideology. (So, the metaphorical "ice cream" we were dreaming about and fighting over during the primaries can no longer be accurately called ice cream anymore. It's unrecognizable as something edible.)
What I don't know is what drastic measures Obama will have to take to make any headway on the mess. I pretty much know what McCain would do.
October 8, 2008 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a very interesting and well-written metaphor, but I'm just not with you here. Yes, they are going to have to act differently than they would have been able to if there wasn't the big crisis, but we aren't talking about ice cream, we are talking about the presidency. We may not get everything we hoped for, but we can at least pick the far better of the two candidates so we can give ourselves the best chance.
It seems to me that it's more imperative to pick the right person in a time of crisis.
October 8, 2008 11:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, you are with me, Trailerville. We are both saying the same thing. I just may have a more pessimistic take on the destruction Bush is leaving behind than you do (hence, whatever ice cream we might get from an Obama presidency will be ruined by the taste of wood; at least for a while, and probably for quite a long while).
October 9, 2008 1:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, that isn't what you said. You said no matter what flavor we get, it will still taste the same. You have trotted out variations of this theme ever since Hillary (the real democrat lost the primary.
October 9, 2008 7:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Before I said it'll taste the same no matter who is elected, I said the question has completely changed since the primaries.
What I intended to convey is that quality of life in this country is going to suck big time. So, everything we fantasized about a new Democratic administration (whether we supported Barack or Hillary or someone else) is completely relegated to fantasy now. The new reality is so bleak it can't accommodate any of the dreams we had just a few months ago.
It's not a comment on ability of either Obama or McCain. It's not a comment on the correct campaign strategy to win the election. It's not a comment faulting the candidates. It's a comment on how ruined the country is right now.
But you're a Republican, Jason. What do you care what I think about who's a real Democrat and who isn't anyway? LOL!
October 9, 2008 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's not true that everything we thought we would get can't be done. Every policy will change - from taxes to spending - so the playing field will be different.
The country is ruined because of 40 years of shitty policies and even worse politics. The man who will be president, Barack Obama, wrote a book that leads me to believe he has a way to fix a lot of those problems.
So, yes, competency and vision is very applicable, regardless of one's party. The future under each of these men will be drastically different.
October 9, 2008 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, I catch your drift. I guess I've just had that feeling for a long time.
Storm's a'comin'. We're entering the age of the "crisis management" President in a way that the 43rd Presidency only alludes to.
October 9, 2008 2:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Next.
October 8, 2008 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for your nuanced and thoughtful read.
October 8, 2008 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is my favorite:
http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/bookman/entries/2008/10/08/allow_me_a_nonpolitical_pet_ve.html
Thank goodness it is almost over.
This crisis will not end well.
October 8, 2008 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
RTBG proves that one can produce an eloquently and interesting post which has practically zero substance and completely misses the mark on subtext. That's ok. I guess everyone does it from time to time. Nice attempt, though...?
October 8, 2008 10:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the compliment, Sparky. I mean it.
Because a certain segment of the TPM audience perpetually misreads me, I decided to try to write double entendre. Given some of the responses in this thread, I think I may have pulled it off: Those who perpetually misread me read the post one way; those who don't usually misread me read the post another way. (Then there are some in-betweeners.)
But something totally unexpected happened: you and DF complimented this post. Somehow I got further with you than I have ever gotten with lengthy explanations or back-and-forth arguments.
And that makes me, well, happy.
So what I can explain about the post is this: I meant to tease with the title and the FISA reference (because I couldn't resist). I meant to make it sound like I think McCain and Obama are a hair's breadth apart on the issues (because they are on some issues; on others they are light-years apart). I meant to make it sound like I miss Hillary (because I do). But what I really wanted to write about is how a boring, say-nothing debate ended up revealing just how bleak reality is in this country. But rather than write straightforwardly about such a downer, I came up with a metaphor that would appeal to most people: one that would sweeten such a party's-over post.
