The Economist

BARACK OBAMA
Oct 30th 2008


America should take a chance and make Barack Obama the next leader of
the free world

IT IS impossible to forecast how important any presidency will be. Back
in 2000 America stood tall as the undisputed superpower, at peace with
a generally admiring world. The main argument was over what to do with
the federal government's huge budget surplus. Nobody foresaw the
seismic events of the next eight years. When Americans go to the polls
next week the mood will be very different. The United States is
unhappy, divided and foundering both at home and abroad. Its
self-belief and values are under attack.

For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack
Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose
between them. THE ECONOMIST does not have a vote, but if it did, it
would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic
candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of
restoring America's self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble.
Given Mr Obama's inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his
beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting
for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep
road ahead.

THINKING ABOUT 2009 AND 2017
The immediate focus, which has dominated the campaign, looks daunting
enough: repairing America's economy and its international reputation.
The financial crisis is far from finished. The United States is at the
start of a painful recession. Some form of further fiscal stimulus is
needed, though estimates of the budget deficit next year already spiral
above $1 trillion. Some 50m Americans have negligible health-care
cover. Abroad, even though troops are dying in two countries, the
cack-handed way in which George Bush has prosecuted his war on terror
has left America less feared by its enemies and less admired by its
friends than it once was.

Yet there are also longer-term challenges, worth stressing if only
because they have been so ignored on the campaign. Jump forward to
2017, when the next president will hope to relinquish office. A
combination of demography and the rising costs of America's huge
entitlement programmes--Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid--will be
starting to bankrupt the country. Abroad a greater task is already
evident: welding the new emerging powers to the West. That is not just
a matter of handling the rise of India and China, drawing them into
global efforts, such as curbs on climate change; it means reselling
economic and political freedom to a world that too quickly associates
American capitalism with Lehman Brothers and American justice with
Guantanamo Bay. This will take patience, fortitude, salesmanship and
strategy.

At the beginning of this election year, there were strong arguments
against putting another Republican in the White House. A spell in
opposition seemed apt punishment for the incompetence, cronyism and
extremism of the Bush presidency. Conservative America also needs to
recover its vim. Somehow Ronald Reagan's party of western individualism
and limited government has ended up not just increasing the size of the
state but turning it into a tool of southern-fried moralism.

The selection of Mr McCain as the Republicans' candidate was a powerful
reason to reconsider. Mr McCain has his faults: he is an instinctive
politician, quick to judge and with a sharp temper. And his age has
long been a concern (how many global companies in distress would bring
in a new 72-year-old boss?). Yet he has bravely taken unpopular
positions--for free trade, immigration reform, the surge in Iraq,
tackling climate change and campaign-finance reform. A western
Republican in the Reagan mould, he has a long record of working with
both Democrats and America's allies.

IF ONLY THE REAL JOHN MCCAIN HAD BEEN RUNNING
That, however, was Senator McCain; the Candidate McCain of the past six
months has too often seemed the victim of political sorcery, his good
features magically inverted, his bad ones exaggerated. The fiscal
conservative who once tackled Mr Bush over his unaffordable tax cuts
now proposes not just to keep the cuts, but to deepen them. The man who
denounced the religious right as "agents of intolerance" now embraces
theocratic culture warriors. The campaigner against ethanol subsidies
(who had a better record on global warming than most Democrats) came
out in favour of a petrol-tax holiday. It has not all disappeared: his
support for free trade has never wavered. Yet rather than heading
towards the centre after he won the nomination, Mr McCain moved to the
right.

Meanwhile his temperament, always perhaps his weak spot, has been found
wanting. Sometimes the seat-of-the-pants method still works: his gut
reaction over Georgia--to warn Russia off immediately--was the right
one. Yet on the great issue of the campaign, the financial crisis, he
has seemed all at sea, emitting panic and indecision. Mr McCain has
never been particularly interested in economics, but, unlike Mr Obama,
he has made little effort to catch up or to bring in good advisers
(Doug Holtz-Eakin being the impressive exception).

The choice of Sarah Palin epitomised the sloppiness. It is not just
that she is an unconvincing stand-in, nor even that she seems to have
been chosen partly for her views on divisive social issues, notably
abortion. Mr McCain made his most important appointment having met her
just twice.

