America Should Take a Chance and Elect Obama - The Economist

The presidential election
It's time

Oct 30th 2008
From The Economist print edition

America should take a chance and make Barack Obama the next leader of the free world

IT IS impossible to forecast how important any presidency will be. Back in 2000 America stood tall as the undisputed superpower, at peace with a generally admiring world. The main argument was over what to do with the federal governmentâ??s huge budget surplus. Nobody foresaw the seismic events of the next eight years. When Americans go to the polls next week the mood will be very different. The United States is unhappy, divided and foundering both at home and abroad. Its self-belief and values are under attack.

For all the shortcomings of the campaign, both John McCain and Barack Obama offer hope of national redemption. Now America has to choose between them. The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring Americaâ??s self-confidence. But we acknowledge it is a gamble. Given Mr Obamaâ??s inexperience, the lack of clarity about some of his beliefs and the prospect of a stridently Democratic Congress, voting for him is a risk. Yet it is one America should take, given the steep road ahead.
Thinking about 2009 and 2017

The immediate focus, which has dominated the campaign, looks daunting enough: repairing Americaâ??s economy and its international reputation. The financial crisis is far from finished. The United States is at the start of a painful recession. Some form of further fiscal stimulus is needed, though estimates of the budget deficit next year already spiral above $1 trillion. Some 50m Americans have negligible health-care cover. Abroad, even though troops are dying in two countries, the cack-handed way in which George Bush has prosecuted his war on terror has left America less feared by its enemies and less admired by its friends than it once was.

Yet there are also longer-term challenges, worth stressing if only because they have been so ignored on the campaign. Jump forward to 2017, when the next president will hope to relinquish office. A combination of demography and the rising costs of Americaâ??s huge entitlement programmesâ??Social Security, Medicare and Medicaidâ??will be starting to bankrupt the country. Abroad a greater task is already evident: welding the new emerging powers to the West. That is not just a matter of handling the rise of India and China, drawing them into global efforts, such as curbs on climate change; it means reselling economic and political freedom to a world that too quickly associates American capitalism with Lehman Brothers and American justice with Guantánamo Bay. This will take patience, fortitude, salesmanship and strategy.

At the beginning of this election year, there were strong arguments against putting another Republican in the White House. A spell in opposition seemed apt punishment for the incompetence, cronyism and extremism of the Bush presidency. Conservative America also needs to recover its vim. Somehow Ronald Reaganâ??s party of western individualism and limited government has ended up not just increasing the size of the state but turning it into a tool of southern-fried moralism.

The selection of Mr McCain as the Republicansâ?? candidate was a powerful reason to reconsider. Mr McCain has his faults: he is an instinctive politician, quick to judge and with a sharp temper. And his age has long been a concern (how many global companies in distress would bring in a new 72-year-old boss?). Yet he has bravely taken unpopular positionsâ??for free trade, immigration reform, the surge in Iraq, tackling climate change and campaign-finance reform. A western Republican in the Reagan mould, he has a long record of working with both Democrats and Americaâ??s allies.
If only the real John McCain had been running

That, however, was Senator McCain; the Candidate McCain of the past six months has too often seemed the victim of political sorcery, his good features magically inverted, his bad ones exaggerated. The fiscal conservative who once tackled Mr Bush over his unaffordable tax cuts now proposes not just to keep the cuts, but to deepen them. The man who denounced the religious right as â??agents of intoleranceâ?� now embraces theocratic culture warriors. The campaigner against ethanol subsidies (who had a better record on global warming than most Democrats) came out in favour of a petrol-tax holiday. It has not all disappeared: his support for free trade has never wavered. Yet rather than heading towards the centre after he won the nomination, Mr McCain moved to the right.

Meanwhile his temperament, always perhaps his weak spot, has been found wanting. Sometimes the seat-of-the-pants method still works: his gut reaction over Georgiaâ??to warn Russia off immediatelyâ??was the right one. Yet on the great issue of the campaign, the financial crisis, he has seemed all at sea, emitting panic and indecision. Mr McCain has never been particularly interested in economics, but, unlike Mr Obama, he has made little effort to catch up or to bring in good advisers (Doug Holtz-Eakin being the impressive exception).

The choice of Sarah Palin epitomised the sloppiness. It is not just that she is an unconvincing stand-in, nor even that she seems to have been chosen partly for her views on divisive social issues, notably abortion. Mr McCain made his most important appointment having met her just twice.

Ironically, given that he first won over so many independents by speaking his mind, the case for Mr McCain comes down to a piece of artifice: vote for him on the assumption that he does not believe a word of what he has been saying. Once he reaches the White House, runs this argument, he will put Mrs Palin back in her box, throw away his unrealistic tax plan and begin negotiations with the Democratic Congress. That is plausible; but it is a long way from the convincing case that Mr McCain could have made. Had he become president in 2000 instead of Mr Bush, the world might have had fewer problems. But this time it is beset by problems, and Mr McCain has not proved that he knows how to deal with them.

