Isn't All Taxation Income Redistribution?

I think the most interesting issue of this year's presidential campaign has been taxation. While both John McCain and Barack Obama have presented themselves as being tax cutters, McCain has consistently supported across the board tax cuts whilst Obama has emphasized that tax cuts should be geared towards those who need them the most and, at the same time, taxes should be increased for those who can afford to pay more in his view. On a number of issues, Obama and McCain hold similar views, but there is a real difference in their attitudes towards taxation.

The McCain position is essentially that taxes are a necessary evil and that America's current tax rates are too high. Though no one will ever able to agree on the perfect tax rate, I think it's indisputable that high tax rates make things difficult for a lot of people, from the middle class family trying to eek by to the small or large business that needs money to expand and hire new workers. McCain, like President Bush, sees cutting tax rates as one of the best ways to spur new growth. Compared to Obama, McCain is more concerned with getting past the recession, not surviving it. Ideally, McCain's tax policies would help the American economy zoom through the recession and start thriving again quickly, but there's certainly no guarantee this will happen. There is also a philosophical component to McCain's position which is based on the idea of America being a land of the free and also a land of limited government. Reducing taxes reduces the imposition of government on the people; at the very least, it gives people with money more freedom to spend that money as they will. Furthermore, reduced tax revenue puts pressure on government to slim down which jives well with McCain's call for a government spending freeze and his long-running crusade against wasteful government spending. It doesn't necessarily go so smoothly with certain of McCain's other positions, however, notably when it comes to foreign policy: one indisputable lesson of Iraq is that wars cost a lot of money.

For Barack Obama, the end justifies the means when it comes to taxation. No one likes paying taxes, but there's a difference between the pang an American taxpayer feels when writing a check out to the IRS and the pain a burn victim feels as he is pulled out of the flames. Obama thinks that the good that can come out of government spending outweighs the ills of taxation; he believes that increasing access to health insurance and health care, cleaning up the educational system, and otherwise aiding the masses is more important than the free spending of the wealth one has earned. Furthermore, he doesn't seem to think that the ills of taxation are quite so severe as McCain believes. Lower taxes may encourage companies to expand, but big companies have also made the "golden parachute" into a household phrase. It's not only government that engages in wasteful spending; it's rife in the corporate world and among the wealthy as well. Obama essentially makes the argument that the rich and businesses should pay more in taxes because they can afford to do so -- profitable businesses will still be able to expand and make more profits and the rich will still be able to invest because there is so much wealth floating around, but by trimming the fat of the wealthy the country as a whole can benefit. I think whether this is really true or not is very situational. Some businesses and some people really probably can afford higher taxes without cutting back too much , but not everyone will be able to bear the increased burden so lightly. The recent financial crisis has demonstrated how easily even huge businesses can fail quite suddenly so we shouldn't treat a change in tax policy in any way but seriously. Let's also not forget that Obama is an anti-tax crusader himself when it comes to the middle class. First and foremost, I think Obama's tax cuts will make it easier for folks to survive the recession even if they have been hit hard by the mortgage crisis and credit crunch; I think it's more of a humanitarian gesture than an economic one. At the same time, those tax cuts should encourage consumer spending which is good for the economy and could help keep a lot of businesses afloat. Obama also seems to believe very much in the power of government spending to create jobs and boost the economy; for instance, he wants the government to take a leading role in the drive towards alternative energy sources and he also supports increased government spending on infrastructure (public works projects can create a lot of jobs and give a nice boost to the construction and related industries). To an extent, Obama wants to use government to provide the economic boost that McCain hopes his tax cuts will encourage the wealthy and businesses to provide. Personally, my biggest beef with Obama is that he is not more focused on the most important goals he wants to achieve when it comes to spending -- for instance, I really don't believe spending money on encouraging community service is something the government needs to be worried about right now.

