Be careful what you wish for

It’s a mistake for Bush’s critics to continue to diminish him by highlighting his alleged intellectual deficiencies. GWB’s selection as the Republican nominee in 2000 was the result of a careful vetting by the Right that began almost immediately after the 1996 general election. To their delight he confirmed his endorsement of their entire social, economic and foreign policy agendum. Far from being a fiasco in his 7 years in office he has delivered most of what they wanted with spectacular success. Most notably, he has added a conservative academic and a corporate lawyer to the Supreme Court. Along with being one or two votes away from overturning Roe this Supreme Court is clearly now more hospitable to the wishes of corporate America than any since the 1890’s. There were two decisions on the same day in March this year that prove this point. One of these invalidated New York State’s law to require airlines to provide a certain level of service to passengers because the Court saw that as state interference in interstate commerce. They also ruled against an inmate in Texas who was appealing his death penalty sentence by lethal injection on the grounds that an international court had ordered the U.S. Federal government to review the death penalty cases of some foreign inmates in U.S. prisons. The majority ruled that the Federal government had no right to compel states to do this review. The clear message was that states rights are good when they benefit conservative social causes but are bad when they are a pain for business. Even Bush’s failure to rein in spending and the resultant mega deficit has a silver lining: it puts more fiscal pressure on programs that they hate such as social security and Medicare. Washington will be hard pressed to provide much relief if the economic downturn proves as severe as some including Warren Buffet fear. And in foreign affairs the belligerence of this government on the world stage is not a bad thing for them despite the Iraq debacle.

How different from GWB’s presidency would McCain’s be? McCain has been mindful of the difficulties that his maverick posture in 2000 caused to his political career. His rating from the American Conservative Union has steadily increased since then and as of 2007 it is 80. His enthusiasm for our involvement in Iraq is well known and he will not change the course of this war in any significant way. His “straight talk” approach to social spending is to tell displaced workers in manufacturing that their jobs will not be coming back and that his administration can not offer much in the way of assistance. This echoes Bill Kristol’s words back in 1992 to American’s who were being hurt by that recession. That advice was that they should look to “stoicism and prayer” as a means to get them through their tribulations. There is every indication that McCain will also continue to use Bush’s criteria in selecting Supreme Court nominees should there be more vacancies (there almost certainly will be considering the average age of the Justices).

How differently are Clinton’s and Obama’s platform in response to McCain’s? The answer is significantly if we use their ACU rating as a measure. It’s the opposite of McCain’s and Clinton and Obama are pretty much alike in that opposition. Except for some differences on health care approaches their platforms could not be more similar.

I seriously doubt that the Romney and Huckabee supporters who threatened during the early primary season to vote for a Democrat should McCain become the nominee will really do so if either Clinton or Obama is the nominee. Clinton supporters who promise to vote for McCain or just sit out the election if Obama is the nominee and Obama supporters who threaten to do the same in the face of a Clinton nomination need to seriously consider the real consequences of continuing Republican rule for at least another four years.