Barack Obama Wins 2008 Presidential Election
Right here is where the announcement has been made first, Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America. Today is October 4th, one month before the presidential election, and it doesn’t look like there’s any doubt who the victor will be. Rather than saying “will be” we’ll just say “is the president” because the current administration hasn’t enough time left to do too much further damage after signing this disgraceful, pork loaded, $700 billion bailout into law just hours ago. Young Americas and old liberals have fallen in love with a man that promises change and new ideas. The opposition warns us that Obama is a far left, nearly socialist liberal, who is sure to tax and spend, leading our nation on a path to European style socialism. But we’re wrapping up eight years of spend and spend, without additional taxes, a formula that even a child understands can only lead to debt and an economic crash. Barack Obama hasn’t defeated John McCain, it is George W. Bush that has cost McCain the presidential election for a second time.
This is a critical analysis of why John McCain will be defeated on November 4th, and Brack Obama will become the 44th President of the United States of America. It is not a partisan piece written by an Obama supporter. Rather, this is simply a common sense look at who has derailed the McCain straight talk express for a second time, and basically tarnished the reputation of the republican party so extensively in the eyes of average, everyday, hardworking Americans, that most people would rather be anything but a republican in 2008. The point of view expressed here is that of a working class American that pays attention to politics and is disappointed in both of the major political parties.
Eight years ago in the 2000 Republican primaries we witnessed George W. Bush play some dirty political tricks to smear John McCain and seize the Republican nomination for president. This left John McCain very much high and dry for another eight years, which is a long time for a senior U.S. Senator that has fought off cancer three times. It’s not the fact that a little mud gets tossed in a party’s primaries, but the low blows and degree to which a candidate can sink in order to gain power, even when spreading hateful lies that separates the good guys from the self serving, power seeking politicians.
George W. Bush waged a Nixon style dirty tricks campaign to crush John McCain back in 2000. Conservative Americans rallied behind George W. Bush and helped to place him in the oval office. Over the next eight years, Americans witnessed the actions of a republican that was far from fiscally conservative as he originally claimed to be.
Just to keep the size of this story under control, lets summarize by saying Bush placed this country in an unnecessary and expensive war, wrote a big fat check to deal with hurricane Katrina, and without responsible fiscal oversight, continued to spend money like Jessica Simpson in a shoe store. He now concludes his presidency by signing a disgraceful Wall Street bailout package into law. This bailout package will make hard working Americans cover the debts of corporate fat cats, those rich wall street guys that stuck it too us all, and got away with it. Bush tried to sell us the bailout package as a necessary evil to save this nation, but middleclass America simply isn’t buying it.
Under George W. Bush corporate regulation was nearly nonexistent. Corporate mergers and takeovers eliminated competition, and drove up prices for consumers. While Democrats successfully pushed for home lending to poor welfare people that are notoriously fiscally irresponsible, one of the major contributors to today’s financial crisis, the Bush administration was distracted with their unnecessary war. McCain’s senate voting record shows consistent opposition to the liberal push for irresponsible lending, and attempts to try to reign in these dangerous practices. But it was all overlooked, and no one publicly dared oppose the Democrats push for lending to low income Americans, because it would have been an unpopular position to take.
Key Points of 21st Century Washington Politics:
* The Bush Administration helped make the rich even richer, at the expense of the working middleclass.
* The Democrats helped poor Americans get more welfare freebees and money at the expense of the working middleclass.
* Both Democrats and Republicans claim to be looking out for middleclass working America, and at the same time their extreme ideological politics hurt the middleclass.
The Bush administration is supposed to represent the ideas of the Republican Party platform. One of the most significant ideas of the republican platform is fiscal responsibility. This means that President George W. Bush should have publicly warned Americans back in 2002 that lending money to anyone, and dissolving the 20% down payment requirement for a home mortgage, would lead to a major lending crisis, because the fiscally irresponsible would not be able to pay back the loans.
Key Points of Popularist Politics:
* Loaning money to poor people sounds very righteous and heartfelt. It is a position most politicians today are cautious to oppose because they want votes, making them more popularists than traditional conservatives.
* Many, not necessarily all, but the vast majority of poor people are poor because they are fiscally irresponsible, they cannot manage their money well, and will likely not be able to maintain ownership of home, living beyond their means.
* The Popularism doctrine appeals to the middleclass because it takes advantage of those working Americans failure to pay attention to the issues. Middleclass America is busy with families and working to pay bills.
* Popularism uses talking points to stress Democracy and, on the surface, claims to help everyone succeed.
* Many republicans and democrats today are popularists, including Presidential candidate Barack Obama and current president George W. Bush, both demonstrating an inclination towards popularism politics; just with different partisan issues.