Clearly, McCain and Obama aren't on the same page when it comes to taxation. On the other hand, they're not quite as different from one another as the McCain campaign wants people to believe. Obama has been repeatedly branded an income redistributor and a socialist (and perhaps by extension "un-American") of late because of his tax policies, but we've had the progressive income tax in America for a long time now. I don't think it's fair to call someone who wants to make an adjustment within a system of taxation that has existed through many such adjustments over many years an agent of radical change. In fact, McCain also wants to make adjustments to that system but in the opposite direction. McCain certainly doesn't seem to mind disproportionately relying on the taxation of the wealthy to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; he probably won't mind relying on it again if another war or two starts under his watch. Granted, McCain has spoken of the flat tax sympathetically in the past, but it doesn't seem to be a part of his current platform. As I see it, ALL taxation is income redistribution -- it always involves the government taking money away from individuals, away from families, and away from businesses and spending it in a way that the previous holders of the money can generally only influence indirectly. McCain may want to reduce the amount of income redistribution rather than increase it as Obama wants to do, but both presidential candidates are redistributers. I don't understand why the social spending advocated by Obama is often treated as if it was in some way worse than other government spending. Perhaps taxation for war spending seems less like income redistribution to some because the troops are fighting for everyone, but the fact remains that all war funds raised by taxation were taken forcibly and spent without the explicit approval of the taxpayer. While Obama does want a bigger government, I don't think any of his policies are really more socialistic in nature than some of the government's recent attempts to address the financial crisis -- AIG, for instance, has essentially been nationalized...a really, really, REALLY socialistic thing to do. I think Obama and McCain both make superb arguments for their respective views on taxation; I'd even go so far as to say their arguments have raised the level of discourse on this subject in American society for the time being. At the end of the day, though, they're both essentially income-redistributin', reluctant socialists, just like FDR and Ronald Reagan. McCain is being disingenuous by claiming to be something else.

The Detail Man and the Populist

Tonight's vice presidential debate pitted two campaigns against each other that have moved in very different directions of late. Obama/Biden has been surging as banks have failed and the stock market has tanked. Meanwhile, McCain/Palin has been struggling as McCain quasi-suspended his campaign last week to supposedly focus on the financial crisis and Palin has come under fire because of a pair of uncomfortable interviews with Katie Couric. A great deal of scrutiny has been placed on Palin lately, with some pundits even going so far as to call on her to step aside from the campaign. Sarah Palin, thus, had much more to prove tonight; Biden, on the other hand, needed only to attack McCain and praise Obama to fulfill his duties. In my view, both succeeded in their missions.

Following the Republican Convention, Governor Palin has come across to me as more unprepared than incompetent. I suspect that even the most "experienced" of politicians must struggle to remember the specifics of bills and voting records; Palin has reminded me of a student who hasn't studied for a test rather than one who couldn't find a way to pass even if she had studied. Apart from this unpreparedness, I think she has also been a little too eager to spin rather than answer questions directly; she certainly should have been able to speak freely to Couric about where she gets her news from, for instance, but she probably got afraid that she'd mention some news source deemed too liberal by the conservative establishment. Of course, it's also likely that she gets a lot of news updates from her staff -- still, I imagine she's looked at a few national newspapers in her time that she could have mentioned...at least I hope she has. The one positive to emerge from Palin's bad press is that there were no expectations on her going into this debate. As long as she didn't sound too uncomfortable or say anything too ridiculous, she would exceed many people's expectations. I didn't really notice any glaring gaffes from her in tonight's debate. While she didn't address every topic raised directly, she had a lot to say and she did a fine job of projecting warmth and confidence. She didn't seem scared or unprepared; she sounded like a perfectly suitable vice presidential candidate, in fact.

That said, I think Joe Biden clearly won this debate. Palin may not have sounded unprepared, but Senator Biden was if anything overprepared. He has a habit of making reference to specifics in debates, but his discussion of particular bills, voting records, and even the constitutional role of vice presidents tonight suggested an almost encyclopedic knowledge of American politics. He was impressive, and Palin struggled to score points for her team on the issues because Biden seemed to be ready for just about any argument. In stark contrast to the sharp back and forths of the first McCain and Obama debate, this vice presidential debate was a considerably gentler affair, and the attacks were largely focused on the presidential candidates. Palin seemed to thrive in this gentler atmosphere; in particular, she did a very good job throughout the debate of appealing directly to the proverbial average American. For instance, she stated very directly that the blame on the mortgage crisis should be placed squarely on predatory lenders, not the regular folks who bit off more mortgage than they could chew. She tried to articulate some of the anger that the victims of the crisis feel by essentially declaring that the American people won't be fooled again and unregulated financiers will never be allowed to run amok again. Palin seems careful not to promise too much, though; as much as she wanted to demonstrate that she empathizes with the common man and woman, she largely steered clear of making specific policy commitments geared towards the masses. In that way, she may not seem to fit the classic model of a populist candidate, but she has definitely been more of a people-oriented than issue-oriented candidate so far. While Palin did an excellent job of presenting herself as a warm and caring person, she had a harder time defending her running mate against Biden who seemed to know about just about every congressional vote Senator McCain has ever made. She couldn't effectively respond to Biden when he mentioned McCain's past opposition to alternative energy or McCain's agreement with Bush on the "important issues," for instance. Her very pro-regulation stance in the debate seemed to be at odds with McCain's past positions, which Biden also criticized repeatedly. I'm not sure what to make of this other than possibly that the financial crisis has made McCain more in favor of regulation of the financial industry than he has been in the past.

