Matthew Yglesias » The Fates

Oct 27th, 2008 at 9:02 am

The Fates

To be clear, I don’t think that denying that John McCain’s political problems are a result of poor political tactics is equivalent to saying he’s a “victim of circumstances.” He’s a victim of the dual facts that George W. Bush has made the Republican Party extremely unpopular, and of the fact that the national economy has been heading downhill all year.

But neither of those are just vague “circumstances” or bad luck they largely follow from the fact that policies McCain has embraced have had bad consequences. But to me the main difference between 2004 and 2008 isn’t that Bush’s campaign was run by evil geniuses and McCain’s is run by inept fools, the difference is that actual conditions got worse.

Comments
29

Filed under: Bush, mccain, Public Opinion

29 Responses to “The Fates”

Roschelle Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Just when you thought there might be a hint of decency in the world…Amazon has Obama mask listed under TERRORIST COSTUMES!!! I just found it quite easily. So, contrary to recent updates it hasn’t been deleted as of 7:50 this a.m.
Oktober Five Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 9:10 am
I keep hearing that it’s because of policies McCain embraced that we’re having an economic crisis. There is one thing he did not embrace, and although it can’t be said that this one thing caused the crisis we’re in, it definitely helped. The loose lending standards were introduced by democrats in congress in 2000. Despite people like McCain asking for oversight groups to monitor these companies and loans, nothing was done. Many problems we see coming to fruition now were started before Bush, and many were pushed by democrats. If anything, Bush should be blamed for not doing more to fix these problems.
Luke Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 9:13 am
Don’t underestimate the importance of Democratic governors and secretaries of state.

The big difference between Ohio 08 and Ohio 04 is that the contentious 200,000+ voters were forced to cast provisional ballots in 04, which were never counted at all.

The ACORN story would have been a lot more powerful without trusted governors dismissing it as partisan.
duBois Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 9:22 am
The loose lending standards were introduced by democrats in congress in 2000.

Since the number of problem loans among people covered by prior practices (wholesale rejection of black and brown applicants) is around 10% of the total that means that 90% of the people who were covered by prior practices aren’t having a problem. So, maybe it’s other reasons than the applicants being black or brown that’s at fault. Just thinking out loud here.

I kinda think the problem is the whole kit-n-kaboodle shadow economy of credit swaps and over-leveraged derivatives that’s a couple of orders of magnitude larger than the mortgage crisis. A shadow economy 2-3 times larger than the US GDP being run unregulated and in the dark, even among its participants. And even among those charged with bailing the participants out.

But it’s mortgages to brown and black people that are behind the meltdown, right?
Comment Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 9:31 am
McCain’s biggest problem is his friend – the hapless Mark Salter.

Salter never leveled with his boss about certain realities and perceptions – Plus, he would never warn McCain about mistakes he had made – so McCain would repeat these errors.

Salter also gave his boss and the media a deluded version of McCain’s early conflict with Obama over ethics legislation.

Instead of downplaying a semi-embrassing incident for his boss, Salter tried to spin the ethics contratemps in such a was as to reflect poorly on Obama.

So when Obama’s office released the exchange of letters, it just ended up embarassing McCain by making him look foolish and crotchety.

Again – this was Salter’s fault, because he wanted to create a narrative to explain why McCain supposedly lost respect for Obama.

Part of the problem was hero-worship for Salter – he has created this absurdly overvalued McCain brand.

Like and overvalued stock of a good business, the McCain bubble burst when people examined his record more closely -
Colonel Danite Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 9:39 am
One of the main reasons that McCain was unable to differentiate himself from George Bush and his policies is that the nutters who voted in the GOP primaries all still loved George Bush. McCain had to tack to the right on almost every issue. His claim to have supported President Bush 90% of the time is this year’s equivalent to John Kerry’s “I voted for it before I voted against it”.
Tyro Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 9:44 am
The loose lending standards were introduced by democrats in congress in 2000.

It appears that the talking points faxes have been updated. Last time, we were hearing this was all the fault of Democrats in 1977.
Barbara Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 9:56 am
I will accept that John McCain has, from time to time, shown better sense than Bush — initially opposing his tax cuts for the wealthy, for instance. The problem is, being a “maverick” in your own party means that it won’t nominate you — so like it or not, if you want to be its standard bearer you more or less have to endorse those standards, except at the margins. That’s not exactly McCain’s fault, but the opportunity to do something was to actively seek over the last 15 years to change the standards to something more in keeping with what he supposedly believes. Other than some public pronouncements (e.g., the tax cuts), does anybody think McCain has evern been even remotely interested in doing this? And even when he has shown some interest, it has mostly been out of apparent self-interest (e.g., the hideous 2000 campaign tactics).
El Cid Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Darn — and here I was thinking the Gods might be showing us their forgiveness after 30 years of Reaganite punishment.
Emrys Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Evil geniuses in other circumstances become inept fools.
Ethel-To-Tilly Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 10:01 am
The loose lending standards were introduced by democrats in congress in 2000.

