As the election season winds down...
Oct. 26th, 2008 10:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseIt's been quite a ride, this past year and a half or so, hasn't it?
I must admit, I tend to follow politics as entertainment more than anything else. Sure, it's good to be informed about the potential future leaders of the country and their policies, but seriously - Bill Clinton's passive-aggressive almost-sabotaging Obama? Hilary Clinton tearing up in a New Hampshire diner? The Jeremiah Wright controversy and Obama's speech on race? Ads accusing McCain of lying about (of all things) the type of car he buys? McCain pegging the yearly salary line for "wealthy" at $2 million a year? The entire Sarah Palin debacle? You can't make this shit up - no one would believe it! Far better than reality television - because not only is it actually real, this circus is going to determine the future of one of the most powerful countries on the planet.
You kind of have to sit back and laugh, don't you?
Anyway, as things wrap up, I had a couple of last thoughts I wanted to get down.
First was just an amusing observation. We live out a ways along a highway, and while it's a fairly low-traffic area, it's still the major thoroughfare for the area, and people rip along at fifty or sixty miles an hour on a fairly regular basis. To cut down on the noise and lights, therefore, most folk who live out here build their houses set back a ways, with a driveway connecting them to the main road.
Just down the way from us is a driveway that leads down to two houses; for a couple of weeks, there was a single "McCain-Palin" sign on one side of it. A little surprising (our area is pretty strongly Dem-leaning), but hey, whatever. However, one day we were driving home and noticed that the other side of the driveway had an Obama-Biden sign up. We laughed over that a bit, but were surprised to come home the next day and find that the sign had proliferated - they also had Berkowitz and Begich (our Democratic candidates for House and Senate, respectively) keeping it company. Not to be outdone, the next day their neighbors had Young and Stevens sign up - it's starting to look like quite the garden. Color-coordinated, too!
On the campaign trail itself, word has it that Obama's returning to his uplifting rhetoric about the importance of unity and transcending partisanship as his closing argument. A good plan, certainly, if a bit of a luxury, thanks to his poll numbers. Interestingly, "McCain will make no such shift and will continue to pound away at Obama as a tax-happy liberal intent on wealth spreading", according to Slate's roundup of the day's news.
What strikes me as odd about this is that I don't think he quite understands his audience. Certainly, wealthy people will be unhappy to hear about Obama's "wealth spreading" tendencies, but wealthy people - especially of McCain's caliber - are such a tiny percentage of the US population (especially after the last eight years' worth of policies designed to help them get wealthier at the expense of pushing more and more middle-class people out of the "middle-class" bracket). You can make that argument to a somewhat more limited extent to middle- and lower-income people, true, but as you go down the ladder, not only do you end up with proportionally more people - more and more of those people are likely to be the ones to benefit from wealth spreading. For a long time, the Republicans have simply not promoted policies that were in the best interest of the majority of the population (i.e. lower-income people); however, they've managed to countermand that handicap by emphasizing values-politics. Hence the stoking of paranoia over terrorism, patriotism, gay marriage, abortion, you name it - if they could convince their constituency that the other guy was going to threaten their fundamental values, they could easily convince them to vote for candidates whose policies that were not in their economic best interest. (One of the most well-known proponents here in Alaska of exactly that strategy is a pastor named Jerry Prevo, who has built a giant church (known locally as The Prevo Palace) on the strength of donations from his mostly lower-income constituency, and who regularly preaches politics from the pulpit.)
Unfortunately for McCain, that particular weapon has been rendered far less effective, thanks to the economic meltdown. Sure, Palin has energized the evangelicals thanks to her social policies, but despite their volume, they're a relatively small group. And many of the "regular folks" who might otherwise be swayed by "Obama's not like you and me" rhetoric are instead busy looking at the candidates' policies - according to that same article, Virginia voters (a state that Bush won last election by eight points) trust Obama over McCain on tax policy by fifteen points.