I thought Palin made two effective attacks on Obama/Biden, and both were related to foreign policy. First, she attacked Obama's characterization of the American mission in Afghanistan as air-raiding villages and killing civilians. That remark, though made by Obama while he was explaining why he wants to change America's policy in Afghanistan (he's actually in favor of much MORE American involvement in Afghanistan), does paint a rather ugly picture of the American military. All wars are ugly, but unless Obama decides that he wants to cease involvement in Afghanistan I strongly suspect civilians will continue to be killed unintentionally there. Palin's second effective attack was actually directed against Joe Biden who seemed to be trying to paint himself as a dove who had never really supported the Iraq war. I heard the same Democratic debates that Palin referenced in her attack, and I also don't believe Biden and Obama were originally on the same page when it comes to Iraq. "Joe Biden" and "dove" don't belong together in the same sentence! Granted, it is true that Biden and McCain haven't supported the exact same strategies and/or tactics in Iraq, but Biden has never been a leader of the anti-war movement. Palin's other attacks weren't nearly so effective, and one was particularly poor. Her attempt to criticize Obama for voting against a war funding bill backfired badly on her when Biden pointed out that McCain had also voted against a (different) war funding bill -- neither senator really wanted to leave the troops stranded, but they both used their votes to make opposite political statements regarding timelines for withdrawal at different times. Neither of them has any business righteously chastising anyone on that issue...Biden, though, just might because he voted for funding even when Obama didn't. Palin was foolish to bring this topic up. Another bad moment for Palin came when she suggested it might be be nice if the vice president could have more power -- I don't think that's something even Republicans want after eight years of the shadowy Dick Cheney, and Biden was quite eloquent and erudite when he discussed the proper role of a vice president (and criticized the aforementioned shadowy Cheney).

While Palin's comfortable performance should reassure those McCain faithful who are skeptical of the Alaskan governor's fitness for office, Biden's better showing may win over some more undecided voters to his ticket. Most pundits say that vice presidential debates tend not to have much impact, and I'm not sure this one will be any different. Palin, though, was the "story" many people had on their minds before the debate; as such, her decent performance may very well prove to be more valuable for her campaign than Biden's superior performance is for his. Palin definitely didn't provide the disaster that I'm sure many Obama supporters were hoping for...the governor is probably going to get her first good night's sleep in a while tonight.

The Ole Miss Presidential Debate

I always find presidential debates interesting, but I'm not sure I've anticipated one so eagerly before as I did tonight's debate at the University of Mississippi. After months of ads, fighting surrogates, lightweight political forums, and solo speeches, Barack Obama and John McCain finally met together on one stage for a face-off. The surprising behavior of McCain over the past few days made things all the more interesting. While I was very interested in hearing Obama and McCain spar over the economic crisis and foreign policy, I have to admit I was also quite interested in the more mundane political matter of whether or not McCain's campaign was still in a "suspended" state.

As far as I can tell, McCain's campaign was unsuspended as suddenly as it was suspended. I really cannot believe McCain would make such an aboutface without any explanation given during the debate. Still, that seems to be just what has happened. I heard no mention of a suspended campaign tonight; I didn't even hear anything about how McCain was desparately needed in Washington to help save the economy. Unless there is some further clarification forthcoming, I have to interpret McCain's behavior as all but admitting that the suspension of his campaign was indeed a mere political ploy. Theatrics. McCain deserves the title of maverick, but he has proven that he is first and foremost a politician.

