A couple days ago, when the Obama “redistribution” audio clip came out, I braced myself, considered responding how I really want to respond, and withheld. Look, Obama’s policies scare me. But there’s nothing quite as disingenuous as McCain criticizing Obama on this point, or Bush-supporters doing the same. Jacob Sullum of Reason goes ahead and says it:
…there’s no difference in principle on this issue between Obama and McCain. Both want to take money away from people who work for it and give it to people they believe deserve it. How else would you characterize McCain’s plan to rescue reckless lenders and borrowers by using taxpayer money to buy “bad home loan mortgages”? Medicare, Medicaid, progressive income taxation, and Social Security, to name just a few redistributive programs that both candidates support, also entail taking one group’s earnings and giving them to another group, and in some cases the beneficiaries are more affluent than the people compelled to subsidize them. McCain’s outrage over “redistribution of wealth” is awfully selective.
(Can you tell I’m a bit upset with conservatives?)
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
In interest of openness I should state up front that I have already voted (due to early voting in Georgia) and I voted for John McCain.
Having said that, I think one of McCain’s biggest mistakes in this campaign was during the debate of the cash for trash……I mean bailout bill. One of course can’t say with any degree of certainty what would have happened, but I can’t help but to believe that if he had voted against that bill instead of for it that he might have a chance to be elected President. It would have helped his image as a “maverick” for sure, and helped him connect more with the average Joe (plumber or otherwise) in the country.
I think also he should have focused some more of Obama’s positions on noneconomic issues more than he has. The fact that Obama supports “hate crimes” legislation, gun control and appointing judges like Ginsburg to the courts I think might well have won McCain a lot more support in rural areas than he has gotten (I’m sure McCain will win the rural areas, the question is by how much). Pointing out those differences I think would have gotten him more traction than campaigning on the platform of “I’m not going to raise your taxes and I’m going to ’stay the course’ in Iraq.”
Oh well, those are the rantings of one of McCain’s reluctant supporters down in dixie.
I can certainly agree with you that McCain has run an abysmal campaign. He probably could have won this thing, but he threw it away.