1) On the basis of trade issues, Obama locked up Iowa and made big gains in Ohio, Missouri and Florida. The first rule of domestic trade politics is you don’t speak out against the interests of a concentrated faction in a key electoral constituency. That is precisely what McCain did by speaking out against ethanol subsidies (very popular in Iowa, probably popular in Missouri and Ohio) and sugar subsidies (an important component of the Florida economy).
2) McCain locked up the key Joe Wurzelbacher vote. If he loses the election, at least McCain will have gained a friend.
The NAFTA stuff was FINALLY brought up by McCain, about 2 years too late to have any solid impact, and Obama did enough to toe the line that he would be pro-free trade without casting aside unions. I do think he is right to re-evaluate our enforcement of trade agreements, although he’s opening up a pandora’s box where other countries can start looking at our unfair trade practices. Target #1 will be Obama’s most aggregious piece of pork, the farm bill. I still think McCain has been publicly right on trade: for example ethanol and sugar subsidies are highly distorting in the world economy and I would speculate that ending them could have the greatest immediate impact on increased energy efficiency and independence from Middle-East oil out of any action taken by the government (for reasons why, read up on Brazilian sugar ethanol). However, I also think Obama is bluffing on trade. The president plays a different role in trade politics than that of a Senator: the president is supposed to understand and promote trade due to the good it will do for the county as a whole, while a Senator is supposed to represent it’s constituents’ interests in any trade agreement. It may be a somewhat baseless assertion, but given Obama’s uncanny ability to understand his role, I am confident he will adjust his conduct smoothly and accordingly if he reaches the White House.
To put it extremely lightly, the presidency is an uncommon position with uncommon challenges. So why do candidates seem determined to prove that they are common people? The obvious answer is that voters demand that of them. So the better question is why do voters crave a common president? This is particularly puzzling given that President Bush, who ran and governed as a self-professed commoner, has not had an approval rating above 40% since the end of 2006. If you add that to the “change” theme of this election, the circumstances would suggest that the candidates would make a point of demonstrating their uncommon qualities.
Yet, nonetheless, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin made frequent arguments that they are really just down home folks who understand the problems of average America. Gov. Palin made this statement to that effect:
“But it wasn’t just that experience tapped into, it was my connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills? About times and Todd and our marriage in our past where we didn’t have health insurance and we know what other Americans are going through as they sit around the kitchen table and try to figure out how are they going to pay out-of-pocket for health care? We’ve been there also so that connection was important.”
Senator Biden made a similar appeal, during which he almost teared up:
“Look, I understand what it’s like to be a single parent. When my wife and daughter died and my two sons were gravely injured, I understand what it’s like as a parent to wonder what it’s like if your kid’s going to make it.
I understand what it’s like to sit around the kitchen table with a father who says, “I’ve got to leave, champ, because there’s no jobs here. I got to head down to Wilmington. And when we get enough money, honey, we’ll bring you down.”
I understand what it’s like. I’m much better off than almost all Americans now. I get a good salary with the United States Senate. I live in a beautiful house that’s my total investment that I have. So I — I am much better off now.
But the notion that somehow, because I’m a man, I don’t know what it’s like to raise two kids alone, I don’t know what it’s like to have a child you’re not sure is going to — is going to make it — I understand.”
I appreciate the need for a candidate to show that they can relate to the problems of mainstream America. If a candidate can’t comprehend the worries of the average citizen then they have no business attempting to solve them. However, merely demonstrating that you can understand these issues does not qualify you for the presidency. What should qualify you for the presidency is demonstrating that your insight into those problems and the solutions you propose are truly uncommon. I don’t intend to offer any further opinion here, I only hope to re-frame the discussion. Who offers that uncommon solution, that uncommon intellect?
Just two short weeks ago Sarah Palin was the darling of media and public alike. Commentators gushed about her common man appeal, right-wingers fainted over her abortion and gay marriage positions (not to mention her looks), and pollsters reported a meteoric rise for the McCain-Palin ticket. And the Democrats were confused, unsure whether to attack Palin on lack of experience (and risk highlighting Obama’s own short resume) or extremism (and risk alienating religious voters) or to just ignore her and focus on McCain (but miss the opportunity to attack a vulnerable candidate).