That said, I tried not to let my surprise over McCain's behavior to color my view of the debate. In my opinion, both candidates performed well in Oxford. The format of the debate allowed Obama and McCain to question (or, more often, attack) one another after they responded to moderator Jim Lehrer's initial query. There was a lot of back and forth between the two candidates which I rather enjoyed. True, there was a fair bit of the sniping that often makes political debates very tedious to witness, but both candidates were able to get their shots in tonight without taking too much time away from expostulating their own views. McCain did seem to make a theme of pointing out Obama's "naivete" particularly when it came to matters of foreign policy. Obama tried, as he has consistently done in speeches, to link McCain with President Bush's policies. While Obama is in my view far superior at giving long-form speeches than McCain, I think McCain is a rather underrated debater; he was able to hold his own against Obama quite well in my opinion.

Probably the most interesting section of the debate to me was devoted to the economic crisis. While both Obama and McCain support the bailout in the short term, they have very different plans for encouraging economic recovery. Obama had harsh words for the philosophy of trickle-down economics that he says Bush and McCain espouse, noting that some people were experiencing economic crises of their own long before the Wall Street and banking giants started tumbling. Obama's bottom-up strategy is instead designed to alleviate economic pressure on those least able to recover from economic catastrophe, at the expense of a corporate America that exploits loopholes to evade paying taxes yet throws away huge amounts of money to greedy executives. McCain, in contrast, took pains to praise business, noting that lower taxes for businesses encouraged economic activity and provided jobs. He also emphasized the importance of cutting spending and even dwelled at some length on one of his favorite topics of years gone by, earmarks. To hear McCain speak, it sounds like he intends to veto any bill loaded down with earmarks. In practice, I imagine this would lead to a very adversarial relationship between the president and Congress -- if people think Congress is slow to move now, just wait until McCain starts vetoing every bill that carries a whiff of wasteful pork barrel spending. McCain has done a good job of doing what I suggested some months back; he has positioned himself more or less as a small government, lower taxes kind of guy. He's also attempted (less successfully in my view) to paint Obama as someone who will tax everyone and spend prodigally; Obama has strongly and consistently refuted the claim that he will raise taxes on everyone and did so again tonight. The spender label is harder to avoid. Obama seemed secure in his commitment to his ambitious but expensive energy and health care plans, though he did acknowledge at least in the case of his energy plan that the economic crisis could delay its implementation. Throughout the debate, Obama did well in tying the energy crisis to other issues, such as foreign policy and economic recovery. McCain definitely came across as the more fiscally responsible of the two to me even though I'm skeptical that he'll be quite the earmark vetoer he is painting himself as. On the other side, I find myself sometimes wishing Obama had more of a pragmatic air about him when it comes to economic issues. While I don't think Obama has any desire to tax middle and lower income people hard, I somehow can't imagine him cutting taxes on the rich and lowering the capital gains tax like Bill Clinton did -- having an idealist committed to social justice in the White House could bring about a lot of good things, but we do have a recession to beat as well. Although trickle-down economics is often used as a negative term, I actually think the underlying idea behind it has some merits if it is not taken to extremes. This has been a really long paragraph.

On to foreign policy. McCain does seem to have a natural advantage when it comes to foreign policy relative to his younger opponent. All those years haven't been wasted -- McCain, as a soldier and as a member of the United States government, has travelled the world. He knows foreign leaders. He's passionate about America's security. He's genuinely interested in foreign policy and defense issues. Obama can't compete with McCain when it comes to experience and perhaps not even in enthusiasm when it comes to foreign policy. What Obama does offer, however, is a rather different take on world affairs. He continues to advocate for a timely withdrawal of troops from Iraq. McCain, by contrast, is closely associated with the surge strategy in Iraq that has led to reduced violence but an increased troop presence in Iraq. I have to admit I personally was totally wrong about the surge -- I thought it would lead to a surge of violence in the short term, and Obama seems to have thought about the same thing. The success of the surge strategy is perhaps the brightest feather in McCain's foreign policy cap; in my view, the surge has definitely led to a better situation for all in Iraq. For Obama, though, the Iraq war will always be a mistake and a distraction no matter how successfully the war effort is waged; he regards Afghanistan as the primary theater of the war on terror and feels that al-Qaeda has grown stronger in recent years because we have not been committed enough to winning that war. Although Obama does seem to place more emphasis on diplomacy relative to McCain, I'm not sure I would classify one as a dove and one as a hawk. Obama essentially wants the surge to move from Iraq to Afghanistan; he wants the troops out of Iraq not so much because he expects peace to result as because he thinks the troops would better serve their country if they were deployed elsewhere. Obama certainly seems to take a harsher view of Pakistan than McCain does, for instance, and he definitely leaves the door open for military operations within Pakistan's tribal areas. Both Obama and McCain condemn Russia's invasion of Georgia and see it is a threat to the United States' allies in the region. McCain did seek to portray Obama as being not quite enough on Georgia's side, but I would say they're both pretty much on the same page there even down to NATO membership for former Soviet republics.