Ironically, given that he first won over so many independents by
speaking his mind, the case for Mr McCain comes down to a piece of
artifice: vote for him on the assumption that he does not believe a
word of what he has been saying. Once he reaches the White House, runs
this argument, he will put Mrs Palin back in her box, throw away his
unrealistic tax plan and begin negotiations with the Democratic
Congress. That is plausible; but it is a long way from the convincing
case that Mr McCain could have made. Had he become president in 2000
instead of Mr Bush, the world might have had fewer problems. But this
time it is beset by problems, and Mr McCain has not proved that he
knows how to deal with them.

Is Mr Obama any better? Most of the hoopla about him has been about
what he is, rather than what he would do. His identity is not as
irrelevant as it sounds. Merely by becoming president, he would dispel
many of the myths built up about America: it would be far harder for
the spreaders of hate in the Islamic world to denounce the Great Satan
if it were led by a black man whose middle name is Hussein; and far
harder for autocrats around the world to claim that American democracy
is a sham. America's allies would rally to him: the global electoral
college[1] on our website shows a landslide in his favour. At home he
would salve, if not close, the ugly racial wound left by America's
history and lessen the tendency of American blacks to blame all their
problems on racism.

So Mr Obama's star quality will be useful to him as president. But that
alone is not enough to earn him the job. Charisma will not fix Medicare
nor deal with Iran. Can he govern well? Two doubts present themselves:
his lack of executive experience; and the suspicion that he is too far
to the left.

There is no getting around the fact that Mr Obama's resume is thin for
the world's biggest job. But the exceptionally assured way in which he
has run his campaign is a considerable comfort. It is not just that he
has more than held his own against Mr McCain in the debates. A man who
started with no money and few supporters has out-thought, out-organised
and outfought the two mightiest machines in American politics--the
Clintons and the conservative right.

Political fire, far from rattling Mr Obama, seems to bring out the best
in him: the furore about his (admittedly ghastly) preacher prompted one
of the most thoughtful speeches of the campaign. On the financial
crisis his performance has been as assured as Mr McCain's has been
febrile. He seems a quick learner and has built up an impressive team
of advisers, drawing in seasoned hands like Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin
and Larry Summers. Of course, Mr Obama will make mistakes; but this is
a man who listens, learns and manages well.

It is hard too nowadays to depict him as soft when it comes to dealing
with America's enemies. Part of Mr Obama's original appeal to the
Democratic left was his keenness to get American troops out of Iraq;
but since the primaries he has moved to the centre, pragmatically
saying the troops will leave only when the conditions are right. His
determination to focus American power on Afghanistan, Pakistan and
proliferation was prescient. He is keener to talk to Iran than Mr
McCain is-- but that makes sense, providing certain conditions are met.

Our main doubts about Mr Obama have to do with the damage a
muddle-headed Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy.
Despite the protectionist rhetoric that still sometimes seeps into his
speeches, Mr Obama would not sponsor a China-bashing bill. But what
happens if one appears out of Congress? Worryingly, he has a poor
record of defying his party's baronies, especially the unions. His
advisers insist that Mr Obama is too clever to usher in a new age of
over-regulation, that he will stop such nonsense getting out of
Congress, that he is a political chameleon who would move to the centre
in Washington. But the risk remains that on economic matters the centre
that Mr Obama moves to would be that of his party, not that of the
country as a whole.

HE HAS EARNED IT
So Mr Obama in that respect is a gamble. But the same goes for Mr
McCain on at least as many counts, not least the possibility of
President Palin. And this cannot be another election where the choice
is based merely on fear. In terms of painting a brighter future for
America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and
detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and
discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense
potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.

-----
[1] http://www.economist.com/vote2008/

Off the radar screen

We are not a very scientifically literate society. Apparently, our leaders don't think that matters. If our leaders WERE scientifically literate, and could be trusted to make good decisions about the funding and the use of science, it might be okay that the rest of us are not all that informed (although putting anything entirely in the hands of experts is dangerous--look at our banking system).

Unfortunately, some of our leaders are worse than ill-informed. They are knowledge-hostile knuckleheads. The new knucklehead-in-chief appears to be one of our candidates for VP. Click on the header of this post to see it for yourself.

Beyond the Pale?

From today's blogs:

"...there is an emerging debate—one with the potential to last for a long time about the role of vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

One school—including syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker and Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal—called her a drag on the ticket and implicitly rebuked McCain’s judgment in picking her. Another school believes she is the future of the party, a view backed by Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard: “Whether they know it or not, Republicans have a huge stake in Palin. If, after the election, they let her slip into political obscurity, they’ll be making a huge mistake.”"