Fortunately for all of us, Palin’s resume (or pitiful lacks thereof) speaks for itself. Check out Palin’s one-on-one with Katie Couric from earlier this week:
The Palin “bounce”, once celebrated by the Republicans, has fallen back to earth. But the fall may not stop at the pre-Palin status quo of a slight Obama lead. Instead, Palin now threatens to drag down McCain even further than before. Consider a September 26 opinion from Kathleen Parker, a nationally syndicated conservative columnist, who decries the “Palin problem”, which could be roughly defined as an inability to say anything intelligent about any of the serious problems facing our nation.
To be honest, it was only a matter of time before conservatives soured on Palin. She’s totally out of her element, particularly in foreign and economic policy, and there’s nothing that conservatives hate more than a risky neophyte (consider their dislike for Obama). But Obama’s now surging in the polls, and at least in part because Sarah Palin’s been exposed.
They talked about the financial crisis. They talked about Iraq, Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, and about restoring America’s respect in the world. So granted, McCain and Obama provided answers on several important foreign policy issues facing our country today.
But what about trade? What about development? What about democracy promotion? What about the catastrophic failure of the Doha Round at the WTO? The complete omission of these topics from the so-called “foreign policy” debate borders on negligence. Of course American voters may not be interested in such topics (do they understand the significance of Doha?), but the job of the moderator and indeed the candidates is to hold themselves to a higher standard. Besides, if we want to fight global terrorism, or prevent a global economic recession, or restore our respect in the world, we could start by rewarding our allies with trade deals, supporting third world development, ensuring that responsible democracies have the resources to survive their perilous first years, and, above all, by committing ourselves to the vitally important Doha Round of trade talks at the WTO. These issues may not have the Cold War glamor of confronting Russia, or the “I told you so” quality of the Iraq question, but they are just as, or more, important to the future safety, security, and prosperity of our country.
So John McCain has decided to attend tonight’s debate. That’s good news for everyone who cares who leads the United States for the next four or eight years.
Before moving on the main event, we should all take a moment to ponder John McCain’s puzzling and opportunistic suggestion that he wouldn’t attend the debate and instead would focus on more important (less political) matters, such as the financial crisis.
But it’s ridiculous to separate the two events as political and apolitical, respectively. The debate is concerned with choosing the next president, a decision that couldn’t be more relevant for the resolution of the crisis. And the crisis itself is wholly embedded in the political processes of the country. Secretary Paulson will propose a bail-out, the Congress will consider it, and it may or may not pass (depending on Pelosi, other Democratic leadership, etc). McCain’s implicit suggestion that the ‘dirty’ business of politics ought to be set aside for the ’serious’ business of running the country is either bizarrely naive or cold-heartedly calculating and opportunistic.
Fortunately we’ll have our opporunity to see Obama and McCain in action tonight. But be wary of any candidate who tries to play the “I’m too good for politics” card (which is all too common). Neither of them are too good for politics–they’re both politicians! And they continue to run the same dumb and less than truthful attack ads on television. Instead of a debate about who cares more about the country, I’m hoping to hear persuasive answers to questions like: “What are we going to do about Iraq?”, “How will we resolve the financial crisis?”, “How will we achieve these objectives?”.
Once upon a time, when George Washington and Thomas Jefferson served our country, the presidency was a profession. That is to say, it demanded a technical skill set. The well educated, those well versed in diplomacy and negotiation and finance and French (among other things), governed the country. Certainly there were speeches and campaigns and the like, but they were only sideshows to the true business of governance, which happened behind closed doors.
Today things are different–the presidency has been fully politicized. In a constant media spotlight, with every move recorded and analyzed and played for jokes on late night television or YouTube, a president has precious little room to maneuver. Heaven forbid he should cut spending or scrap wasteful projects, as any smart business executive would. No, the contemporary president must carefully cultivate a persona that appeals to his constituents, lest the polls head south and his fair-weather allies abandon him.
This has turned the presidency into a grand theatrical show. The president himself must constantly attend to one constituent or another, speaking about parental responsibility one day and eating deep-fried something at the Iowa state fair the next. This is how coalitions are built in American politics–through smoke and mirrors and inspiring speeches.
Of course this theatrical business has a skill set of its own; successful presidents must be good actors. This is why we can’t drag just any well-meaning bureaucrat away from his post and install him in the Oval Office. The presidency requires more than a good heart and less than a knowledge of econometrics.