The most vigorous foreign policy argument between the two was over whether or not an American president should ever meet with a roguish leader like Iran's Ahmadinejad without preconditions. McCain attacked Obama for being willing to engage in such a meeting; in fact, McCain didn't just attack...he mocked. He acted like a condescending teacher trying to explain a ridiculously simple concept to some obtuse schoolboy. Honestly, though, I'm not sure I got the lesson either. McCain's argument seems to based on the idea that an American president who meets with an enemy leader without preconditions is somehow legitimising that leader in the eyes of the world. Ahmadinejad is definitely a villain in my view, but I don't see how he can be considered anything but legitimate -- he is an elected member of the Iranian government. Like it or not, he's part of the reality of Middle Eastern politics at the moment. I tend to think that wise diplomatic policy requires keeping in contact with all sorts of nations and governments. Sometimes the relations between countries will be more or less hostile, but if circumstances dictate that enemies should meet then so be it. I don't really think fears about legitimising an evil leader should prevent us from engaging in diplomacy that could possibly avert a war or prevent nuclear proliferation. We certainly have no reason to be overly friendly towards Iran. We shouldn't placate or appease the Iranians. We should be able to talk to them, though, and if for some reason there's an advantage to having a president meet up with Ahmadinejad without preconditions I just don't see what's so terrible about that. Obama did try to make the point that a meeting on the presidential level would not necessarily occur between the United States and Iran -- he emphasized instead the importance of lower level diplomatic meetings. Theoretically speaking, I don't see anything wrong with Obama's stance. Maybe I'm wrong about this just as I was about the consequences of the surge, but at the very least I think McCain could have made his point more clearly and more respectfully.

As puzzled as I continue to be about McCain's pseudo-suspension, I'm glad that this debate happened and I am looking forward to the upcoming October rematches. Both McCain and Obama are very much in this race -- yes, I think McCain will survive the weirdness of this week, especially given his strong debate performance tonight. I would classify the debate overall as a draw with McCain doing better than expected in the economic portion of the debate and Obama doing better than expected during the foreign policy segment.

There's No Suspending in Politics

John McCain's decision to suspend his presidential campaign little over a month before an election will likely be controversial for as long as people study American history. Was it a political ploy or an act of patriotism? I doubt we'll ever know for sure. McCain is undoubtedly capable of making personal sacrifices for his country -- he's proven that beyond a reasonable doubt already. He is also quite passionate about issues that he believes in. Up to this point, McCain hasn't seemed to me to be all that passionate about economic issues, but the present American financial crisis is by all accounts an extremely serious one. If McCain truly believes that a bailout could possibly prevent another Great Depression, I can imagine him dropping everything and investing himself fully into making that bailout happen. At the same time, Senator McCain is also a man who has wanted to be president for many years. Because Barack Obama has opted not to suspend his own campaign, McCain will now be able to paint Obama as someone who cares more about his own political ambitions than the good of his country. An "unsuspended" McCain will be able to play the hero whilst Obama will be forced to continually defend his choice to campaign through the crisis. Even if McCain is deeply worried about the economic crisis, I'm sure he was quite aware of the political leverage he could gain by suspending his campaign.

That said, McCain has taken a big political risk. All this talk of suspending campaigns has reminded me of when Ross Perot left the race for several months in 1992, a move that happened to devastate a kid who was playing close attention to a presidential election for the first time. (The kid later grew up to be a political blogger even though he didn't pay much attention to politics for years after Perot's failed bid.) Perot's decision in all likelihood was not a political ploy -- it certainly hurt his campaign. McCain's suspension could similarly hurt him. Already there are some veiled (and not so veiled) suggestions about McCain's mental competency floating around, just as there were with Perot. McCain will probably be best served if he can unsuspend his campaign quite quickly. If he does not, then he runs the risk of becoming a somewhat forgotten figure or, worse, perhaps a pathetic one. The truth is McCain has no power to really suspend his campaign -- he can control himself and his staffers, but he cannot control the American electorate who are very much a part of every campaign. Voters certainly haven't stopped assessing the candidates, and they haven't forgotten that there's an election in November. They're still going to be deciding if they want to vote for McCain regardless of whether he is on the stump or in the Senate. There is no pause button in a political election.