And McCain seems so befuddled over the fact that his "wealth-spreading" argument isn't working. I find myself wondering, especially given the aforementioned quote of his on where the salary line is for the definition of "wealthy", if perhaps he's spent so much time around rich folk that his perceptions are skewed. I mean, if he honestly believes that middle-class Americans make (say) half a million a year, it's no wonder he keeps pounding away at the "Obama's going to tax you to death" point. In a way, it's a far more effective demonstration of how out-of-touch he is than any campaign ad Obama's team could put together.
I must admit, I tend to follow politics as entertainment more than anything else. Sure, it's good to be informed about the potential future leaders of the country and their policies, but seriously - Bill Clinton's passive-aggressive almost-sabotaging Obama? Hilary Clinton tearing up in a New Hampshire diner? The Jeremiah Wright controversy and Obama's speech on race? Ads accusing McCain of lying about (of all things) the type of car he buys? McCain pegging the yearly salary line for "wealthy" at $2 million a year? The entire Sarah Palin debacle? You can't make this shit up - no one would believe it! Far better than reality television - because not only is it actually real, this circus is going to determine the future of one of the most powerful countries on the planet.
You kind of have to sit back and laugh, don't you?
Anyway, as things wrap up, I had a couple of last thoughts I wanted to get down.
First was just an amusing observation. We live out a ways along a highway, and while it's a fairly low-traffic area, it's still the major thoroughfare for the area, and people rip along at fifty or sixty miles an hour on a fairly regular basis. To cut down on the noise and lights, therefore, most folk who live out here build their houses set back a ways, with a driveway connecting them to the main road.
Just down the way from us is a driveway that leads down to two houses; for a couple of weeks, there was a single "McCain-Palin" sign on one side of it. A little surprising (our area is pretty strongly Dem-leaning), but hey, whatever. However, one day we were driving home and noticed that the other side of the driveway had an Obama-Biden sign up. We laughed over that a bit, but were surprised to come home the next day and find that the sign had proliferated - they also had Berkowitz and Begich (our Democratic candidates for House and Senate, respectively) keeping it company. Not to be outdone, the next day their neighbors had Young and Stevens sign up - it's starting to look like quite the garden. Color-coordinated, too!
On the campaign trail itself, word has it that Obama's returning to his uplifting rhetoric about the importance of unity and transcending partisanship as his closing argument. A good plan, certainly, if a bit of a luxury, thanks to his poll numbers. Interestingly, "McCain will make no such shift and will continue to pound away at Obama as a tax-happy liberal intent on wealth spreading", according to Slate's roundup of the day's news.
What strikes me as odd about this is that I don't think he quite understands his audience. Certainly, wealthy people will be unhappy to hear about Obama's "wealth spreading" tendencies, but wealthy people - especially of McCain's caliber - are such a tiny percentage of the US population (especially after the last eight years' worth of policies designed to help them get wealthier at the expense of pushing more and more middle-class people out of the "middle-class" bracket). You can make that argument to a somewhat more limited extent to middle- and lower-income people, true, but as you go down the ladder, not only do you end up with proportionally more people - more and more of those people are likely to be the ones to benefit from wealth spreading. For a long time, the Republicans have simply not promoted policies that were in the best interest of the majority of the population (i.e. lower-income people); however, they've managed to countermand that handicap by emphasizing values-politics. Hence the stoking of paranoia over terrorism, patriotism, gay marriage, abortion, you name it - if they could convince their constituency that the other guy was going to threaten their fundamental values, they could easily convince them to vote for candidates whose policies that were not in their economic best interest. (One of the most well-known proponents here in Alaska of exactly that strategy is a pastor named Jerry Prevo, who has built a giant church (known locally as The Prevo Palace) on the strength of donations from his mostly lower-income constituency, and who regularly preaches politics from the pulpit.)
Unfortunately for McCain, that particular weapon has been rendered far less effective, thanks to the economic meltdown. Sure, Palin has energized the evangelicals thanks to her social policies, but despite their volume, they're a relatively small group. And many of the "regular folks" who might otherwise be swayed by "Obama's not like you and me" rhetoric are instead busy looking at the candidates' policies - according to that same article, Virginia voters (a state that Bush won last election by eight points) trust Obama over McCain on tax policy by fifteen points.
