Pushing Obama to the left

[GaryC 7]

Pushing Obama to the left

McCain's move to center means Democrats can't presume anything

By Darrell Delamaide

Last update: 11:19 a.m. EDT June 5, 2008Comments: 34WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) --

John McCain has not been wasting his time while the Democrats conduct their improv political theater.

The presumptive Republican nominee -- with presumption somewhat more in his favor than the presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama - continues to stake out the political center on some key issues, pushing his unanointed Democratic rival to the left. In fact, the way things are going, it is Obama, not McCain, who is in danger of losing his bearings and getting boxed into positions that won't appeal to white working class voters and many other constituencies he will need to carry if he wants to win the White House.

You remember what issues are. With the focus on the Democratic slugfest, where issues haven't been debated for months, it's been easy to forget. But McCain was there to remind voters of some of them a couple of weeks ago in a major speech on economic policy to the National Restaurant Association on Obama's home turf in Chicago.

McCain's takes on taxes, trade, agricultural subsidies and other core economic issues are pretty mainstream. While these positions don't mark a break with the current administration in the way that McCain's stand on global warming earlier in May did, Obama won't be able to just dismiss them - not even the tax cuts - as continuing Bush's "failed economic policy."

Neither Obama nor anyone else has demonstrated that the Bush tax cuts, or even the yawning deficit they contributed to, are the source of our current economic malaise. In fact, the main source of trouble - the subprime mortgage crisis - can sooner be laid at the feet of the Federal Reserve, both as steward of monetary policy and as chief financial regulator.

Trade and globalization can be directly linked to job losses and the individual hardships they create. In his recent speech, McCain nonetheless comes out foursquare in defense of free trade, pledging to keep NAFTA intact and urging approval of bilateral pacts with Colombia and South Korea. Obama's pronouncements on the trade issue have been ambivalent at best, if not downright duplicitous, as his economic advisers assure free-trade proponents that his campaign rhetoric challenging NAFTA should not be taken seriously.

In short, McCain is making sure that his Democratic opponent will have to go beyond the pandering of the primary campaign on the trade issue. And McCain takes it a step further, citing agricultural subsidies as one of the major obstacles to opening up foreign markets to trade. He complains that subsidies no longer serve the purpose of aiding small farmers, instead simply add to the profit of large agribusinesses or commercial farms. This is particularly inappropriate, McCain goes on to say, as skyrocketing food prices have led to hardship in this country and riots in poor countries around the world.

"It would be hard to find any single bill," McCain said of the legislation authorizing continued subsidies, "that better sums up why so many Americans in both parties are so disappointed in the conduct of their government, and at times so disgusted by it."

So McCain has an issue where he can advocate change in Washington. The senator from Arizona, which doesn't grow too many crops, is willing to take on the senator from Illinois, rich in farmland, on agricultural subsidies.

Obama and the Democrats have been counting on voter disapproval of the Bush administration to hand them the White House this year. Voters did register their anger with Bush by giving the Democrats a majority in both houses of Congress in 2006 and they are sure to reinforce that majority in this election, aided by the defection of numerous Republican incumbents.

But voters may also be looking for a check on a Democratic Congress. The real risk for the Democratic candidate - at the moment, presumably Obama - is that McCain will make a convincing enough case with his moderate, centrist policies that he can provide that brake.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/darr...p;dist=hplatest

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Obama can't go any more left.

[Dan J 277]

Obama can't go any more left.

In Europe Obama would be a conservative.

[GaryC 7]

Obama can't go any more left.

In Europe Obama would be a conservative.

Thats nothing to be proud of.

[Dan J 277]

Obama can't go any more left.

In Europe Obama would be a conservative.

Thats nothing to be proud of.

Its all a matter of perspective.

[Peikko 1,575]

Obama can't go any more left.

In Europe Obama would be a conservative.

Thats nothing to be proud of.

That's an empty comment. Europe isn't some tin pot dictatorship - not to mention it isn't one country. Many of the pariamentary systems in place and goverments are doing a pretty decent job both economically and socially so what's not to be proud of, specifically? It's not America? Very true. Vivez les differences!

[GaryC 7]

Obama can't go any more left.

In Europe Obama would be a conservative.

Thats nothing to be proud of.

Its all a matter of perspective.

This isn't Europe. Thank God.

[Peikko 1,575]

Oh, more silly rhetoric? Honestly, that's just pathetic.

[GaryC 7]

Oh, more silly rhetoric? Honestly, that's just pathetic.

Nope, I just wouldn't want to live under the Euopean way of government. Thats all.

[Peikko 1,575]

Yes, from a perspective of knowledge I am sure. Have you actually spent any time there? Or is this another of your stereotypical statements?

[GaryC 7]

Yes, from a perspective of knowledge I am sure. Have you actually spent any time there? Or is this another of your stereotypical statements?

Does everything have to be first hand knowledge to be correct? I watch the news. I see the laws they pass. I want a more conservative government that we currently have. I know that Europe isn't that. What is so hard to understand?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Hmmm... Europe seems to get by pretty well with its ramshackle collection of backward governments. Imagine that.

[GaryC 7]

Hmmm... Europe seems to get by pretty well with its ramshackle collection of backward governments. Imagine that.

Good for them. The people have what they want. That isn't what I want. So therefore my opinion.

[Dan J 277]

Hmmm... Europe seems to get by pretty well with its ramshackle collection of backward governments. Imagine that.

Good for them. The people have what they want. That isn't what I want. So therefore my opinion.

Good thing a growing majority of the american public doesnt agree with you.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Yes, from a perspective of knowledge I am sure. Have you actually spent any time there? Or is this another of your stereotypical statements?

Does everything have to be first hand knowledge to be correct? I watch the news. I see the laws they pass. I want a more conservative government that we currently have. I know that Europe isn't that. What is so hard to understand?

What she said before - you're writing off Europe (a collection of politically and socially diverse countries) on the basis of a stereotyped conception of a very general political ideology. How you can justify such a conclusion without actually having some direct understanding of the quality of life and general experience of life in those countries makes the statement at the very least - rather empty. It could also be interpreted as somewhat xenophobic.

It is however, blatantly ignorant.