I do think McCain's decision to suspend his campaign is a tacit admission of something I've thought for a long time: people who have other political responsibilities should NOT run for president. Both McCain and Obama have been neglecting their senatorial duties for two years so they could try to become president. What they are doing is acceptable in the current political culture, but I don't consider it to be the honorable choice by any means. It's fine and good that McCain is willing to stop his presidential campaign to help avert a crisis, but I wonder if having a fewer number of distracted senators over the past couple of years might not have helped us avoid some other future crises as well. Regardless of who wins or loses, this election is taking three senators and a governor away from their duties...I don't see how that can possibly be a good thing for the country.

I've just learned that McCain has decided to show up for tonight's debate in Mississippi. I'm surprised -- I was just about to predict in this post that McCain would not show up because that would seem to be a backing away from his principled stance. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised: McCain has been consistently unpredictable throughout his career and if anything he is growing even more mercurial with age. At any rate, though, I'm very glad that the two leading presidential candidates will finally have a real political debate.

Voting for Vice President

I think it is safe to say that American politics has grown more democratic in spirit over time. The establishment of the popular election of senators, the development of the primary and caucus system, and women's suffrage are all examples of this trend. Two of these changes have come about as a result of amendments to the Constitution, and it could be argued that as America becomes more and more democratic it moves further and further away from the dogma of checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution. The conflict of ideas fought between those who believe that people should have more control over their government and those who believe that the power of the people must be checked in order for the stability of the nation to be maintained has shaped our political system...and made it all a little confusing as well.

The vice presidency is perhaps the most confusing federal office in the land. Although a vice president never has to win an election on his or her own merits alone, the office entitles its holder to become president should the sitting president die and to cast a tie-breaking vote in the case of a 50-50 deadlock in the Senate. While technically the vice president is elected, the voting public is essentially shut out of the process of nominating a person to fill this important office, and they only get the opportunity to vote for vice president in combination with a particular presidential candidate on a ticket. Considering that the vice president is the lesser office, the vice presidential candidate is always overshadowed by the presidential candidate; practically speaking, most people seem to vote for president, with the vice president being an afterthought if even a thought. This current situation exists largely by decision of the political parties -- they, in effect, have taken it upon themselves to check the power of the people, though their existence is not even acknowledged in the Constitution.

I don't mean to damn the political parties. They have played a role in the democratizing process I mentioned earlier; the fact that voters can essentially choose each party's nominee for president now is largely due to the beneficence of the parties. The party system was alive and well in the 19th century, though the players weren't exactly the same as they are today, but voters simply weren't allowed this nominating power -- they could vote in the general election, but choosing a party's nominee was a task reserved for the political establishment. Still, I think if the voters are good enough to nominate a presidential candidate they should also be able to nominate a vice presidential candidate as well. After all, the vice president could become president at any time and he or she acts as the 101st senator also. Although it may be lacking in day-to-day responsibilities, the office of vice president is not unimportant. I think it is time for it to be taken a little more seriously.

I'm sure that any vice presidential election would be overshadowed by the presidential election just as vice presidents today are overshadowed by presidents, but that's OK. I just would like to see vice presidents chosen not for political expediency but based on their perceived merits as candidates. Considering that they may become president, vice presidential candidates should have to prove themselves to the people they hope to represent, just as presidents and senators must. There should be primary and caucus voting for vice presidential nominees. There should be separate popular voting in November for president and vice president, just like the Electoral College does it. Theoretically, we could end up with a Republican/Democratic presidential combo this way, but in practice this probably won't happen very often, if at all. Adams/Jefferson part 2 wouldn't be the end of the world, anyway. What we might see an end to is the picking of weird vice presidential candidates in order to appease some wing of a party or to try to win a certain swing state or to compensate for some perceived shortcoming in a presidential candidate. Rather than having regional vice presidents or fringe politics vice presidents or vice presidents chosen because of their race or gender or age or experience, we'll have vice presidents that can actually represent the broader nation. With all due respect to Dan Quayle, Joe Lieberman, Geraldine Ferraro, and Dick Cheney, I do believe this would represent progress.