In a sense, this is why we have campaigns for president. In building coalitions, attacking one’s opponent, negotiating with one’s allies, and managing an organization at the national level, a candidate can demonstrate political skills. That’s not to marginalize past experience, but only to suggest that the job that most closely resembles being president is being a successful candidate for it.
In this current election, which pits Barack Obama against John McCain, we should question the claim that Barack Obama’s resume is too short or that John McCain lacks executive experience. The idea that an extra six or twelve years in the Senate should change our opinion of Obama, or that McCain might gain something from governing a state (like Alaska, for example) is ludicrous. The truth is that after two years in the national spotlight, after countless debates and speeches and state fairs and (un)warranted criticism, Obama and McCain have amply demonstrated their ability to thrive in a presidential role.
Of course that doesn’t mean either will make a good president. It just means that experience is not a good reason to disqualify either of them. Certainly we may judge McCain’s experience to be superior and vice versa, but only in joint consideration of other qualities like character and policy preference can we render a final judgment.
One candidate for national office who might merit disqualification, however, is Sarah Palin. I’ve already written extensively to criticize this running mate pick, but I will do so again. Palin will only have occupied the national spotlight for two months before the election. Many have justified her candidacy on the basis of her executive experience in Alaskan politics, but (to use an analogy) that’s like the Yankees calling someone up from the minors because he pitched a nice fastball in the Little League World Series…last week. The Major Leagues, however, have a tendency to break promising young pitchers, just as the national spotlight tends to destroy lesser candidates. With Palin we may only find out too late that’s she’s not ready for job.
But with McCain and Obama let’s get over the petty part of the experience debate. Maybe John McCain isn’t keen on economics and perhaps Barack Obama isn’t a foreign policy expert, but we shouldn’t hold it against them in terms of experience. They have advisers for that. You don’t need to be a professional technocrat to be president.
Quite appropriately, today is a day remembering the victims of the September 11th attacks. In New York and Washington DC, family members are once again gathering to remember fallen loved ones at ground zero and the Pentagon. Thankfully, the presidential candidates are also stepping back from politics to participate together in a forum on public service at Columbia University. The day itself remains sacrosanct.
However, our memory of September 11th is not so holy in American politics the other 364 days of the year. Politicians use their roles on that day or what that day now symbolizes in the war on terror for their own gains on a regular basis. Perhaps we are still not far enough removed from that day politically for us to have the proper perspective. A good indication of that is the fact that Giuliani and George W. Bush, the mayor of New York and the President on September 11th, are still very active in American politics. I think we are already starting to see from McCain and Obama that politics is moving on, albeit at a very slow pace.
Personally, I think the day should eventually be remembered as an everyman’s version of December 7th 1941. Something that unites us as a country into remembering that there are bigger things than politics. That we are all citizens of this country, that at our core we all stand together, and that we all have the potential to stand for something heroic.
That´s just my opinion though, and I think this merits some discussion.
I am traveling today, but just wanted to throw up a question for discussion. Does Hurricane Gustav help or hurt the Republicans? There has been a lot of debate over the situation: here,here, and here, to name a few. Thoughts?
With the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate there was a short-lived feeling among Democrats that Palin was vulnerable on her lack of experience. Sensing an opportunity, Obama spokesman Bill Burton quickly released a statement mocking Palin’s short resume. He noted that only two years ago, before her current tenure as Alaska’s governor, Palin’s biggest political credential was being mayor of an Alaskan town of 8,500 people called Wasilla. But the statement was soon retracted. The reason, no doubt, was fear of falling into McCain’s so-called “brilliant trap”. This trap, by inducing the Obama campaign to criticize Palin for her lack of experience, would highlight Obama’s own limited experience. It would also draw him into a shouting match with the bottom half of the Republican ticket, not the most flattering role for the Democratic standard-bearer.
At risk of falling into this trap ourselves, let’s give some thought to the experience question. How does experience qualify one for the presidency? What are the most important experiences? Does Palin have them? Does Obama have them?
