We Have Failed Completely, But Next Time Will Be Different
Posted on September 5th, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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During his completely forgettable acceptance speech, McCain said:
I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. We [Republicans] were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us.
In other words, it was the same reform mantra that you are hearing today that was used to propel his party into power, whereupon the party mostly failed to do any of the things the voters expected it to do and instead ushered in an era of corruption, government expansion, unnecessary war and subversion of constitutional liberties, so we should give them another chance to do all of it to us again. I am not sure that we can endure another such era of reform and restoration.
Filed under: politics
8 Responses to “We Have Failed Completely, But Next Time Will Be Different”
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Assuming Obama wins and brings an overwhelming majority to Congress and the Senate with him, how long do you think it will take before they descend into corruption and denial? They say power corrupts, and the GOP has been in power for close to 30 years. Think the Dems can outlast them? Or will 2038 look like 2008 in a mirror?
It would be worse, because the Dems are ideologically and not just de facto committed to the expansion of the central government and the Nanny State, and with control of both houses of Congress, and possibly the Supreme Court in their grubby paws, no one will be able to stop them from adopting large chunks of their program.
The people have wisely provided for divided government often enough in the past.
They didn’t provide it in ‘76 or ‘92, which is where we seem to be headed. My guess is that a unified Dem government will sink into pretty rank corruption by 2010 or 2011 (think of those Countrywide-connected Dem Senators facing investigation, ethics charges and maybe something worse), but it won’t be until maybe 2014 or 2016 that they will have to pay for it in a big way. Who knows what new influence-peddling scandals a unified Dem government can create? I would also bet that they will not get more than one Court appointment between now and 2013. Midterms in 2010 will provide a healthy corrective if they try to overreach very much.
When choosing to elect a “reformist” House or Senate, no matter what is said campaigning, cynicism is absolutely necessary because you are never going to have fifty people immune from corrupting influences, much less two-hundred-odd.
But when electing a President, you’re electing one man. You can judge the character of one man, whereas the character of a crowd is almost certain to be the same as just about all crowds. I think the record of McCain lends credence to his desire to reform, and his character suggests that he might well be the one to carry through. You want anger, a willingness to offend, and stubbornness.
So, in short, McCain’s pledge should at least be considered as a good reason to support him; it’s a rotten reason to support Republicans in the House or Senate (or Democrats for that matter).
What gabriel said.
McCain is not Bush and there is every reason to believe that he would act as a check on Democratic excesses (and vice versa). The electorate know this which is why the race is tight and why they have split their ticket so often in the past.
Here’s the problem; McCain’s reform initiatives have usually become his pet causes because they were a way for him to demonstrate independence from his party (which is why his reforms are always so unpopular with members of his party, whom he lambastes as corrupt or bigoted or what-have-you), and as a way for him to cultivate his “maverick” image with a once-adoring media. (Having gone to war with the press during the election, McCain will be even more inclined to suck up to them and pursue an agenda they will like than before.) So, if he does engage in reform, this cuts just one way: making deals with Democrats in Congress on issues that are certain to satisfy Democratic constituencies and infuriate Republican ones. If you think that’s reform, well, you’re probably a Democrat, and you could cut to the chase, back Obama instead and get much the same result.
It’s true that McCain isn’t Bush. McCain is demonstrably worse than Bush in almost every area where Bush has been a disaster, and he is more inclined as a matter of habit and temperament to collaborate with Democrats than Bush was.
What is McCain going to reform? Entitlements? Please. Pentagon spending? Nope. He will tackle the ungodly foe of earmarks. How exciting and important. Actually, how absolutely trivial as a matter of fiscal discipline. At best, the domestic case for McCain is largely a negative one–he probably won’t raise taxes, and he probably won’t sign off on nationalized health care or anything like it and he *might* occasionally veto a budget that is too large–and I don’t think that’s very persuasive or compelling. It’s got little to do with reform of any kind. We’ve been down this road before. We are where we are today because the “reformer with results” won in 2000. Given what Bush has actually done in government, why would anyone want to rely on Republican reformism right now?
I agree that there will be a lot of split ticket voting in many of the old Border states and in the South, and in some other parts of the country, but I now think there will probably not be enough of it to lift McCain to victory.
Actually, McCain is probably the one of the few significant figures in American politics to express major concern with entitlement spending. He was one of the few to oppose the Prescription Drug Entitlement for this reason. To the extent that any reform won’t happen, it’s probably because the politics are impossible, and McCain knows it.
Earmarks are indicative of McCain’s two bete noirs: political corruption and financial irresponsibility. Focusing on the most visible and indefensible of these problems is an indication of intelligence, not disinterest in measures that go beyond tackling earmarks. And, indeed, McCain has been at the forefront of ethics reform.
I find the idea that a McCain presidency and an Obama presidency would come to the same kinds of deals with Congress laughable (and this assumes that Obama would even engage on the same sorts of issues as McCain, which is highly dubious). Finally, I think it’s difficult to point to anything except foreign policy where McCain has inclinations to magnify Bush’s errors. That’s important, but hardly the sum of Bush’s errors.
On immigration, McCain would obviously be worse and would magnify Bush’s errors. That’s just the most obvious thing to come to mind. His embrace of bipartisanship will be, as it was with Bush, an excuse to accept bad legislation and to push through unnecessary government expenditures to buy off the Democratic majority to support his goals overseas.