And McCain seems so befuddled over the fact that his "wealth-spreading" argument isn't working. I find myself wondering, especially given the aforementioned quote of his on where the salary line is for the definition of "wealthy", if perhaps he's spent so much time around rich folk that his perceptions are skewed. I mean, if he honestly believes that middle-class Americans make (say) half a million a year, it's no wonder he keeps pounding away at the "Obama's going to tax you to death" point. In a way, it's a far more effective demonstration of how out-of-touch he is than any campaign ad Obama's team could put together.
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 12:47 pm (UTC)The hypotheticals are too much to leave alone -- what if Romney had prevailed? Would his disconnect with working-class America have been any more profound, or would it just have resonated more with his Guy Smiley visage? Would Huckabee alienated the Christian-but-not-quite-THAT-Christian element of the core? Would Ron Paul...heh, never mind. I'm on Digg, so I've seen enough Ron Paul to last a lifetime.
But these are all more enticing than the actual race, which has been over for much longer than we realized. The only questions left...will next Tuesday (!!!) be 1992 or 1996? (And it looks to be more '96 every day.) Do the Dems get their 60 seats in the Senate? (Maybe, but I doubt it, and I see their real magic number being 61, since I know the anticipation of punting Lieberman to the curb is so sweet to the Senate leadership right now.) Do we see more dignity in defeat than we have from the McCain campaign? (I worry; we've seen a deck of victim cards played this season, so I hate to think what their last card's going to be.)
no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 04:55 pm (UTC)For now. We are Rome, and burning. Soon comes a great fall, a period of twilight, and then - finally - maturity.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 05:21 pm (UTC)How this moment of humanity got turned into "BOOHOOOHOOO" by the press is beyond me.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 12:36 am (UTC)"Tax the upper 40%, give to the lower 60%" will get you elected year after year.
Unfortunately, the effects on the upper segment of the income (say, top 5%) tend to have more of an effect on the lower 60% than might initially be expected, because it's largely business owners being hit. Who, generally, tend to employ people.
It will be interesting to watch how things go, but I suspect more than a few small and medium businesses may be pushed out of business by large tax increases, or, at least, have to fire several employees.
-=Russ=-
no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 01:38 am (UTC)The question is whether or not taxing the rich and outright *giving* to the poor is actually in anyone's best interest. It's arguable that giving people money doesn't improve their lifestyle. That old saying, "You can take a man out of the slums but you can't take the slums out of the man" has a grain of truth to it. As we see so often on the news, money does not generate happiness, and those who have it are just as dysfunctional (if not more so) than the average person who makes 30-40 thousand a year. And I know you know of my own disdain for the Trust Fund crowd of people who seem so arrogant and self-absorbed. Having been given everything they could ever want did not improve them in one bit. In fact, it probably did more to stall their emotional growth than anything else.
I think you know the laws of thermodynamics and the involvement of entropy in the natural world. All things are basically in a state of degradation and it takes an influx of energy to prevent that degradation. This is true in human development as well as in nature. Muscles atrophy, the mind forgets that which it has learned, and so on. Anyway. My main point is that I feel that giving money freely to people results in them having less incentive to work against the forces of nature, effectively increasing the effect that those forces have on them. That's one of the main reasons I can't agree with the tax the rich and give to the poor thing. I really do think that there has to be a better way of handling the problem of class division that we currently face. Unfortunately, my great fear is that the country will fall into civil war prior to that solution being found. After all, many of the stressors that contributed to the American Civil War exist in society today, though with entirely different faces.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 02:45 am (UTC)However, at this point in our nation's history, we frankly need to worry about getting our shit together. To that end, I think letting the Bush tax cuts expire and then using the extra cash to start working on cleaning up this record-smashing deficit would be the most responsible thing to do. We may need to cut some spending, which is going to be painful, but frankly it's necessary - seeing the government this far in debt to nations that hate us is cringe-inducing every time I think about it.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 04:18 am (UTC)Frankly, I have absolutely no faith in our government at this point. The only thing that's going to fix this is a momentous paradigm shift that will not happen with all the party bickering and posturing that goes on in our government today.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 04:24 am (UTC)