To start, not all experiences are created equal. Certainly being the governor of California is a more impressive experience than being the governor of Alaska. California, after all, has more than thirty-six million citizens while Alaska has only 683,000. But let’s not stop there. Would it be reasonable to say that the mayors of Austin, TX, Columbus, OH, and Jacksonville, FL have equally impressive resumes as Sarah Palin? Probably, since Austin, Columbus, and Jacksonville each have larger populations than the entire state of Alaska. But no one’s called John Peyton, Michael Coleman, or Will Wynn to tell them they were on the short list for a VP nomination. And for good reason: they’re not particularly qualified. Of course that’s only to say that Sarah Palin’s meager resume is no qualification for the vice presidency of the United States. Although one Fox News analyst believes that Alaska’s proximity to Russia gives Palin some sort of foreign policy expertise. Huh?
But what about Barack Obama’s supposed lack of experience? Can Bill Burton still criticize Palin’s resume and avoid hypocrisy in supporting Obama?
The answer is yes, Palin can (and should) be criticized for her lack of experience, even by Obama supporters. This is because Barack Obama does have the experience to be president. Put aside, for a moment, his eight years as an Illinois Senator and four years as a US Senator. These qualifications are already impressive, but I agree with critics who worry that twelve years of legislative experience are not enough. Fortunately Obama has another qualification on his resume: Nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States of America. In a campaign that lasted for twenty months, spanned all fifty states, Puerto Rico, and Guam, witnessed twenty-six debates, and faced relentless 24/7 media coverage, Obama came out ahead. His personal management of the campaign is testament to his outstanding leadership ability. Even when Obama trailed both John Edwards and Hillary Clinton in the polls, and Clinton appeared to be the inevitable nominee, Obama never gave up. Instead, his record-breaking fundraising in early 2008 set the stage for his shocking upset of Clinton, concluding with his nomination at the DNC last week.
Obama’s experience running his national campaign is the right kind of experience to qualify him for the presidency. This is most true today, in a media driven age, when the presidency is more about management and judgment than it is about technical expertise. Obama has demonstrated both qualities; we know this because otherwise he wouldn’t be the nominee. Sarah Palin, however, has demonstrated neither quality. Yes, she has been successful in Alaska, but the stakes in Alaska are about as high as they are in, well, Jacksonville, FL. When it comes to the national stage she’s untested and grossly under-qualified.
Obama supporters fear not, you can criticize Palin’s inexperience and not worry about undercutting Obama. He’s plenty experienced and the voters agree.
UPDATE 8/31:
Now Cindy McCain’s claiming that Palin has “national security” experience because Alaska is close to Russia. Also check out Michael Kinsley’s analysis of Republican hypocrisy and John Podhoretz’s feeble defense of Palin’s candidacy (which proves Kinsley’s point).
Let’s get the superficial differences out of the way first. One of our vice-presidential candidates is a man and one is a woman. One’s from the continental US and one’s from northwest of Canada (that being Alaska). One is old and one is young. One’s never been in a beauty pageant and one’s a former beauty queen.
Now for the real differences. One’s political resume reads US Senator 1972-2008 and one’s reads Mayor of Wasilla, AK (pop. 8,500) 1996-2006. One knows national prominence on the basis of 35 years in the US Senate and extended chairmanships of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary (1987-1995) and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (current). The other one knows national prominence on the basis of veep speculation during her two years (2006-2008) as Governor of Alaska. One has weathered critical coverage from the national media his whole career while one’s never been covered by the national media, until today.
One, of course, is Democrat VP nominee Joe Biden. The other is the surprise Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin.
The question now facing voters, in addition to the choice between Barack Obama and John McCain, is the choice between potential Commander-in-Chiefs should the unthinkable happen to our newly elected president. Could we trust Joe Biden and his 35 years of national experience? Absolutely. Could we trust Sarah Palin and her two year governorship of Alaska plus ten year stint as mayor of a town of 8,500? I don’t think so.
Plus we only have two short months to examine her candidacy. That is simply not enough time to vet a candidate for this nation’s second highest office. With Joe Biden, on the other hand, we’ve had 35 years to find faults (and we’ve certainly found some).
The presumptive nomination of Sarah Palin should also cast substantial doubt on John McCain’s judgment. Whereas Obama picked a running mate with strong credentials and experience, McCain picked a running mate with none whatsoever. Indeed, the Palin pick looks like a cynical ploy to win over disgruntled Hillary voters. This is not to suggest, of course, that they will be won over so easily. Surely anyone should recognize the deficiencies of a Palin vice-presidency or, heaven forbid, a Palin presidency.
