Posted by
Andrews on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 10:07:08 AM
McCain's recent reaction to the collapse of a few commercial banks reminded me of the saddest moment of this campaign, the firing of Phil Gramm. Admittedly, people seemed to dislike the fact that Gramm told the truth when he called us a nation of whiners, but Gramm would have also done his best to prevent McCain's immediate over reaction. I just can't see Gramm allowing McCain to start publicly demanding the firing of the SEC head. Unfortunately McCain gave in to the whiners and fired Gramm, which allowed McCain's
inner pandering populist free reign.
And that is one of the things about McCain that is most frightening. Don't get me wrong, I still support him, as the alternative is much more terrifying, but McCain has an unfortunate need to appease the public and media*. You can see it in the delight he took in being labeled a maverick. Unfortunately, he never learned the lesson of Reagan, that one can be both principled and popular. Instead, he sees the media love affair with the left and thinks that only left wing populism is popular. So every so often he feels the need to sound more like a union organizer of editorialist for the daily worker than a Republican presidential nominee.
You can hear it in his immediate response "we won't run Wall Street like a casino". Senator, why are "we" running Wall Street at all? How about letting Wall Street run itself? If almost a century of regulation has produced our current problems, isn't it possible that more regulation just isn't the answer? Perhaps regulation actually has flaws which make crises or fraud more likely? Perhaps a private stock market would do better at policing itself than one with rigid government controls? That would be the conservative response**.
Then again, I doubt this will hurt the McCain campaign. All the conservatives
who are behind him
already know his flaws and are resigned to
a less than perfect candidate. And those who were
still opposed to him weren't coming back no matter what he did. And since
populist rhetoric does appeal to a part of the center, and to those calling themselves "paleo-cons" it is likely he may even pick up some votes***. At worst, he won't lose any. So it was, in terms of this election, a harmless statement.
But if it was a calculated move, McCain had better recall that next primary season he will have to face Republicans again, and he will need business contributions as well, and statements such as these may come back to haunt him. After all, not every sitting president gets the nomination of his party. Presidents have been rejected before, and his populism may make him yet another.
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* It is also possible he truly hates business, but I think that unlikely. When not playing the maverick he has made some sensible, free market statements which lead me to think this is grandstanding not true feeling.
** Some so-called paleo-cons will disagree. But,
as I wrote elsewhere, I do not consider those opposing free trade and asking for greater government controls to be
true conservatives. They may share some values, but on the essential question of liberty,
paleo-cons are more like liberals than conservatives.
*** If McCain said this to win votes, it was a foolish move. Obama was certain to go farther in the direction of controls and thus pick up the lion's share of populist votes. But since McCain had essentially said "me too", he cannot use his position to contrast with Obama and try to pick up those in the center who do not buy into the populist rhetoric. It is an admittedly small group, but since Obama is going to pick up the populists, why not try for their opposite number? It also would have gone a long way to reconcile McCain with the conservative base had he come out and said that Washington is often the problem not the cure.