Post-Speech
Sorry comrades — I’ve been working on some longer projects, and am wracked with guilt about not blogging as there are a lot of things I want to tackle. I want the excuse to drill down into the new news from Iraq, so I’ll have to write something more substantial on the subject.
Just saw the speech, and I have to say: I found it frustrating to watch. And I found the solutions on offer deeply unpersuasive — an industrial policy that would create un-outsourcable jobs, subsidized fuel-efficient cars for every American, lower taxes for 95 percent of Americans plus tax breaks for approved entrepreneurs (and a system that would, as Goolsbee and Furman note, generate less revenue than the Bush tax code), attacking McCain for (similarly) raising taxes on some (the rich) and lowering taxes for others (the poor) to increase access to healthcare in revenue neutral fashion, etc. “I will never tax your benefits!” Well, I mean, there’s a consensus that gold-plated plans should be taxed.
I found the rhetoric on foreign policy misleading to the point where I was baffled by the reversals. But of course relatively few of us were paying attention during Obama’s initial reaction to the Georgia crisis, or during the long history of Obama’s statements regarding Iran. Biden has been the great champion of ISAF in Afghanistan, which has failed at the structural level.
The sad truth is that next week in the Twin Cities might be just as bad. I feel genuinely sad and worried, as I want Obama to be strong and wise and shrewd — not just as a politician, as he is a masterful politician, but as a leader. I realize that I sound like a bozo. But I recognize that there’s an excellent chance he’ll be the next president. Maybe this is all typical campaign flim-flam. But I don’t think it is.
As for McCain: Republicans have tried to turn Obama’s identity into a liability. They’ve tried to turn Michelle into a liability. Well, look, Cindy is an heiress and McCain really has led an unusual life. McCain’s identity — as someone who spent 22 years in the Navy, not just as a former POW — is a strength. But it’s also a liability. And rest assured, the Democrats are quite comfortable playing identity politics, which is fair enough: identity matters, as it offers insight into character and experience and how one will approach the world.
I agree that all those promises seem unlikely. But this was a speech about how Obama wasn’t going to fold under McCain’s bullying. No one wants a wimp for a president and Obama showed that he wasn’t a wimp. The other thing this speech was for was to gather up all the disgruntled democrats. If Obama gets all the regular democrat votes, he wins.
I think that he has shown that he is very smart, disciplined, and competent. If he wins that will be more evidence. People that know him say, over and over, that he is not ideological, and sees things in a very nuanced way. He is the anti-W. At this point, I think any rooting for any particular policy list is besides the point.
ps. Taxing health benefits is a terrible idea.
— cw · Aug 29, 04:46 AM · #
To be disappointed on the basis of smallish policy nits says more about your disposition than the speech. Who listens to something like this to get details on capital gains taxes?
Legislatively he will accomplish the big items and the rest will be overwhelmed and driven by forces – current events, political reality – that no president can control.
I don’t get the identity politics comment at all, identity politics are almost wholly irrelevant to the speech I just heard.
— Steve C · Aug 29, 05:15 AM · #
Confronting the GOP’s attacks on his character was the achievement of this speech. McCain was the one to bring this toxic and petty style of discourse into the campaign. No one will feel bad for him if he now loses the argument.
— Jonathan Dworkin · Aug 29, 08:27 AM · #
cw — not taxing health benefits is a terrible idea.
I just left the San Francisco Bay Area. For years I supported an ill wife and an infant/toddler on less than $23K before taxes. My employer provide health benefits for me, which weren’t taxed. But not for my family, and those (BIG) insurance expenses and copays came out of post-tax income. It was goofy.
The Obama/Edwards/Clinton plans make it possible for me to buy healthcare and there’s income-dependent tax subsidies of that. OK, good. But then there shouldn’t be some way I could get my healthcare, where taxation just doesn’t see it. That’s goofy. Benefits are income, tax them all, ad let your income tax be progressive: I think that’s fine. You might not, but it certainly isn’t “a terrible idea.”
— Sanjay · Aug 29, 01:27 PM · #
Taxing health benefits is one of those ideas that is (1) pretty obviously a good idea and (2) no one ever touches because it is political suicide. (See also, carbon tax). I can’t believe McCain is doing it.
— J Mann · Aug 29, 02:04 PM · #
I thought the speech was a real flop, even worse than the speech I wrote.
— Noah Millman · Aug 29, 02:50 PM · #
cw: “I think that he has shown that he is very smart, disciplined, and competent. If he wins that will be more evidence. People that know him say, over and over, that he is not ideological, and sees things in a very nuanced way. He is the anti-W. At this point, I think any rooting for any particular policy list is besides the point.”
Doesn’t this point to an inconsistency in Obama’s message? During the primaries the narrative I got from the Obama campaign was that Democrats had become cowed into compromising their progressive goals in fear of Republican trust, that the Clintons embodied this suicidal slide into irrelevancy, and that now is the moment for an authentic, uncompromised American progressive transformation. It was an inherently ideological message. When the primaries concluded, the narrative was muted, as Obama started proposing policies at odds with his Carpe Diem rhetoric. That famous New York Times editorial criticizing Obama from the left has all the greatest hits, but basically the Obama campaign seemed to be engaging in political calculation that was, frankly, Clintonian. Certainly it was not ideological in any orthodox sense. I frankly prefer this new Clintonian, opportunist Obama to the naïve ideologue, but I get the vibe that his supporters during the primaries are discomfited by the change. The non-ideological Obama you admire is problematic to Obama’s ideological base.
Speaking of lurching toward the center, it was my impression that the speech’s purpose was to indicate presidential readiness to undecided voters by providing some actual policy ungilded by the rhetoric that so moved his base. My impression is that it was an ordinary laundry list with little of Obama’s customary zing, though I didn’t see the speech and am relying on biased interpreters. But doesn’t that belie your comment that the specific policies are beside the point? If Obama cannot convince independents that he is serious about specific policies, that he is not just an airy naïf with no gravitas, then what was the point of the exercise?
— Blar · Aug 29, 03:01 PM · #
“During the primaries the narrative I got from the Obama campaign was that Democrats had become cowed into compromising their progressive goals in fear of Republican trust, that the Clintons embodied this suicidal slide into irrelevancy, and that now is the moment for an authentic, uncompromised American progressive transformation. “
I don’t think these reading actually matches what Obama actually said at any point during the primaries. I think he is an unashamed liberal, but what does “progressive” really mean? Not as far as policy, but in terms of the consituency that it represents. To me it represents the KOS crowd. These people have been dissapointed in Obama all along because Obama hasn’t been ideological enough.
About independants, I think some of that was directed at them, but mostly it was about gathering every possible democratic vote. For me it was mostly about wacking McCain and showing the perpetually discouraged democratic electorate that he was not John Kerry. THat was the big worry about Obama, remember? Electability. He wouldn’t have the experience and the guts to fight back the way Hillery did. I think he answered the tough enough to be elected question. And I get the feeling that independants are kind of the icing on the cake. There really are not that many. I think Obama reckons he can win it with democratic turnout. And I think that is right, elections expert that I am. I think there are a lot of really pissed off democrats out there and if Obama will fight, they will vote.
— cw · Aug 29, 04:36 PM · #
Sanjay,
Maybe I am mixed up or maybe we are talking about different things. Read this Brad DeLong post on McCain’s health care plan.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/08/morning-coffee.html
— cw · Aug 29, 04:45 PM · #
cw, read it long ago. I don’t like this aspect of McCain’s plan either. I reiterate though — taxing benefits, a good idea.
— Sanjay · Aug 29, 05:31 PM · #