Finally, this is not the same debate as Obama’s change vs. McCain’s experience. Obama was a raw and unknown candidate when he began his campaign over a year and a half ago, no doubt. But the intervening time has given us a chance to question, scrutinize, and debate Senator Obama. He has weathered the national stage like a veteran. But Palin, only a heartbeat away from the presidency, has faced no such scrutiny. Again, two months and one vice-presidential debate is just not enough exposure to know Palin’s presidential mettle (or lack thereof). John McCain has made a risky, foolish, and cynical decision which deserves our condemnation.
Republicans have always laid claim to some sort of realism in foreign policy. Meet force with force, they say, because that’s the only way to deal with bullies. Usually Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler is mentioned, as well as John Kennedy’s disastrous meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev the year before the Cuban Missile Crisis. For reference take a look at John Bolton’s June 5 opinion in the LA Times.
The public has bought in to Republican “realism”. John McCain, for example, believes he would make a better commander in chief than Barack Obama and polls exist to show that the public agrees. Democrats, like Obama and John Kerry before him, are easily stereotyped by media pundits as wishy-washy pansies who think we can all just get along.
Nowhere has this depiction of Republicans and Democrats been made more clearly, or unfairly, than in John Bolton’s most recent opinion, again in the LA Times. Bolton not only claims that Barack Obama’s vision of the world is “radical”, “naive”, and “dangerous”, but also that Obama’s so far from the mainstream that he’s “on another planet”.
The crux of Bolton’s argument comes towards the middle of the article in a discussion of the Berlin Wall:
But beyond the incoherence [of Obama's foreign policy], there is a deeper problem, namely that “walls” exist not simply because of a lack of understanding about who is on the other side but because there are true differences in values and interests that lead to human conflict. The Berlin Wall itself was not built because of a failure of communication but because of the implacable hostility of communism toward freedom. The wall was a reflection of that reality, not an unfortunate mistake.
The distinction Bolton seems to be making is between realism and idealism. But Bolton, perhaps unknowingly, aligns himself with the idealist position. How so? Realism holds that conflict in international relations is owed to either the quest for power or the quest for security. For a realist, then, the Berlin Wall was either the consequence of two states struggling for power (irrespective of ideology), or of a failure of communication that spiraled out of control into the infamous security dilemma (often recognizable as an arms race or, in this case, as the building and militarizing of the Berlin Wall). But Bolton is not a realist.
Bolton’s position is deceptively idealist. He sees the Berlin Wall, and no doubt the Cold War, as a confrontation between two ideologies: communism and liberalism (although Bolton prefers the term freedom, which isn’t associated with effete senators from Massachusetts). He even anthropomorphizes communism, assigning it qualities like “hostility” and perhaps ‘evil’. In Bolton’s vision of the world ideas drive interests, not the other way around.
That said, let’s drop the semantics game and address the more practical implications of Bolton’s so-called “realism”. Should we agree with him that conflict between countries is best described as a titanic collision of competing and intractable ideologies, or might it be more realistic to acknowledge that cooperation is possible on the basis of shared interests? Is the Homo sapiens species really so different in France or Germany or Iraq or Iran that there isn’t any profit in confronting some challenges together? Bolton facetiously claims that Obama’s from another planet, but I’m more inclined to believe that Bolton’s from another planet. His “realism” is a farce; it can’t be realism if it has little or no basis in reality.
As our token idealist, I would like to draw your attention to a nice editorial in Saturday’s New York Times by Susan Neiman. She talks about a very old and heavily discussed trans-Atlantic divide. She describes old Europe’s world-weariness and how it has caused resistance to Obama’s superstar, savior image. Europeans are uncomfortable with Obama’s apparent blind optimism.
Midway through the piece Neiman makes a distinction between optimism and idealism.She defines the distinction at the end: optimists refuse to acknowledge reality; idealists remind us that it isn’t fixed. Neiman argues that Obama’s speech was not mere optimism but instead, “he was using the past to remind us all that we need not resign ourselves to the way things are now.” What makes America great, according to Obama, is our loyalty is less tied to the tribes of our birth.Instead, it is tied to a particular idea: we are not bound to our allotted station in the natural ordering. We are the true authors of our own lives.