Bush should have rallied Republicans in a public push for fiscal responsibility during his presidency. Additionally, Bush should have taken responsible action on corporate oversight in a manner not countering his ideas of deregulation, but rather looking for criminal activity - going after the fat cats that were cooking the books. Bush should have shown some domestic leadership.
The idea of helping low income Americans buy a home was a very popular idea with voters and politicians alike. It sounds good to people, especially young democrats that lack critical thinking skills. It sounds good to those that cannot perceive consequences. To publicly stand up against it would be a bold move as well as unpopular at the time.
It is the duty of a fiscally conservative republican to sometimes take a position that is unpopular if it is necessary to control spending, and save the country from an inevitable financial crisis. Blue dog (conservative) Democrats were standing up against these policies, but they were too few and too late.
Political pundit Bill O’Reilly called Democrat Representative Barney Frank a coward in a recent televised interview, because Frank wouldn’t accept any responsibility for the financial crisis, even though Frank lead the Democrat celebrated movement to loan money to low income fiscally irresponsible Americans that would never be able to pay it back. Frank, who encouraged investors six years ago that the major lending institutions were sound, today can only blame any and all republican in a shamelessly partisan overly defensive verbal outcry. However, lets look at some more important cowards, lets look at the Bush administration.
Adding to the list of Washington cowards is George W. Bush and his administration. They just kept up their foreign policy fiasco, including the unnecessary war in Iraq, while bad lending practices were going on and Wall Street corruption was out of control. At the same time George W. Bush kept using home ownership as a talking point, saying how more Americans own a home now more than ever before. This is because he allowed Americans to own a home that, quite frankly, had no business owning a home. These people were clearly living beyond their means. Banks were clearly irresponsible for lending money to unqualified applicants. Bush cheerfully took credit for an increase in home ownership at a time prior to the whole thing blowing up in everyone’s face. Bush ignored the complexities of the issue and kept focusing his core attention on Iraq.
Here at home is where we needed the attention of our country’s leadership. We didn’t have it when we needed it. We didn’t have it while the corporate fat cats were running off with the profits, we didn’t have it when Hurricane Katrina wiped out the homes of southern coastal residing Americans, and we didn’t have it when the banks were recklessly lending money to anyone, without regards to down payment or collateral assets. The Bush administration answer to everything was a fiscally liberal practice of writing fat checks, spending the taxpayers money, just to buy more time so they could go back to failed geopolitics. They certainly didn’t have their party’s best interests or future at heart.
So how did Bush rob John McCain of the U.S. Presidency twice? In 2000 this country would have been much better off to have elected John McCain. I suspect we would have avoided the Iraq war, captured Osama Bin Ladin, cut taxes and cut spending both. Wow! that’s quite a claim, and probably a big pill for many democrats to swallow. But democrats should remember that McCain wasn’t popular with republicans because he so often took positions across the aisle on their side of an issue. This made McCain the punching bag of right wing pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham.
McCain has a record of fiscal responsibility going back to the early 80’s. John McCain also has a firm grasp on the horrors of war and would be less likely to pick a fight with a country that just isn’t necessary. Yes, he supported the Iraq war, but he probably would not have instigated the fight like Bush and Rumsfeld did.
McCain would have solved the immigration problem with a compromise that allowed working Hispanics a path to citizenship that is fair to current citizens. This is where McCain wore two colors, because on any given issue he might be a democrat, or republican.
However, in 2000 the George W. Bush campaign smeared the maverick senator, John McCain, with a series of brutal attacks and dishonest lies. Many republicans, including talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, also despised John McCain, because he represented a moderate, that was, in their eyes, too close to the Democrats. Blind political ideology drove the party in 2000 and put George W. Bush in the Whitehouse.
In 2004 the democrats had an opportunity to put a moderate candidate up against George W. Bush and win. However, the Democrats too, blinded by ideology, served up a deeply left presidential candidate that simply lacked the qualities necessary to knock the Bush administration out of the Whitehouse and save this country.
In eight years George W. Bush managed to make middle America become so disenfranchised with the Republican party, that no republican presidential candidate today has a chance at the white house. And, not because most republicans are like George W. Bush, but because most Americans see George W. Bush as the symbol of what the Republican Party stands for.
George W. Bush also made it possible for the ideological far left too actually look attractive to the American people. Just the possibility that an extremely partisan politician like Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi could become Speaker of the House shows the absolute disgust that average Americans have for the Bush administration and the Republican Party. Two years ago should have been a wakeup call to republicans, but instead they hit the snooze button and now it’s simply too late.