Is Mr Obama any better? Most of the hoopla about him has been about what he is, rather than what he would do. His identity is not as irrelevant as it sounds. Merely by becoming president, he would dispel many of the myths built up about America: it would be far harder for the spreaders of hate in the Islamic world to denounce the Great Satan if it were led by a black man whose middle name is Hussein; and far harder for autocrats around the world to claim that American democracy is a sham. Americaâ??s allies would rally to him: the global electoral college on our website shows a landslide in his favour. At home he would salve, if not close, the ugly racial wound left by Americaâ??s history and lessen the tendency of American blacks to blame all their problems on racism.

So Mr Obamaâ??s star quality will be useful to him as president. But that alone is not enough to earn him the job. Charisma will not fix Medicare nor deal with Iran. Can he govern well? Two doubts present themselves: his lack of executive experience; and the suspicion that he is too far to the left.

There is no getting around the fact that Mr Obamaâ??s résumé is thin for the worldâ??s biggest job. But the exceptionally assured way in which he has run his campaign is a considerable comfort. It is not just that he has more than held his own against Mr McCain in the debates. A man who started with no money and few supporters has out-thought, out-organised and outfought the two mightiest machines in American politicsâ??the Clintons and the conservative right.

Political fire, far from rattling Mr Obama, seems to bring out the best in him: the furore about his (admittedly ghastly) preacher prompted one of the most thoughtful speeches of the campaign. On the financial crisis his performance has been as assured as Mr McCainâ??s has been febrile. He seems a quick learner and has built up an impressive team of advisers, drawing in seasoned hands like Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. Of course, Mr Obama will make mistakes; but this is a man who listens, learns and manages well.

It is hard too nowadays to depict him as soft when it comes to dealing with Americaâ??s enemies. Part of Mr Obamaâ??s original appeal to the Democratic left was his keenness to get American troops out of Iraq; but since the primaries he has moved to the centre, pragmatically saying the troops will leave only when the conditions are right. His determination to focus American power on Afghanistan, Pakistan and proliferation was prescient. He is keener to talk to Iran than Mr McCain isâ?? but that makes sense, providing certain conditions are met.

Our main doubts about Mr Obama have to do with the damage a muddle-headed Democratic Congress might try to do to the economy. Despite the protectionist rhetoric that still sometimes seeps into his speeches, Mr Obama would not sponsor a China-bashing bill. But what happens if one appears out of Congress? Worryingly, he has a poor record of defying his partyâ??s baronies, especially the unions. His advisers insist that Mr Obama is too clever to usher in a new age of over-regulation, that he will stop such nonsense getting out of Congress, that he is a political chameleon who would move to the centre in Washington. But the risk remains that on economic matters the centre that Mr Obama moves to would be that of his party, not that of the country as a whole.
He has earned it

So Mr Obama in that respect is a gamble. But the same goes for Mr McCain on at least as many counts, not least the possibility of President Palin. And this cannot be another election where the choice is based merely on fear. In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.

Barack Obama should be the next president of America | It's time | The Economist
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I think this is one of the best articles in means of analysis of the situation that i have read so far. especially the conclusion at the end seems quite like the thoughts that go on in my mind.

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Originally Posted by flyingimam

So Mr Obama in that respect is a gamble. But the same goes for Mr McCain on at least as many counts, not least the possibility of President Palin. And this cannot be another election where the choice is based merely on fear. In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.

Barack Obama should be the next president of America | It's time | The Economist
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I think this is one of the best articles in means of analysis of the situation that i have read so far. especially the conclusion at the end seems quite like the thoughts that go on in my mind.

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Hi All !!!:thumbsup:

Great Article

I also think the bold print summs it up pretty well!!
:hippy:

People that vote for a president because of the economy really aren't too smart. Neither candidate has a clue about the economy. If you really were concerned about the economy you would vote for McCain because he would keep us at war for the next 4 years. And that would be good for the economy. If anyone really cared about the economy they would vote for Ron Paul.

It's also important to note that the President is more or less the symbol of policies being implemented rather than the one person who is actually doing everything. He is more or less informed by experts in economics on how to handle the situation. Not to bash on Obama and claim he doesn't know anything about the economy but if you really want to know if his economic plan will work you would want to research his advisors more so than he himself. Remember the "New Deal"? Yeah well Roosevelt didn't really have a plan when he announced the New Deal. He had to seek strong advice from Keynes to actually come up with a solution so it's really ol Jonny's plan and not Roosevelt's.