At the end of the piece Neiman hopes that Europeans will see the difference between optimism and the American idealism Obama has come to embody. This idealism reminded me of the idealism of two great Europeans of the past. In his review of Democracy in America John Stuart Mill writes,
By Democracy, M. de Tocqueville does not, in general, mean any particular form of government. He can conceive a Democracy under an absolute monarch…. By democracy M. de Tocqueville understands equality of conditions, the absence of all aristocracy, whether constituted by political privileges, or by superiority in individual importance and social power. It is towards Democracy in this sense, towards equality between man and man, that he conceives society to be irresistibly traveling.
First it was Democrat Joe Lieberman endorsing Republican John McCain for President. Then we found out that former GOP Secretary of State Colin Powell is considering voting for Obama in November. Finally, long time Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has even accompanied Obama on his week long campaign visit to the Middle East and Western Europe. Of course this sort of crossing the aisle is nothing new: everyone remembers Democratic Senator Zell Miller’s bizarre appearance as the keynote speaker at the 2004 Republican convention, for example. But what makes this year unique is the persistent speculation that Lieberman might join the McCain ticket or Hagel might join the Obama ticket. Does this make sense for either candidate?
Probably not for McCain. McCain does need a bold pick (Jindal or Palin would do), but picking Lieberman exposes one of his biggest weaknesses: the wavering support of the religious right. Aside from foreign policy, Lieberman’s relatively liberal. If McCain adds a pro-choice semi-Democrat to the ticket, the religious right might very well stay home. Plus Lieberman has alienated so many Democrats with his defeat of Ned Lamont in 2006 and his premature criticism of Obama that it remains to be seen just how many new votes he would carry as a vice-presidential candidate. McCain would probably do better to shore up his base with a more conservative pick, or broaden his appeal with a like-minded moderate Republican.
Hagel makes more sense for the Obama ticket than Lieberman does for the McCain ticket. If Obama picked the Nebraska Republican he might be able to reclaim some of his early bipartisan credentials that were overwhelmed by “most liberal senator in the Senate” accusations. Plus Hagel would add a strong military and foreign policy resume to a ticket mostly bereft of any international experience. And Hagel’s even more popular among Nebraska Democrats than Republicans, at least according to one poll.
Obama with Senator Hagel and General Petraeus in Iraq.
Still, Hagel’s right of center (although in a libertarian sort of way) and would no doubt ruffle a few feathers amongst Obama’s far left coterie (that’s already angry about shifts to the center on Iraq, campaign finance, and trade). My guess is that Hagel lands a Cabinet level position in the Obama administration, most likely Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense. But he wouldn’t make a half-bad veep pick either. Obama clearly likes Hagel enough to invite him on his overseas trip and that’s critical in the selection process.
Will Democrats and Republicans share the White House next year? I doubt it, but an Obama-Hagel ticket might make sense. Thoughts?
Is that really an Obama campaign banner in front of the Western Wall? (And it’s in Hebrew?)
Before Obama arrived at the Western Wall today in Jerusalem
Consider that just earlier today, in a column at The Huffington Post, Obama supporter and Florida Democrat Robert Wexler called McCain’s criticism of Obama’s comments at Yad Vashem “shameful” and “unconscionable”. I’d like to agree with Wexler that it’s inappropriate to use “Senator Obama’s somber visit to Israel’s Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem as a backdrop to score cheap political points”, but it’s difficult to do so when Obama uses a separate visit to Judaism’s holiest site the Western Wall as a campaign photo op.
Politics is supposed to stop at the water’s edge. It certainly doesn’t belong at Yad Vashem or the Western Wall. Apparently the Obama and McCain campaigns just don’t care.
UPDATE 7/24:
It’s been reported that the Obama banners were distributed by the campaign itself. And Jerusalem Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld says this is not typical practice for political visits to the Western Wall.
We’d get along with everyone, or so has been the storyline of his recent tour of the Middle East and Western Europe. At the halfway point of his trip, Obama’s met with literally everyone: Hamid Karzai, Nouri al-Maliki, Jalal Talabani, King Abdullah, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Mahmoud Abbas, Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert, plus several governors, mayors, and other dignitaries. His reception has been overwhelming friendly, complete with smiling photos ops, glowing praise, and fawning media coverage.