Will John McCain Move Beyond National Security?

I've been thinking today about which of the remaining presidential candidates I feel like I know the best at this point in time. After some reflection, I realized that Barack Obama feels more familiar to me than John McCain. This surprised me a little -- after all, John McCain has run for president before. I wasn't following politics too closely in 2000, but I do remember that McCain's campaign for the Republican nomination was pretty much the most exciting thing about that election prior to election night. Obama, on the other hand, is someone I hadn't heard of until 2006. How can I possibly feel like I know Obama better than McCain?

I actually think the recent past explains my feeling of familiarity with Obama at the moment. After all, Obama's been in the limelight for the whole year. He's been battling Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, after all -- never mind that the battle was essentially over for all accounts and purposes months ago. McCain, on the other hand, has been somewhat out of the public eye following his dispatching of his Republican rivals. The one other lingering Republican, Ron Paul, failed to win enough votes to be a credible McCain challenger or even a political thorn in the side of the Arizona senator. Clinton and Obama's struggle for the nomination was theater -- hard to watch at times, for sure, but theater nonetheless. It has in recent months eclipsed McCain, a candidate who did nothing wrong other than win too easily. The ugliness of the Clinton-Obama fight may very well benefit Obama in the long run. While Obama probably wishes Reverend Wright had not become a household name, I think it's far better for him that the country became acquainted with Wright when it did rather than later. Likewise, it's good for him that he's already been called an elitist and that his Islamic ties have been revealed. The fact that this stuff is already out in the open means that McCain can only get a limited amount of traction out of any of these issues.

John McCain in contrast hasn't really been exposed in the media much so far. The Republican nomination process had its nippy moments, but it wasn't a particularly bruising affair. McCain was able to defeat his challengers essentially on one issue: national security. Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, and Mitt Romney all sought to sound like the kind of president who would keep America safe, but McCain's military and political experience made for a far more impressive national security resume than anything the security trio had to offer. I honestly think McCain could win the election in a similar fashion; national security is the issue for many people right now, and McCain has a strong experience advantage over Obama. Obama, however, won't be trying to out-do or out-tough McCain on national security issues like Romney, Thompson, and Giuliani attempted. He'll be arguing for different policies and different approaches. Thus, there will be a different dynamic to their matchup. The question voters ask themselves won't be, "Who is the best man to lead us through war?" but rather, "Which man has the best strategy and philosophy?" Ultimately, I think McCain will make his general election campaign about a lot more than just national security. The challenge for him will be choosing which issues to emphasize. Unlike a Tom Tancredo, McCain is not a one-dimensional candidate. Like a Tom Tancredo, McCain's stance on the issues can be polarizing even within his own party. I really don't expect McCain to make immigration one of the centerpieces of his campaign; neither do I expect campaign finance reform or pork-barrel spending to be strongly emphasized by McCain in the runup to November. Those are issues that McCain is passionate about, but they are controversial issues among his fellow Republicans. It would be safer for McCain to be the anti-tax candidate, the smaller government candidate, the personal liberties candidate...but does he really want to be any of those things? If not, he could find himself losing votes to Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin. While McCain's vice presidential choice will likely appeal to some important base of the Republican party somewhat alienated by McCain, I'm not sure that alone will be sufficient to energize disaffected voters.

Although I hope we've got the most dirty politics of 2008 out of the way already, it is probably inevitable that McCain will be attacked on character issues just like Obama has been. McCain's marital history certainly makes for ugly reading; as much as I don't want to judge McCain the candidate based on what McCain the man did thirty years ago, I must admit that I think of Carol McCain just about every time I see Cindy McCain on TV now. I don't want to, but I do...that's the power of a sensationalistic story. I have no idea if McCain's personal life is going to become a big campaign issue or not, but I'm sure something similarly non-political will hit McCain over the head sooner or later. How well McCain is able to step out of his national security comfort zone to defend himself and win over skeptical voters could have a very big impact on the election.

