So, now John McCain is also running on the platform of "change." He's going to storm Washington - where he's already been a major player for almost three decades - as the new sheriff in town.
I've tried to be generous in my thinking about this, but here's why I can't make it fit. As I see it, there are four ways to read "change" in a presidential election.
1) Executive change. The actual person changes ... that's inevitable here, so John McCain can't own it.
2) Party change. The fact that the Rs have been in the executive branch for the last eight years completely undercuts this as well.
3) Policy change. It's this argument: "So, okay, we're the same party, but we're DEFINITELY going to be different this time." I might have believed that from the John McCain of 2000, but the John McCain of 2008 has adopted most of the current republican orthodoxy to make him more soluble with the base of the party. Plus, if anything, his platform adopts the MORE extreme right versions of existing policy. To give him the benefit of the doubt, that might be change, but it's disingenuous marketing at best.
4) Process change. This is a more complicated thing to deal with, and it's nearly impossible to sell during an election, which is why I think McCain-Palin has latched on to this idea of "reform." It's basically what they're trying to say about Palin in Alaska: "She's from the same party, and she believes in essentially the same things, but she's a reformer and she's going to do things differently."
Now, I understand there is nuance to running a complex organization, and there's arguably nothing in the world more complex - organizationally - than the U.S. federal government. So, yes, CHANGING the way that works could be extremely beneficial, and a person from the same party as - and with the same policy perspectives of - the incumbent could theoretically make "change" happen.
The problem for McCain here is twofold. First, he's brought into his fold all of the proteges of the folks that ran Bush's last two campaigns. So, in the only instances in which he could have opted to pursue a different strategy than his republican forbears, he has opted NOT to do so. Second, given the fact that the republicans have been in power for eight years, where exactly is McCain going to find all of the ideologically identical republicans who are suddenly capable of AND willing to work the system differently? From a practical standpoint, anyone who has tried to "reform" an entrenched bureaucracy knows that talk is cheap and that most systems revert to the "path of least resistance." Especially when there are outside actors with a huge vested interest in the status quo (i.e. think tanks, K street, etc.). For a bunch of ideologue carbon copies, I have no reason to think a McCain presidency would be any different.
-Education Dude
I've tried to be generous in my thinking about this, but here's why I can't make it fit. As I see it, there are four ways to read "change" in a presidential election.
1) Executive change. The actual person changes ... that's inevitable here, so John McCain can't own it.
2) Party change. The fact that the Rs have been in the executive branch for the last eight years completely undercuts this as well.
3) Policy change. It's this argument: "So, okay, we're the same party, but we're DEFINITELY going to be different this time." I might have believed that from the John McCain of 2000, but the John McCain of 2008 has adopted most of the current republican orthodoxy to make him more soluble with the base of the party. Plus, if anything, his platform adopts the MORE extreme right versions of existing policy. To give him the benefit of the doubt, that might be change, but it's disingenuous marketing at best.
4) Process change. This is a more complicated thing to deal with, and it's nearly impossible to sell during an election, which is why I think McCain-Palin has latched on to this idea of "reform." It's basically what they're trying to say about Palin in Alaska: "She's from the same party, and she believes in essentially the same things, but she's a reformer and she's going to do things differently."
Now, I understand there is nuance to running a complex organization, and there's arguably nothing in the world more complex - organizationally - than the U.S. federal government. So, yes, CHANGING the way that works could be extremely beneficial, and a person from the same party as - and with the same policy perspectives of - the incumbent could theoretically make "change" happen.
The problem for McCain here is twofold. First, he's brought into his fold all of the proteges of the folks that ran Bush's last two campaigns. So, in the only instances in which he could have opted to pursue a different strategy than his republican forbears, he has opted NOT to do so. Second, given the fact that the republicans have been in power for eight years, where exactly is McCain going to find all of the ideologically identical republicans who are suddenly capable of AND willing to work the system differently? From a practical standpoint, anyone who has tried to "reform" an entrenched bureaucracy knows that talk is cheap and that most systems revert to the "path of least resistance." Especially when there are outside actors with a huge vested interest in the status quo (i.e. think tanks, K street, etc.). For a bunch of ideologue carbon copies, I have no reason to think a McCain presidency would be any different.
-Education Dude
2 comments:
you guys are blogging too much. cut it out.
A couple of points in reference to what you said in the last paragraph, "From a practical standpoint, anyone who has tried to "reform" an entrenched bureaucracy knows that talk is cheap and that most systems revert to the "path of least resistance."
We all know politicians will always be politicians, and that is one thing I feel, especially in American politics, will never change. With that said, within the last 12 months Senator McCain has showed us, in some instances--surely not all--that he won't take the "path of least resistance." In an ever growing, unpopular war with US death tolls climbing monthly, Senator McCain voted for the troop surge in December of 2007 when an overwhelming majority of our country's citizens and lawmakers said enough is enough.
Well our "unbiased" media no longer leads opening news reels with stories of what's going in Iraq because it's not bleeding enough. Why? Because on p.13 below the fold you'll read stories about how violence in Iraq is at its lowest levels since the war began roughly 5 and half years ago.
Another instance, where McCain has showed he's not afraid to not take the "path of least resistance" is his choice of running mate Sarah Palin. 99.9% of the country, including myself, had no idea who Sarah Palin was until one week ago, and now she's in the national spotlight as just the second woman in our nation's history to accept the Vice Presidential nomination of a major political party. That to me is change. Many republicans argue that he should have chosen a Huckabee, Guiliani, Romney, etc... but John McCain said, screw that, I'm going to choose who I think will be the best running mate.
The same could be said for Senator Obama, who could have easily named Senator Clinton as his running mate, vacationed for 4 months, only to come back just in time to attend his Inauguration.
To me, this is what is so exciting about this upcoming election. Both candidates seem as though they don't want to take the "path of least resistance", regardless of where they stand on the issues. They have raised the level of debate in this country 100%, and have gotten millions of Americans paying attention to politics again.
Because perhaps somewhere driving along the "path of least resistance" at $4-5 a gallon many American's realized instead of tuning into American Idol, they better sit down and figure out what the hell is going on in the world.
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