Obama with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani earlier this week.
And that doesn’t even include the Western European portion of the trip, where Obama is expected to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The New York Times reports the Germans are expecting the crowd at Obama’s public Berlin address to be as high as ONE MILLION (!). What, one million protesters (like when Bush visits)? No — more likely one million adoring fans, German no less.
Obama’s media team has been careful to remind reporters that there’s only one president, that this trip is not a policy-making trip, but come on, what kind of US senator gets one million Germans to turn out for a glorified campaign speech? Maybe one who’s getting a little ahead of himself? Does Obama mean to suggest that as President he’d enjoy this kind of international support?
Or maybe we’re all to blame — perhaps we’ve bought in so easily to Obama’s charm that it’s blinded us to the fact that he’s a politician who does stupid things domestically (supporting the farm bill, destroying campaign finance) and is likely to do them abroad given the chance. The New York Times even reports that comedians are struggling to find funny Obama material. Apparently he’s too pure. Huh?
It’s easy for leaders like al-Maliki and Karzai to cozy up to Obama when he’s a media-managed starlet, but once he’s been in office for a time and had to make hard decisions, he probably won’t draw a million Germans to hear him speak. Or if he does, they’ll be there to protest his decision to stay in Iraq for another year or his unrelenting support for American farm subsidies that impoverish the third world. As David Aaronovitch, columnist for the Times of London, tellingly observes, eventually we will all hate Obama.
Henry Paulson’s proposed bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has justifiably sparked a lot of debate. I won’t attempt to add to that, but I’ll simply direct you to a few predictions and rants by frustrated economics professors: here’s one by Paul Krugman, here’s one by RGE Monitor’s Nouriel Roubani, he cites one by Willem Buiter in the FT. Then there’s another one published by the Wall Street Journal. All of these are worth reading, and they all have differing opinions about the severity of the problem and who is really to blame. However, as with most crises, there isn’t just one group at fault, but a number of different complicit wrongdoers. Certainly, the two mortgage giants and the financial industry in general were overzealous in selling and packaging mortgages that perhaps didn’t deserve to exist and the government stood by so idly that they are rightfully accused of negligence. Even American consumers are duly ridiculed for their rampant debt accumulation. But placing blame is one thing, solving the problem is another.
Part of the difficulty in addressing this problem is that it seems to require altering economic behaviors that are part of the American identity. The American economy is designed—through a number of mechanisms—to promote radical risk-taking and innovation. That general attitude is not something we will change, nor is it necessarily something we should abandon. However, we clearly crossed a line into excessive risk-taking, and we need to send a message that we should take a step back at every level. Sending a message that condemns excessive risk-taking without opposing the practice in general is a politically difficult maneuver, but one that presidential and congressional candidates will have to make.
One way of addressing this might be by making this the new debate over “values”. Previous elections were one or lost based on claims to having superior values on issues of moral import like gay marriage, gun rights and abortion. I could see the candidates addressing these economic problems with the same language of values—starting a journey back to the “culture of thrift” perhaps, as David Brooks calls it. One candidate could (should?) claim that they are the candidate of responsibility, the torch-bearers of the protestant work ethic that used to have Americans spending what they had and, as a result, having more to spend; a candidate that could reintroduce us to the values of modesty and hard work. This seems like a traditionally Republican mantra, but the Bush era of fiscal profligacy lost them that mantle. McCain could make this turn to traditional values, but his support of the Bush tax cuts loses him some credibility. Obama doesn’t exactly seem like a fiscal conservative either, but he could argue that having the government spend more on health care and education helps keep people out of the debt that is perhaps the root of this problem. Whether or not either candidate picks up this undertone, it is clear that getting out of the credit crisis will require more than a new set of regulations; it may require a more substantial change towards a new set of values and social ideals. What are those values and does either candidate have the capacity to lead us down that path towards change? I think those questions deserve some discussion.
