Response to Old for Obama
I have one objection to SRodens post. You suggest the elderly vote for Obama because he is for a better economy...so what, is McCain FOR a BAD economy? Of course not, this is like saying a candidate may be for more crime - no one holds that position. I would say that you have oversimplified the matter and it is more a situation of the Obama campaign doing a better job of sending their message regarding the economy. One may think conservative economic principles will be bad for the economy, but that doesn't mean they want a bad economy, they just hold a different opinion on what will help. The criticism should be more about the poor delivery of message rather than suggesting only Obama is for improving the economy.
Another point to keep in mind is that this economic downfall has just occurred, and when drastic nation- and global-wide crisis occur, it is the natural tendency for people to want their governments to just fix it, and then later regret giving them the additional power and influence. To take a democratic view this is exactly what happened with the war on terror. Of course everyone is against terror (except the terrorists, presumably), and when we were in the aftermath of September 11th we all unanimously wanted to fight back against terrorism, but now many, democrats especially, now regret the power we gave the national government in the pursuit of it, such as the patriot act, and regret what the result is.
I think it is very interesting how this election has been influenced by our current trials. Before the last fall in the economy that really sealed the US economic coffin for the next several months, McCain was steadily gaining and even ahead according to many polls, enjoying widespread popularity. But now the economy has crashed, and we all have changed our focus to wanting someone to make it all better for us - so we turned to the democrats who have been viewed as strong on the economy since "It's the economy stupid!" first took ground. Really this is very intriguing since so many feel Democratic tax policies are so bad for the economy. Already we are seeing more government involvement in business with the bailout and other efforts, but I see little attention being paid to what sorts of precedents the actions that we take in the next several months will establish, especially if there is more governmental intrusion into business as is democratic policy. When the dust settles, are we again going to have buyer's remorse yet again?
Where would be now if instead of an economic crash we had suffered another terrorist attack? Can anyone deny this would be a totally different picture? And what does this say about the American electorate if they are so flippant as to be so biased by current events and so quick to forget?
Another point to keep in mind is that this economic downfall has just occurred, and when drastic nation- and global-wide crisis occur, it is the natural tendency for people to want their governments to just fix it, and then later regret giving them the additional power and influence. To take a democratic view this is exactly what happened with the war on terror. Of course everyone is against terror (except the terrorists, presumably), and when we were in the aftermath of September 11th we all unanimously wanted to fight back against terrorism, but now many, democrats especially, now regret the power we gave the national government in the pursuit of it, such as the patriot act, and regret what the result is.
I think it is very interesting how this election has been influenced by our current trials. Before the last fall in the economy that really sealed the US economic coffin for the next several months, McCain was steadily gaining and even ahead according to many polls, enjoying widespread popularity. But now the economy has crashed, and we all have changed our focus to wanting someone to make it all better for us - so we turned to the democrats who have been viewed as strong on the economy since "It's the economy stupid!" first took ground. Really this is very intriguing since so many feel Democratic tax policies are so bad for the economy. Already we are seeing more government involvement in business with the bailout and other efforts, but I see little attention being paid to what sorts of precedents the actions that we take in the next several months will establish, especially if there is more governmental intrusion into business as is democratic policy. When the dust settles, are we again going to have buyer's remorse yet again?
Where would be now if instead of an economic crash we had suffered another terrorist attack? Can anyone deny this would be a totally different picture? And what does this say about the American electorate if they are so flippant as to be so biased by current events and so quick to forget?
posted by Kelsey @ 10/22/2008
2 Comments:
At October 24, 2008 at 9:41 AM ,
SRodens said...
The gist of what I was trying to say was elderly people want Medicare, social security, and state pensions - All principles of the Democrats
Also many national polls have shown that a majority of people think that the Dems are better for the economy (right or wrong)
At October 24, 2008 at 11:26 AM ,
Kelsey said...
And what I am saying is that Republicans aren't running on a platform against providing for the elderly or helping the economy. It's all just people's perceptions - which was my point. It's about message delivery and reception, not about who is actually for those issues. Do that same poll and phrase the question around taxes and the economy and you'll get a totally different result of whose policy people prefer. Or even just phrase the same Democratic policy differently such that it explicitly mentions government regulation of business and you'll send huge portions of those supporters running the other way. Obama has been good at phrasing his policies to downplay the parts people dislike, and McCain hasn't gone after him and pointed out what his plan really is, so people's perceptions are altered and most people are too lazy to think about the policies beyond what someone on their tv says.
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