David Gregory opened today's program with the question of 'what is the choice?' This goes back to the basic question between the parties - what should the role of the federal government be? In Mr. Gregory's interview with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), the mayor said that Mr. Romney' policies would turn back the clock and go back to economic policies that we had under the Bush Administration. The argument against President Obama is that after 3 1/2 years, his policies haven't worked and are hence wrong for the country.
On the one hand, you could understand the electorate's frustration with the economy and the individual you point to is the President. On the other, the electorate also understands that what the Republicans are proposing in terms of economic policies may not be the best way to get us out of the malaise. The real difference in this election and the last presidential campaign is that in 2008, people were actually voting for someone. It was a welcomed change from most presidential campaigns where individuals are actually voting one way to vote against someone. This is what we're back to in this election cycle. Voting against the other.
Mr. Emanuel in making the case during his interview, got bogged down in details and history, hence not making the President's argument clear enough. It's a problem that's plagued Mr. Obama's campaign, and Mr. Emanuel did not help the case today. He didn't hurt it, but he certainly didn't help it. You can not ignore the statistic that 69 percent of the American people feel that we are at the same point or worse off than we were 4 years ago. The best most concise argument that Mr. Emanuel made was that General Motors is alive and well and Osama bin Laden is not. It's effective but it can only go so far. Even though the mayor didn't quite succeed in helping the President make his case, he was correct in some areas.
The Republicans, during the convention, railed against the President's policies, saying that he hadn't done enough on the housing foreclosure crisis, that unemployment is still above 8 percent, and that despite saving the auto industry, plants still closed. This is all true, but Mr. Emanuel accurately pointed out that Mr. Romney is on record saying that we should let the housing crisis bottom out and let the market work it out, let the auto industry fail if it's failing, that if we lift the regulations on business, jobs will come back. The reality of this last point is that history has shown that lower taxes for the wealthiest Americans, supply-side economics, hasn't worked to lift the middle class.
Unfortunately, whether or not to bail out auto industry comes down to a political choice for Republicans of the lose-lose variety. Use tax payer money to save the industry, which goes directly against the ethos and practical thinking of the GOP or just let the market work it out, and have millions more lose their jobs. That's not a politically strong position, but by some Republican calculations, letting the auto industry fail would have been good politically as it would wipe out a large union contingent - something Republicans would love to see.
Mr. Gingrich, during the panel discussion, made the point that if the policies of the past are touting free enterprise, then lets go there, meaning that maintaining business without restrictions will be the force by which the economy recovers. Two points, during the round table, will foundation of the Republicans' argument - the jobs report that comes out Friday after the convention, courtesy of Mr. Gingrich, and the fact that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke feels that there needs to be another stimulus (noted by Tom Brokaw). Both do not bode well for Democrats.
However, though Mr. Emanuel didn't make the Democrats' case well enough, Carly Fiorina (on today's panel), in making her points for Republicans, actually makes it worse for Republicans not better. How she is still a Republican campaign adviser escapes logic in the eyes of this column. She actually said that a platform, as in a party platform, doesn't matter. Immediately, Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin refuted that statement saying the they do matter because words last, where as optics go away (may be not too much anymore with the internet), but we agree with Mrs. Goodwin. Of course, the party platform matters - it's the official document of what the party stands for, and she's saying it doesn't matter?
Additionally, Mrs. Fiorina cited energy policy as a key difference between the candidates and how Mr. Romney would be better in that area. She talked about the Keystone Pipeline mostly, but it was something she mentioned in passing that really caught our attention, which was the energy policy should be more under control of the individual states. This would be a terrible idea to not have a national energy policy, especially since during the convention, Mr. Romney said that America would be energy independent by 2020, revised post-convention to be North American energy independent. Either way, Mrs. Fiorina isn't on the same page. What her idea translates down to is, for example, the coal mine owner say in West Virginia can lobby the state legislature (with enough money) to lower regulations for safety and air quality standards, air pollution that would be felt in other statements without any appropriate recourse. A bad idea Mrs. Fiorina.
And when the ever-congenial Tom Brokaw calls you out, you know you're way off base. Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan's speech bore so many misleading statements, it took the media two days to sort it all out. Mrs. Fiorina said that Mr. Ryan in no way overreached with the content of his speech. Like we said, if Mr. Brokaw calls you out...
New York Times columnist Tom Friedman was the truth teller that Mr. Romney's proposal to focus on fossil fuel consumption (what Mrs. Fiorina was arguing) without moving toward green energy will have devastating repercussions for the country environmentally as well as economically. Another notion that we find goes beyond logic is the Republican dogma that climate change/global warming doesn't exist or that if it does, it's not accelerated by man's activities. The science is simply overwhelming in the other direction. For the sake of prudence, if you take the precaution and nothing happens then at least we're all still alive. If we don't take precautions and the sea level rises then we're all dead. To use a term from Tom Brokaw today, it's seems like we're being buffaloed by Republicans on climate change, they know it's actually happening but refuse to admit it because it doesn't serve their immediate interest.
We appreciate what Mr. Brokaw, who we often disagree with, said with regard to Mr. Romney's policies and that the fact remains that the Republican Presidential candidate hasn't outlined any specifics, another 'buffalo'ing' situation where we the American people just have to take it on faith that his proposals are better instead of showing us what he really has on hand.
Round Table: former GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich; former CEO of
Hewlett-Packard and Vice Chair of the National Republican Senatorial
Committee Carly Fiorina; presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin; NY
Times columnist Tom Friedman; and NBC’s Tom Brokaw.
Two Side Notes:
1. Clint Eastwood - The trendy thing to say would be that Mr. Eastwood, being an actor, was just playing the role of a babbling buffoon on stage. But the real more important point is that he didn't do what he set out to do, which was help the Romney campaign. Instead, he embarrassed them.
2. Newt Gingrich and Congressman Todd Akin (R-MO) - Mr. Gingrich actually stated his support for Todd Akin's candidacy, and this is why he's not Presidential material, never was never will be, because he has no sense of decency and obviously doesn't have any respect for women. This was made even more sadly amusing because two minutes earlier Mrs. Fiorina was complaining that women shouldn't be treated as a single-issue, special interest group. Well, Mr. Gingrich just discounted womens' opinion all together.
No comments:
Post a Comment