There’s been quite a lot of discussion recently about the crippling burden of debt faced by many Americans, and understandably so – the rippling effects of the mortgage crisis have a number of analysts suggesting that the U.S. economy is heading towards recession.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that many lessons from the recent crisis are especially clear, at least as far as policy prescriptions might go. While it is true that many lenders were certainly irresponsible, many borrowers freely admit that they were, too. And while the availability of easy credit certainly contributed to the growth of debt, it’s important to recognize that, in general, access to credit is a very positive thing, provided that it is offered and taken responsibly, with rational pricing of risk all around. To put it more concretely, while access to credit and the resulting growth of debt led to many Americans losing their homes, access to credit helped put some of them in those homes in the first place, and it helped others improve aspects of their lives, if only in the short term given how events played out. Without excusing irresponsibility on the parts of the various players involved in the recent debt crisis, I think it’s essential to note that addressing the problems in these markets entails what might end up being a fairly delicate balancing act, and that the parameters governing such an act aren’t necessarily known.
I can’t help but wonder, though, if we wouldn’t be able to achieve a lot by focusing on some of the informational aspects of the decisions made by consumers. Specifically, I wonder about the role financial illiteracy and opacity played in convincing borrowers to take on risky high-interest-rate loans of various sorts. Was it the case that many borrowers didn’t understand the economic risks they faced in general (e.g. the risk of medical emergencies or layoffs), some of which might be large enough to force them to default? Did they, perhaps, fail to understand the risks associated with ARMs, or the terms underlying their credit-card debt, or the specifics of any of the myriad of other debt instruments that were purchased? It’s an empirical question, surely, though I think it’s somewhat intuitive: who hasn’t been at least somewhat confused by the terms and fees associated with a bank account or credit card? If it is indeed the case that these sorts of misunderstandings were important in the evolution of the current financial crisis, perhaps there is a role to be played by government in promoting financial education or enhanced transparency of financial contracts, independently of any regulation of the terms of those contracts.
From what I know of the literature in general, the evidence about the efficacy of financial education and transparency interventions is mixed. But I can’t help but think that it’s important to continue exploring this area. The economic world becomes more complex every day, and it seems that the importance of the effective management and transmission of information grows with it. Perhaps focusing on better financial education and transparency on the ground will prove to be a more valuable (and workable) approach than playing an outmoded blame game.
Mark Halperin, Matt Drudge, etc. are buzzing about a report from Robert Novak that John McCain will make his vice-presidential selection later this week. Meanwhile, Chris Cillizza comments on McCain’s unexpected (and strategically puzzling) decision to travel to New Orleans this Thursday to meet with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Coincidence? Doubtful.
But does McCain really think that a 37 year old unknown with reputedly scant experience can convince the American people that he’s ready to serve as president should the unthinkable happen? Intrade, which specializes in political futures, doesn’t think so. It currently gives Jindal just a 9.2% chance of becoming the Republican veep pick — decent odds but well behind Mitt Romney at 38.5% and still trailing obscure Alaska Governor Sarah Palin at 15.0% and Minnesota’s relatively bland executive Tim Pawlenty at 11.0%.
But I’d take the Jindal veep talk more seriously than the “Intraders” for three reasons:
[1] Jindal’s more experienced than you think. Before reaching the age of 29, Jindal had already run Louisiana’s massive Department of Health and Hospitals and been named President of the University of Louisiana system. In 2001 he was nominated for and served nearly two years as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services before entering Congress in 2005 and the Louisiana governor’s mansion in early 2008. This political resume compares quite favorably with Barack Obama’s seven years in the Illinois Senate and three-plus years in the US Senate.
[2] Jindal’s a very appealing politician. Think John Edwards but of Indian descent and without the $400 haircuts (and a lot more conservative). Anyone who caught Jindal’s appearance on The Tonight Show back in April saw a star in the making.
[3] A conventional pick just won’t do this time around. McCain’s campaign is in rough shape: a PPP poll out today shows Obama +8 in Ohio, a margin that if it holds would sound the death knell for McCain’s presidential ambitions. Obama, meanwhile, is making all the news with his tour of the Middle East and Western Europe; meetings with Karzai, Maliki, Sarkozy, Merkel, and Brown are likely to enhance his growing presidential aura. And Chuck Hagel (accompanying Obama on his trip) is close to becoming Obama’s version of Joe Lieberman. The point is that McCain needs a bold VP pick, someone who could inject some life into his decrepit campaign. Jindal — smart, charismatic, and not an old white man — could be the answer.
If Novak’s right we’ll find out later this week. Stay tuned…