I don't want McCain to be the next president. I think he's incapable of solving the problems at hand. But at the same time, I think McCain is more competitive than readers at TPM like to admit. That's not an endorsement of him; I just think the election will be close. If Obama wins by a landslide, I'll be thrilled to be wrong.
Meanwhile, I think the country is in deep, deep shit.
October 8, 2008 11:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I did like your writing here. I also apparently didn't quite read your ice cream metaphor as you had intended. I was focused on the spoon, but I was supposed to be trying to taste the ice cream. Reminds me of the finger pointing at the moon...
Agree on deep shit. I hope Obama's up to the job. It won't be easy.
October 9, 2008 3:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps you should be more clear than constantly telling us how Obama and McCain are essentially the same person with a different tone of voice. Don't blame the reader for your inability to communicate.
October 9, 2008 7:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I only blame readers who make assumptions about what I think just because I supported Hillary, as if all people who supported Hillary think alike. I only blame readers who attribute attitudes or positions to me that I don't in fact have.
On the other hand, I also understand where those biases come from. One problem is the very nature of the site itself: the format doesn't allow for productive discussion.
Another problem is the incredibly brain-dead state of journalism and 24/7 political reporting; in other words, what we are being fed is total crap. I watch CNN in amazement because they have not just 1 or 2 pundits on the set, they have 12 (if you count Candy Crowley in the "field"). Sometimes they have more than 12! Do we get 12 times the value on CNN compared to stations that have 2 pundits? Hell no! We get crap times 12.
October 9, 2008 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
comment continued:
So we all have a mountain of crap opinions to sort through every day. Some of those opinions have an agenda, some of those opinions are spiked with emotion, some of those opinions are wildly misinformed or half-baked or biased in some way.
Which makes it even harder to evaluate people on the web, even people you get to "know" on TPM.
But yes, I do agree that clarity in writing is something that needs to be constantly honed.
October 9, 2008 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I can certainly agree with you on this much (for whatever little my agreement is worth). Whoever wins, Obama or McCain, will certainly have his work cut out for him. It is an open question whether any human alive today is really up to this task, but I guess we have no alternative but to trust that someone is.
October 9, 2008 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Strawberry.
October 8, 2008 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bzzzzt! Thanks for playing. The correct answer:
http://tinyurl.com/29e8de
October 9, 2008 1:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, the old John McCain: All three at once!
October 9, 2008 3:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. This is just like that election between that Bush guy and that Gore fellow. What difference does it make who's president? I base my opinions on how candidates sound during a highly rehearsed debate instead of looking at a candidate's record, leadership style, or any of that substance nonsense.
October 8, 2008 11:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wouldn't 'Rocky Road' be a better metaphor?
October 9, 2008 1:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but when they would bring around these little cups of tasteless ice cream I'd shun the silver and instead use my imported Indonesian teak spoon to give me that wooden taste all the other kids had.
Gasket, you miss an important point: the election will be won by whoever can best talk our problems to death. You think it's a challenge to you to listen to this gibberish - imagine having to recite this same gibberish on the stump day in and day out. Fortunately we've got the first 2 campaigners in recent memory who know how to take off weekends (a trick I'll have to learn someday). My guess is that whoever wins, there will be a new Crawford that will gain about 1/2-3/4 of their time devising new ways to fend off all the challenges we face, not to mention photo ops. And the money will keep flowing - they've got a big spigot somewhere that just keeps churning out enough money for you and me and they call it the land of Dough-Re-Mi.
October 9, 2008 1:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're such an optimist, Des. Me, I just don't trust Georgie not to dismantle the big spigot before he's outta there. But thanks for the calming words. The debate was so bad it gave me an anxiety attack. ;-)
October 9, 2008 2:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Trust the Spigot. Be the Spigot. The Spigot is your Friend. This has been a paid Affirmation.