Mike Gravel and the National Initiative for Democracy

Mike Gravel recently announced his retirement from active politics after Bob Barr became the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee. There will be no independent run from the colorful former senator from Alaska this year -- it seems Gravel will be spreading his message through books, the Internet, and other media from now on. He undoubtedly deserves the rest after his truly marathon presidential run. I don't think there's any question that Gravel enriched the presidential process. Above all else, he made us think. There may not be another person on this planet who has exactly the same set of political views that Gravel holds yet the Alaskan never seemed to hesitate to state his opinion in a debate or interview. Iran? It's no threat! Illegal immigration? It helps the economy! Democracy? The people need to take charge of things themselves! I don't agree with Gravel on a lot of issues, but I love how he made me think about common issues from a new perspective. In fact, it was rather hard to ignore Gravel at any event to which he was invited -- he was combative to the point of rudeness in the debates, the cantankerous old man par excellence. He would have made a most unlikely president, but many people who would never have voted for him will nonetheless miss seeing him on the campaign trail.

Mike Gravel's mission to bring direct democracy to America in a big way will surely continue. The National Initiative for Democracy aims to let the people play a much larger role in establishing policy than they currently can. In effect, Gravel and the Initiative want the people to become another branch of government equal to Congress, the president, and the Supreme Court. There is something undeniably appealing about making decisions for yourself rather than trusting someone else to make those decisions for you. I would definitely have liked to have been consulted about going to war with Iraq, for instance. I certainly no longer believe that elected representatives are "more qualified" than average people to make political decisions -- I refuse to accept that I myself, my friends, and my family are part of the "rabble" than cannot be trusted whilst Larry Craig, David Vitter, and others of their ilk are members of an "elite" who will make sound decisions even in times of crisis. The Craigs and the Vitters do still have an advantage over the average person, though, and it is a big one: they're professionals. Politics is their job. They go to meetings, attend hearings, and have advisers who are experts in various fields -- if they are still ignorant about the issues, it is entirely their own fault. The average person cannot focus on politics to the same extent and as such would struggle to make well-considered decisions when it comes to issues he or she is not that familiar with. The idea of giving the people a direct voice in politics still has some merit, but direct democracy would probably be most effective when it comes to "big picture" issues that tend to affect everyone.

It's fun to think of how the people might change government if they had the chance. I imagine the federal budget might look a little different after it was given the direct democracy treatment. Somehow, I can't imagine health care and education being underfunded. That doesn't mean defense spending would necessary be decimated (I suspect it would be reduced, however) because national security is on a lot of people's minds as well. I have a hard time imagining popular approval for billions of aid to Pakistan, especially since many people think Pakistan is the reason Bin Laden is still on the loose. In general, I suspect more attention would be paid to internal problems and less to foreign policy issues in a direct democracy; this would undoubtedly have both good and bad effects. America would perhaps no longer be an interventionist, but it could find itself in a position of weakness and vulnerability in the international sphere. Who is to say that the people wouldn't adjust, though? If foreign policy experts make the case for aid to Pakistan in terms anyone could understand and market the message directly to the people, perhaps that aid would continue even in a direct democracy. It's harder to say if people would always vote for policies they perceive would be in their economic best interest regardless of how such policies would affect other people and the economy as a whole. Would, for instance, the masses vote for a 75% income tax on the rich to pay for bread and circuses for themselves? Aristotle would probably say, "Yes." I concede that this is a danger zone, but it isn't because regular citizens are inherently greedier than politicians. The real problem would be that economics is a subject a lot of people are pretty uncomfortable with -- direct democracy is likely to fail if people are forced to make decisions without either knowledge or experience to guide them.

Although Mike Gravel thinks the federal government has been corrupted by corporate interests, he is not exactly arguing for its extermination. Rather, he sees the people as being a complement to the government -- direct democracy would in effect coexist with indirect democracy. Ideally, the people will make the government better and perhaps vice versa as well. The important thing is that the voice of the people will be heard on a national level. How the National Initiative intends to make this happen is somewhat peculiar. It sees the government and the people as fundamentally opposed so it doesn't seem to think that elected officials would ever support any idea to give the people any of their power. So the Initiative is collecting signatures and donations at the moment. Their big plan seems to be to amend the Constitution without the support of Congress or the state legislatures. Personally, I think this is a flawed strategy that has no constitutional basis. A better approach, in my opinion, would be to lend support to candidates who support the principles behind the Initiative so that they can change government from within. Perhaps the reason this idea has been rejected is because supporters of the Initiative think that only corporatists can win offices these days; personally, I'm not quite so cynical. If 50 million people are willing to "vote" in a National Initiative, why wouldn't they be equally willing to support pro-direct democracy candidates in legislature and congressional elections?

As always, Gravil is making me think. Thanks for everything, Mike.