Dan

Calabrese

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October 8, 2008

McCain Can’t Land a Punch, Even When Obama Tells Whoppers With Cheese

Barack Obama does have an amazing ability to say preposterous things and make them sound reasonable. And even when John McCain refutes him factually, he doesn’t seem to be able to do so to any serious effect.

During last night’s debate, Obama let loose with some substantive whoppers. With cheese. Sometimes McCain responded effectively. Sometimes he didn’t. Either way, you don’t get the impression that the absurdity of Obama’s positions is getting through to “uncommitted voters” like those who populated the debate hall last night.

Most incredibly, early in the debate Obama railed against eight years of deficit spending, and then, hardly pausing for a breath, went into his promise to make “investments” in things like health care, alternative energy and college affordability. So you’re so strongly opposed to deficit spending that you’re going to add lots more things to spend money on? Got it. Anticipating that McCain would talk about his big spending plans, Obama engaged in some pre-emptive self-defense by claiming that he would cut more spending than he would increase.

Specifics? None. Obama didn’t name a single item on which he would cut spending.

Sure enough, McCain launched into his familiar talking points about how Obama plans $800 billion in new spending. The rebuttal was 100 percent true, but still not all that effective. Why not point out that, for a guy who claims he’ll be cutting spending more than he’s increasing it, he sure talks a lot about new spending and never has anything to say about the cuts?

When Obama repeated his familiar tripe about Republican “deregulation” causing the market meltdown, McCain explained in detail how and why Democrats caused the problem. His statement was factual. Did you get the impression that it resonated with the audience? I didn’t. Who knows why? Maybe they don’t really want to understand what happened. Maybe they just want to be mad. If so, that’s a hell of a way to choose a president.

And when McCain put forth the rather stunning plan to buy up bad mortgages and renegotiate them so people would have lower payments, Obama stood right up and talked about how McCain doesn’t have any plans to help the middle class. Astounding that he gets away with this stuff, but he does.

McCain is smart and knows policy, but Obama is so rhetorically slippery, it seems it’s not enough for McCain to merely state the facts. Every word out of Obama’s mouth has to be scrutinized and rebutted almost instantly, because he is so good at making the preposterous sound reasonable.

Granted, a two-minute rebuttal is not a lot of time to lay bare everything that is wrong with what Obama says. When Obama rails against oil companies for “not using” lands they are leasing, it’s hard for McCain to explain in two minutes how exploration works, and that Obama clearly doesn’t have the slightest idea what he’s talking about.

When Obama laments the notion of shopping across state lines for health care because the nasty insurance companies will cheat the poor consumers like credit card companies from Delaware do, it’s hard in two minutes for McCain to make the case that consumers have to do their homework and make good decisions, and that they are much better off doing so than waiting for the government to do it for them.

Then again, when Obama talks about “working with” small businesses to reduce their private health care premiums, it wouldn’t take long to say, “What?” Of course, you would have to actually be concerned about the notion of the government getting involved in such business. Maybe that’s not where the electorate is right now. Much the same as when Bill Clinton successfully campaigned for the presidency, Obama seems to be getting far this year by promising the people that he will take care of everything for them.

If you liked the way the government impacted the mortgage market, you’ll love what Barack Obama can do to health care and all kinds of other things where some of us think you should rely on yourself. Obama’s policy prescriptions are one part naivety, two parts ignorance and three parts insanity. His understanding of history is abominable. His intellectual emptiness is matched only by his cocksure egotism.

McCain tells you this, but he doesn’t seem to do so in a way that makes you get the message. I don’t think he got the message across last night, even though he said it, and even though what’s wrong with Obama as a prospective president should be clear to anyone who is willing to see it.

And that, when it comes right down to it, seems to be the problem.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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