Why is any of this even surprising? Of Course she's the future of the Republican party. The last eight years, whether you like the policies of the Bush adminstration or not, left the Republican party hollowed out. Who was going to lead them in the post Bush-Cheney era? Every credible moderate was excommunicated from the party. Who is left? Rick Santorum? Gone. Tom Delay? Too toxic, and gone as well. Huckabee? perhaps, but events have proven him to be Palin Lite. He doesn't come close to her in terms of pull. No one expected Caribou Barbie, but she is here, and let's face it, she inspires the faithful like no one since Reagan. Win or lose, Palin IS the face of the GOP for the next several years, at least.

For any liberals out there recoiling at the thought, take some solace in this: If Sarah Palin indeed becomes the face of the GOP, the GOP will in turn become a minority party for many years. Saying that she is by far their most likely future presidential candidate, does not mean she is likely to win. The Republicans began transformation thirty or more years ago, when they adopted the "Southern Strategy", appealing to the worst instincts of beleaguered working-class whites in the heartland. That process initially looked like a winner, because it secured the votes to keep them in power most of the past three decades. But the Joe Sixpacks they invited into the tent took over the party. The old elites that ran the party are gone.

It has long been an axiom that you have to tack right to win the GOP nomination, then tack to the center to win the election. The Republicans probably have any number of potential candidates who could win the presidency any given election. Unfortunately, those candidates will never win the primaries, and the GOP will become a purely reactionary, theocratic party. It makes for great rallies but is not much of a strategy. So take heart: we will have to put up with Palin for a long time, and she will probably be the next GOP nominee for President, but as long as people don't lose their minds, she will never BE president. A third party is more likely to form before that happens.

Underestimating Sarah Palin

Just as they did with Ronald Reagan, those of Democratic/Liberal/Progressive leanings are underestimating Sarah Palin. No, I am not predicting a McCain/Palin victory, though that is not out of the question by any means. But if you think an Obama victory will rid the world of Palin, you are mistaken. Educated people have had a field day making fun of her tortured syntax, her fem-bot-like delivery of sound-bites, her obvious cluelessness about almost anything requiring actual thought. Just as many dismissed Reagan as an amiable dunce, too many dismiss Palin as nothing more than Caribou Barbie.

Here is a prediction: Sarah Palin, win or lose in November, will become face and the standard-bearer of the GOP. She is the closest thing to a transformative figure the Republicans have had since Reagan. She is nowhere near being in Reagan's class as a thinker or politician, but the times are different. Reagan was part of a very deep generation of conservative politicians, especially in the day when the Republicans actually had a diversity of viewpoints and philosophies. Palin stands almost alone, after eight years in which the party has been systematically purged of diversity and stripped of any philosophical trappings. Who else is left? Huckabee? He has been exposed as Palin-lite. Romney? Even Republicans see through him. The younger generation, epitomized by Rick Santorum, have fallen by the wayside, at least for now, in part because they were one-note wonders. And none of them represented a divergence from the social conservatism that is far more ably represented by Palin. In other words, had they survived they would still be eclipsed by her.

The question is, what will this mean, and should we be afraid? If you are a moderate or libertarian-leaning Republican, you should be afraid. The Palin era will bring with it the culmination of the purge which began at least as early as 1992: all vestiges of considered and rational deliberation, all receptiveness to diversity or to internationalism, will be excised from the Party. It will devolve into a purely and openly fundamentalist lobby. The Faustian bargain that the old Republican elite made, to bargain for the votes of Joe Sixpack, will come home to roost, with the Wall Street crowd completely losing any voice they once had.

The moderates and libertarians will have to consider forming a new party, perhaps inviting centrist Democrats to join them (although, in the afterglow of a winning election cycle, few are likely to jump ship). There might after all be a chance for a viable third party, though it remains unlikely.

There has been talk of Karl Rove's notion of a permanent majority being turned on its head. Democrats are talking about a long-term reversal of fortunes. It is almost too bad that they will not have had to suffer through a few more years in the wilderness. I say "almost", because that would also have meant more years of Republican rule, which would be unaccepable and even suicidal. But the Democrats have returned to their worst instincts, demonizing rich people (by their definition of "rich", most rich people are contributing to them, not to the Republicans), openly defending Big Government, and so on. The Democrats could ensure a "permanent" mandate if they would make fiscal conservatism part of their DNA, even while standing up for the environment, equal rights, equal opportunity, healthcare reform, education and an enlightened foreign policy. But they won't do it.

Still, as long as the Republicans have to deal with the Palinization of the Party and all of its consequences, the Democrats will have a window of opportunity to get some things right. We can only hope that Obama is in fact as thoughtful and balanced as he has appeared on the campaign trail.