To win the 2008 presidential election John McCain needed to separate himself from George W. Bush, and not be afraid to take a few swings at the standing president. As a polite and reserved individual, with a reputation for being respectful under almost any circumstance, this is not in John McCain’s nature. But McCain doesn’t owe George W. Bush anything. In fact, McCain has a score to settle with Bush and should have every right to beat up on the standing president in order move forward and demonstrate to the American voters he is very different.
McCain failed to stand out from the Bush administration. McCain was too careful and respectful of President Bush, and allowed the Obama campaign to link him with the failed Bush policies and the Iraq war.
McCain also failed to be critical of the Iraq war. He could have successfully supported the surge, while reminding people that he was very strongly against how the war was being handled from 2002 until the surge. McCain should have referenced Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush time and time again in a critical analysis discussing how the war was mishandled and has cost the American taxpayers a fortune.
John McCain has stressed his and our pride in the troops, but perhaps many of those soldiers that have fallen on the battlefield could have been saved if the war was executed more efficiently and towards a quicker conclusion. The blame for the war is clearly the responsibility of the Bush administration.
There’s no doubt that most American’s feel the Iraq war was a mistake, and a distraction from the real 9-11 villain, Osama Bin Ladin. However, John McCain, like most in the legislative branch of our government, cannot say the war was a mistake without admitting they were wrong in voting for the war. Only Barack Obama can make that claim. So McCain needed to say that the Iraq war was grossly mishandled, and should have been expedited to a quick conclusion, which would have been possible without the failed policies of President George W. Bush and his crony Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
This year the Democrats could choose one of two clear paths to the Whitehouse, they could either produce a more moderate candidate, learning from the lessons of the failures in blind ideology, or they could remain ideological and capitalize on the unpopularity of the Republican Party. They chose the latter, and produced a “rock-star” candidate that is young and full of snazzy talking points about change and boldness, yet is politically much further left than the average American.
For the first time since the early 90’s the Democrats are about to seize total control over our government. We will soon have a Democrat for president, and a democrat controlled Senate and House or Representatives. Democrats are on the threshold of total and complete power, and will surely use that opportunity to infiltrate the Supreme Court if given the opportunity to nominate any justices.
But, will the Democrats learn any lessons from the failure of ideology and partisan politics? Will they recognize why the Republican Party actually fell from power? Will they discover that Americans will ultimately reject the far left just as inevitably as they’ve rejected the far right?
Probably not. Instead the next four years will probably include many new and expensive social programs, an expansion of the powers of the federal government, some new taxes, more tax burden on small businesses, and a big push for banning firearms.
Fiscal conservatives shouldn’t fear too much though. Due to our recent national economic crisis the Democrat’s typical tax and spend policies for more social programs and socialized healthcare will likely be suspended. Unfortunately, this will give the Obama administration and democrats in the legislative branch more time to focus on other far left political positions. Hunters and firearms owners will likely get nailed pretty hard by draconian gun bans and loss of hunting rights. Small business owners will also likely get nailed pretty hard, many will close due to Obama’s new economic policies and tough times left over from the Bush administration’s economic failures.
On the flip side there should be some positive changes if Obama is really is a man of his word. Perhaps the government can reintroduce some regulation on huge corporations and slow down the mergers that are killing fair competition. More competition is better for consumers because it lowers prices on the produces people buy. Under Bush, corporate America has gotten out of control. Now their power might be contained, which will ultimately benefit consumers.
Another positive change might be Joe Biden convincing Barack Obama that clean coal is a big fat lie. Obama and Biden are proven environmentalists and may help to force us all to do our part in reducing every American’s carbon footprint. Furthermore, Obama is more likely to lead this nation into a future of alternative energy.
McCain seemed like a true moderate and a more responsible choice for the oval office. Yet he failed to sell himself to the American people by standing out from the Bush administration. His last big opportunity to gain some voter “cred” was to stand up in opposition to the $700 billion bailout plan just signed into law.
McCain could have said, “I will not support any legislation that forces hard working Americans to bail out Wall Street irresponsibility and corruption.” But he didn’t. This was not the first missed opportunity for McCain in this election. Barack Obama supported the bailout too, but for Obama a prefect campaign wasn’t a requirement to win. McCain is the underdog, and needed to run a perfect campaign with bold moves and clear straight talk directly at middleclass America.
For McCain, opposition to the bailout package was the last chance for a hero with our nation’s best interests at heart to win the election. With his support of that abomination of a legislative bill, it’s Game Over - Winner, President Barack Obama. Due to his age, John McCain will not have another opportunity to lead this nation. It’s a strange future this nation is about to enter into, and everything as we know it will certainly change.