From Wikipedia – “The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000″:

The “Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000″ (H.R. 5660) was introduced in the House on Dec. 14, 2000 by Rep. Thomas W. Ewing (R-IL) and cosponsored by Rep. Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. (R-VA) Rep. Larry Combest (R-TX) Rep. John J. LaFalce (D-NY) Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA) and never debated in the House.[2]

The companion bill (S.3283) was introduced in the Senate on Dec. 15th, 2000 (The last day before Christmas holiday) by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and cosponsored by Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) Sen. Thomas Harkin (D-IA) Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) and never debated in the Senate.

Given the above-stated chronology, it would appear that the House and Senate versions of the bill were introduced just prior to the Christmas holiday in December of 2000, following George W Bush’s (first) election (in November of 2000), while then-President Clinton was serving out his final days as President. The bill was never debated by the House or Senate. The bill by-passed the substantive policy committees in both the House and the Senate so that there were neither hearings nor opportunities for recorded committee votes. In substance, it appears that the leadership of the Republican-controlled Senate and House incorporated the deregulation of credit default swaps into an omnibus budget bill (without hearings or recorded votes)at a time when the outgoing president was in no position to veto anything.
CitizenE Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 10:07 am
The difference is also the difference between Barack Obama and John Kerry. Obama’s Iraq position would have been even stronger in 2004.
Becca Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I think McCain has become an emblem of the past, almost a caricature. His age is more pronounced, the shaky timbre of his voice is amplified, his slogans shallow and stale. His demeanor portrays his policies.

McCain is the old 20th century “Mr Potter”. I’ll take the 21st century “George Bailey”.
cd Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 10:37 am
In other words, “Well, Obama is only beating us because he is beating us. If he wasn’t beating us we would be winning.”
On a side note, I think the Patroits losing the superbowl can attributed to the fact that the Giants played a bit better then they did (booyah).
pseudonymous in nc Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 10:41 am
’sfunny: I keep hearing Republicans blaming all their fuckups on Clifford Johnson, an elderly black man in Detroit with arthritic knees. Shame on you, Clifford.
pseudonymous in nc Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 10:48 am
But I’m also going to sit on the fence here: McCain’s a victim of circumstance in the sense that to win the Republican nomination, he felt obliged to dive into late, decadent bullshit Republicanism — the politics of deliberately pissing off people who think that Republicans are fallible — to win the primary. But that’s basically saying: McCain is the Republican standard bearer when most people want to stick the Republican standard up his arse.

I liked Josh Marshall’s point about how the McCain campaign has, like a bad prop comic, dipped into the bag for everything the party has used since about 1947. We’re ending up with ‘Obama the commie’ and Michelle HUACmann.

If the polls are borne out, 2004 may end up looking like Britain in 1992: an election that, in the long term, was more damaging for the winning party than the loser.
mpowell Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 11:01 am
You can go to TNR today to read about how this all the fault of poor campaigning my McCain. Idiots…
Matthew Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Naah, the election roulette wheel just landed on “unexplainable economic catastrophe in the face of a decade of great policy decisions” and Obama bounced a ping pong ball into the cup that said “inexplicable popularity decline of beloved Republican party for no reason”. One in a million shot. How can McCain run against the cruel hand of random chance?

http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
roger Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
The McCain campaign was, as all GOP campaigns are, a country club affair. The country club consensus in the spring was that the economy was going to get better in the fall. You’ll notice that this story line seems to have been believed by political reporters at the Post and the NYT, who like to imply that Obama “lucked out” by the economy’s dive. Any Dem, however, could tell in the spring that the writing was on the wall, and that there was not a possibility of the economy getting better in the fall, just as there isn’t a possibility, when you are in a tornado, that the winds will just suddenly stop.

I think the biggest indicator of the reason that McCain is going down to defeat is not something Palin said, but is the hilarious op ed piece written by Donald Luskin, who listed himself as a McCain advisor, two weeks before the Lehman meltdown, in which he expressed the country club view that the economy was great, and that news stories to the contrary were the work of the Obama leaning media.

Now, of course, the country clubs themselves are rattled. The brilliance of Obama’s campaign was not to think of this election in terms of the usual Clinton-oid war room mentality, but to see the campaign unfolding under the conditions that would apply in the country as a whole – conditions that would put a premium on hope and steadiness. My frustration, as a partisan, with Obama in the debates is that he didn’t make obvious zingers – and in retrospect, I can see that I absorbed the idea that this is how you win elections. Obama didn’t make those zingers because he had a consistent story to put across and the power to tell it. I’m fuckin’ amazed at the guy.
pseudonymous in nc Says:
October 27th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
On roger’s point: absolute message discipline has been a hallmark of the Obama campaign. For political junkies, that’s about as exciting as NASCAR without the crashes. The counterpoint is that it’s hard to imagine any GOP candidate who could have run the kind of focused campaign from the primaries onward.
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The Fates

29 Responses to “The Fates”

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