Some Final Thoughts on the 2008 Presidential Election

The election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States has been greeted with both exuberance and despair, but it was hardly the most surprising of results. Polls had shown the Illinois senator to be leading his Arizonan rival consistently for weeks prior to Election Day. Even more importantly, Obama ran the far superior campaign. Obama did what I think every presidential candidate should do: he openly expressed his political ideas at every opportunity offered to him. As basic as that sounds, certain prevaricating politicians often seem to me to not to have any real ideas at all, merely positions which shift with the political wind. At times, Obama was lambasted for being if anything too open -- for instance, John McCain was shocked that Obama would openly speak of conducting military operations against al-Qaeda in Pakistan. The president-elect was also open about his plan to "spread the wealth" of America around by raising taxes on the wealthy and on corporations in order to fund social programs and reduce the taxes of the non-wealthy. There are aspects of Obama's policies that I like and aspects that I don't like, but I've always appreciated how willing Obama was to lay out his positions openly and also how he was always willing to defend those positions philosophically. Obama's campaign was about Obama, as it should have been. Unfortunately, McCain's campaign was also about Obama, and there was no reason that it needed to be that way.

The McCain '08 campaign will probably be remembered as a very negative one which focused to a large extent on Obama's character, but McCain was also "negative" in the sense of being reactive and I think that's what hurt him the most. McCain was in permanent "compare and contrast mode" from start to finish in the general election. "Obama's tax policy is about spreading the wealth; mine isn't. Obama isn't pro-life; I am. Obama isn't experienced; I am." Compare and contrast definitely has a place in political argument (and Obama made good use of it), but what McCain too often forgot to do was make the philosophical case for his policies. He presented himself strongly as being against Obama's ideas, but he didn't always seem to be really for his own ideas. I ultimately think that McCain did do a good job articulating his tax policy, but I can't really think of any other issue that McCain really made his own (earmarks, perhaps). Even when it came to foreign policy, ostensibly the Republican's strength, McCain seemed to prefer to lambast his opponent's willingness to meet with unfriendly foreign rulers rather than explain why he personally favored a more standoffish, "carrot and stick" diplomatic approach. McCain always seemed to be reaching out to people who already knew that they agreed with him -- he was always preaching to the converted. Because McCain spent so much of his time criticizing Obama, I think his campaign was actually perceived as being dirtier than it really was; even valid criticisms of Obama's policies strike a dischordant note if they aren't balanced with positivity. The silliest thing about the McCain strategy is that Hillary Clinton followed quite a similar path to defeat in the Democratic primaries. I doubt I'll ever understand why McCain would try to copy a losing strategy instead of challenging Obama in a new and different way. That said, this was a tough year to run as a Republican -- voting the incumbent party out is a basic way for the electorate to express their disgust with their current government, and a lot of people are pretty digusted with the Bush administration right now. I'm not so sure Obama will be the president who will clean up Bush's messes, especially when it comes to civil liberties, but just the fact that the Republican didn't win this election makes it more likely that those messes will be cleaned up eventually...perhaps even by another Republican!

How will Obama handle the presidency? I actually think people SHOULD feel apprehensive about how their representatives will behave once in office, but there is probably too much fear of an Obama presidency in certain quarters. Not every conspiracy theory can possibly be true, right? In fact, if Obama simply governs as a reasonable moderate of a liberal persuasion, he'll erase much of the ill-will his political opponents feel towards him. How Obama's tax and spending policies will affect a weakening economy is my biggest concern, but, honestly, I'm interested in finding out even though I'm also scared. I've lived through the Clinton tax hike followed shortly by the Clinton tax cut followed by the Bush tax cut so I'm curious to see a real world test for the "bottom-up" taxation strategy Obama has consistently supported. I think it would probably be wiser (or at least safer) to not repeal any Bush tax cuts but yet to also go ahead with a small middle class tax cut if spending can be cut in other ways. Of course, the amount of any tax hike is going to be very important -- if it is small and targeted enough, it may not exactly encourage hiring or investment or the starting of new businesses, but the costs will probably be absorbed by the affected parties and life will go on after an initial bout of hemming and hawing. My greatest hope is that an Obama administration will be able to avoid any new, unnecessary wars (my main fear under a McCain administration)...I think we've got a decent chance of this, but Obama is not exactly a non-interventionist by any stretch of the imagination. Considering that the economy is likely to be Obama's biggest concern over at least the first year of his administration, I wonder how many of his other goals he'll be able to achieve. Will plans for universal health insurance fall to the wayside...again? Will alternative energy investments be neglected, in part due to falling gas prices? As I see it, the advantage Obama has by having a Democratic legislature in his corner is somewhat offset by the pressing nature of the recession -- like most presidents, I expect Obama will have trouble delivering on his campaign promises. It'll definitely be interesting to see how things play out. I don't see Obama as a "do-nothing" type of president, but he'd have to be Superman to get everything he wants done in this kind of economic environment.

One thing we're definitely not any closer to in America is a third party. The 2008 election was an Obama and McCain show, with no room for anything else. I really wish at least one of the three general election presidential debates could set aside some space for Ralph Nader, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin, and/or Cynthia McKinney. Several important issues were swept under the rug in this election cycle simply because the two major party candidates held similar views on them, including the bailout, illegal immigration, and America's relations with Israel (Joe the Plumber's analysis of Obama not withstanding). Nader and crew would have brought some different ideas to the table on these and other issues -- it's a pity that most of America never got to hear those ideas. That said, if America would get off its collective butt, go online, and start researching third party and independent candidates more we wouldn't be so reliant on the mainstream debates. Heck, Ralph Nader and Chuck Baldwin had a couple of debates of their own in the past month (with Barr also participating in one) that I didn't even hear about until days after the fact...I'm definitely part of the problem here, not the solution! Well, there's always next election, right?