Also War is good for the economy but only specific sectors of the economy. Buisnesses that would service a war would benefit but then you have to consider the Costs of rebuilding a destroyed society. Sure they'll get their oil and gun slingers will get their share of profits but whose gonna pay for that Army? Also, specific to this time period, its really America that will benefit. Starting a war almost hardly remains exclusive to a single state. Massive emigration, enemies fleeing to different Countries, as well as our vast web of interdependent economics, causes a considerable amount of damage to countries not directly involved. Plus War's inevitably create enemies and enemies cost money on homeland security. Not to mention the inhumane aspects of War. People generally claim that War's are good for the economy because they base their belief off of what happened during WWII. Yes our country experienced an economic boom right afterwards but it was primarily because during those five years of War people conserved a hell of a lot. Given the massive amount of production mixed in with the massive amount of saving is what caused that boom period to emerge. So really the WWII example is more of a fluke rather than a de facto.

Anyway on that note, your right in that people should have voted for Ron Paul. Many of his policies exhibited ambiguity, particularly his foreign policy, but he did have the right idea in that we shouldn't use corporate interests to facilitate our foreign relations, but rather through fair trade and sound economic loaning we would not only have a lot less enemies but this terrorist phenomenon and these ever increasing state failures would decrease as a result. We use economic policies that would result in expanding our own Country, which is great but thats only half of the equation. We need to balance out the power of the World and help everyone out so we can all move towards human progress. Wow that was a mouth full. Sorry.

This is a really good article, and it echoes a lot of the same feelings I have had about these candidates and this campaign.

When McCain was first selected as the Republican nominee, I also thought he was a great choice at that time. Before that, I had written the Republicans off completely because of this disasterous Bush presidency. But McCain was more of a centrist and more in line with my own philosophy. He was the best of the Republican field --- the ONLY one I would have picked.

And when the Democratic field narrowed down to Obama and Clinton, I had my misgivings, mostly because of Obama's relative lack of experience, and the fact that he was one of the more left-leaning of the Democrats.

But as the election went on, I grew to like McCain less and less, to the point that I really cannot stand him at all now. And I have grown to like Obama more and more, to the point where I am really looking forward to his presidency.

McCain has moved to the right so far that he has embraced all the things I dislike most about the Republican party. He has pandered to the far right wing that I cannot stand. His choice of Sarah Palin has not put the country first --- that was a very bad decision. Chanting "drill here, drill now," and the fact that his only economic plan is more tax cuts indicates to me that he is not only old, but his IDEAS are out of date. We need new ideas. I do not like his impulsive decision-making processes, where he doesn't seem to think clearly, and he swings from one thing to the next. His campaign has been so poorly run, that I don't have faith in his ability as a leader. He had a reputation of bipartisanship, but he has burned all those bridges with the kind of disgusting campaign he has run, and there is very little chance he could work with the Democratic congress after that. Everything that I liked about him is gone.

Obama is a steady hand and someone who thinks things through and is not impulsive. He does not rise to provokation. He has great advisors. He has new ideas. He will be very popular here and very popular abroad. He is charismatic enough to actually get things done. His campaign has been extremely well-run and tight, and that indicates he is a great adminstrator and disciplined leader. I can't wait for hm to be elected and to get our country back where it belongs --- a good economy that benefits us all, a restoration of our rights and principles, a confident country, respected in the world, with more friends than enemies, on the track to SOLVING problems.

"Remember the "New Deal"? Yeah well Roosevelt didn't really have a plan when he announced the New Deal. He had to seek strong advice from Keynes to actually come up with a solution so it's really ol Jonny's plan and not Roosevelt's."

- keynes was the economics idea man, but the authority ultimately rests with the president so it's his plan and the prez deserves most of the credit and most of the blame for whatever happens as a result...i hear the same argument about president bush whose disasterous policies are often attributed to his advisors...bush waged 7 years of war and the economy still went in the dumper - how is john mcsame going to revive the economy with the same bush wars, the same bush policies, and the same bush advisors?

allan greenspan is supposedly an economic genius and he still managed the global economy into a recession...THANKS AL!

the world would be a better place with ron paul as president...at this point joe the plumber would be a big improvement

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Originally Posted by maladroit

the world would be a better place with ron paul as president...at this point joe the plumber would be a big improvement

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McCain wants to make Joe the Plumber either Secretary of the Treasury or Secretary of State --- he hasn't decided yet because Joe the Plumber is eqaully strong on the economy and world affairs.

HA! that's funny!















you're joking, right?

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Originally Posted by maladroit

you're joking, right?

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Ha ha! Yeah, it's a joke.

But I do think that Joe the Plumber IS equally strong on the economy and world affairs, and I would even add energy policy, military policy, healthcare policy, education policy, fiscal policy, monetary policy, trade policy, space policy, judicial policy, and drug policy --- that is to say, he knows equally little about each. I am amazed that they have this guy expounding on almost everything! Why do they think that gives McCain credibility?

joe gives mccain street credibility (as in main street) because he is a regular guy with common sense gut instincts...mccain's campaign is using joe like a palin-type conduit to the republican base...it's a good strategy...if you can't appreciate that it's probably because you're an elitist who thinks too much and lives outside the real america

ha ha?