October 9, 2008 2:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Very early in the democratic primary one person here made a prediction. I saw his point but I didn't think it would happen that quickly. I was wrong. CT posted, paraphrasing, Before the presidential election it would be clear that health care was off the table. Only rich nations can afford health care for all its citizens and we aren't rich anymore. That's not the only thing that's off the table. Though I don't expect either Obama of McCain to admit it before nov.
October 9, 2008 6:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's ok - I don't like ice cream
October 9, 2008 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Gripe Vines intertwine around The Hive.
October 9, 2008 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah! Let's criticize the candidates, without examining the electorate. It's such an insightful position, as indicated by it's myriad of "why won't candidate A do the politically risky thing" brethren.
"Principled", "Real" candidates never make it out of the fucking primaries. The survivors of that "rigorous" voter selection process are simply those who have pandered to the widest voter bloc. Who doesn't understand this by now?
It's a decent rant, I'll grant you that. AS an analysis, it's basically a tautology.
October 9, 2008 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since he can never tell the difference, don't waste ice cream on him. Always feed the fool the spoon. It is the only taste he knows.
October 9, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gasket, we agree on one thing. For sure, our fat, happy and privileged lives in the U.S. of A. are getting a reality check in a big way, and neither candidate is actually in a position to say what we can or must do - and probably neither really knows. However, I will take Obama's intelligence and ability to handle complex issues over McCain's simplistic and uninformed responses (or those of his simplistically Reaganomic, free market, trickle down, unregulated advisors).
There are, in my humble opinion, really huge fundamental problems in this country, starting with the concept that corporations have the rights of individuals and none of the actual accountability. Maybe continuing with the concept that anyone in the fucking world needs to have a salary in the hundreds of millions or a net worth greater than most countries.
FDR made public projects that both improved the infrastructure of the country and put people to work. I think Obama leans in that direction. But FDR also got a lot of help from WWII, which put the military apparatus into high gear. (I'm not saying I have a real answer, of course, but just that for a long time I've felt like a lobster in a pot, knowing that the flame was below me, unable to escape, and surrounded by other lobsters who thought the slight warming was pleasant.)
Anyway, I agree that the national debate is not substantive enough from either candidate, but I also know that Kucinich or Nader will not get elected, and Obama very well may. There's no doubt which way I will vote, and then I will hope that he can begin the fundamental change we need, and not just the cosmetics.
October 9, 2008 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for reminding me of those ice cream cups and wooden spoons. Good stuff.
I read the post as a commentary on the bland, dueling infomercials billed as "debates" in which the candidates serially reel off a list of scripted, focus-group-approved talking points culled from their stump speeches regardless of their relevance to the question they purport to be in response to. As a result, the viewer is left with little to distinguish between the two flavors. I'm certain that RTBG appreciates the differences between the candidates on the issues.
I also agree that we know very little about how each of the candidates would approach the extremely deep shit in which we find ourselves, that could render all their plans and projections meaningless. Based upon their overall orientations, one could surmise that Obama would more aggressively intervene - perhaps along the lines of what is being floated today with the government taking equity positions in banks to add capital to the system. However, neither candidate is venturing too far out on a limb. There is little upside and enormous potential downsides to doing so. Still, I'll take Obama on that one rather than McCain and his trusted advisor, Phil Gramm.
Finally, one can't help but wonder how the race might have been different were Hillary the nominee. On the one hand, with the economy, rather than Iraq, having emerged as the critical issue, she would have the Clinton economic track record to put up against the debacle of the past eight years. Nor would the nominee have to work so hard just to convince voters that he is "one of us" and has the judgment and experience they can trust. On the other hand, many of our current economic ills can be traced to the deregulation of the financial industry that occurred under Bill Clinton's watch. In that regard, the piece in today's NY Times on Greenspan's legacy makes for interesting reading. Apparently, Rubin and Summers, along with Greenspan, opposed efforts to regulate the credit derivatives that have played such a major part in the meltdown.
But that wasn't RTBG's point.
October 9, 2008 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink