Fit To Print

Don’t Sweat the Small Candidates

October 8th, 2008

To hear some pundits tell it, millions of voters switched their allegiance to Ronald Reagan right after he uttered the words “There you go again.” These debates are important in part, simply because we say they are. As I’ve said, I don’t think they tell us much about any of the players and issues involved (I already knew Brokaw was a blowhard, already pretty sure I liked Obama’s health plan better than McCain’s, etc).

Some people mentioned the visual juxtaposition of a young, energetic candidate standing next to an old man. I thought it was even more disturbing to listen to to McCain’s labored breathing into the mic (Tony Soprano, anyone?), and he also sounded scatterbrained on a number of answers. Obama was pretty strong for the first few minutes — when the most people are watching — and they both seemed to get lost in uninteresting, meandering answers during the middle innings.

I still worry about all the Americans who think Obama is Muslim, or unpatriotic, or who just don’t want to vote for the black fella. I think the polls are likely to tighten before November. But I’m pretty sure he’s going to win, and he’s going to have close to a 60-seat majority in the senate as well.

With the markets in free-fall, home foreclosures continuing to cripple the economy, and more and more Americans fearing for their futures, a lot of other things just seem really unimportant. I think McCain and Palin are disrespectful and dishonest, but I only take that seriously because they are the second-most likely duo to waltz into the Oval Office in January. But McPalin isn’t really a serious ticket; it doesn’t discuss serious issues, and it doesn’t offer serious solutions.

What matters now is how forceful Obama and the Democrats are willing to be in taking the necessary measures to address the economic woes of the country and the world, and then working to create more efficient and sustainable ways of doing things. That is going to mean putting a lot of the cleanup cost for this on the backs of the rich. It’s going to mean offering real relief to a lot of home owners with unmanageable mortgages — because the economy is not going to recover without a less toxic housing market. It’s going to mean reforming health care so it isn’t nearly as big a drain on the average paycheck.

And it’s going to require serious investment in alternative energy, infrastructure rebuilding, job creation, effective regulations on financial institutions, and almost assuredly, it’s going to require temporary nationalization of the banks.

You may disagree with the solutions I propose, but most of you will probably agree with the diagnosis; we’re in deep shit. Even a more damning juxtaposition than McCain’s age and Obama’s youth, is McCain’s petulance and selfishness contrasted with the serious times we’re living in.

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