A faltering campaign?

[fpb]

So far, McCain supporters have been greatly disappointed by his performance against Obama. I will, personally, wait and see until the vote, and then decide whether the man who managed to completely defeat the Republican Party establishment practically without any starting means could not find a way around his current opponent. However, there is one thing I know for sure: the strategy that a loud chorus of conservative pundits are calling for - hound the steps of the young Obama for evidence of political extremism and what they call "socialism" - is bound to fail. I do not know what these gentlemen's life experience is, but in that of most of us, a certain amount of more or less reflexive student-union leftishness is practically inevitable. Everyone who has been at college has had Communist friends and maybe an anarchist acquaintance or few, had a favourite professor who was a Socialist theorist, or an aggressive race-theorist acquaintance. You cannot scare a modern public with what Obama did or said twenty years ago; not when the man - apart from his abortion proposals - is offering a program that is really further to the right (as kennahijja has pointed out) than the standard of a perfectly democratic left party in most Western countries. There probably is more to be got out of his connection with the Daley machine and with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; Americans and electors in general still dislike party machines, corrupt politicians, and connections between politics and big business.

Comments

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure anyone has very much to gain from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Republicans point to the government guarantees that supported the companies as the cause of the problems. Democrats will point to the part-privitisation of what had been a quasi-government agency.

When you have an organisation which has two functions - to promote home ownership among the less well-off with a government guarantee against losses, and to attempt to make as much profit as possible then there is an excuse to run unsustainable levels of Credit Risk.

FMx2 should have been either agencies running government programs or private companies. Either would have done, the compromise which rewarded profit but guaranteed against risk was where the maddness lay.

I wonder if the McCain camp strategy, of 'hounding' Obama's past is more to shore up the vote of the solid Republican voter than to gain floating voters. There is a danger that if the race looks to be over, there will be a lower turnout of Republican voters, impacting not only on the presidential race but on seats in Congress as well. By demonising Obama that vote would be protected....

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I meant specifically the roles of the two Senators. McCain is clean on Freddie and Fanny, Obama is not.

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

On donations, I think that is quite true.

I find myself caring very little about this election. Less so than previous American elections. Part of that is that the difference between the parties is less than usual. McCain is probably the most acceptable Republican to a woolly liberals like myself and Obama is, in my view at least, more style than substance.

Unlike yourself, however, I am disturbed about Palin.

I did ask myself if I ought to be concerned at the American election, it is a foreign country after all, what right do I have to comment - but what happens in America does impact on the rest of the world in direct ways.

The impact on Northern Ireland has been fairly major in the past - for good and for bad and the financial crisis had its beginnings in the USA.

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

The pundits are just telling him/her to attack. "Tora, Tora, Tora!" as the movie went. Attack ads work. People remember them.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And Japan was terribly successful in that particular war, weren't they? McCain is not interested in beating up the enemy. He wants to win, which is a different matter altogether.

[cheyinka]

*snicker* When I was a freshman in college, the conclusion of a particularly heated argument ended with me having my ankles and wrists ducttaped together and myself being chucked into the hallway, with the directions "and don't come back until you're not a pinko commie anymore!"

At this point I don't even remember what I said. My ban from entering that room lasted all of two days, though, and at least it wasn't the unofficial floor lounge, where the refrigerator and large television were. (This was a co-ed floor - I don't think I would have been expelled from the room in quite that manner if it hadn't been.) (and yes, I thought it was hilarious then too.)

That said, I agree with you that the only people who'll be afraid of "Obama-the-socialist" are those who would never under any circumstances have voted for Obama and are trying to decide whether or not McCain is a "socialist" too.