|
By Jeffrey A. Rendall, 4/16/08 They almost looked odd, the two of them standing there on a stage together for the first time in six weeks. Seeing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton together hasn’t been rare and certainly isn’t new or fresh, but still there was something quirky and novel about the whole thing – their meeting on a warm spring evening in the city of ‘Brotherly Love,’ Philadelphia. The event was held at Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center, and both candidates paid respects to the document and to the Founding Fathers in their opening statements – but what would the authors of the Constitution think about the contorted interpretation of federal power being espoused by these two? Hillary and Obama have been crisscrossing Pennsylvania for over a month, trading insults and gaffes, each trying desperately to make the Keystone State the other’s political Waterloo. Over a month ago, Obama carried a small but significant delegate lead into the state and looked nearly invincible until the flare-up over his association with Pastor Jeremiah Wright came to the forefront. Conservative radio host Sean Hannity’s done a spectacular job of exposing the controversial minister, and nearly all of us can probably quote directly from Wright’s most notorious sermon sound bites – ‘God D--- America’ amongst the words echoing through America’s collective brain. When that came out, many probably figured that Obama was finished – especially when the Illinois Senator would only disavow the ‘words’ and not the ‘man.’ Then Hillary proved that she could wrest away the spotlight from even an anti-American racist bigot. Hillary’s repeated recitation of the ‘tale’ of her landing in Bosnia (in 1994, ducking ‘sniper fire’), and then the subsequent exposure of her blatant lies was enough to send the popular wave the other way. Catch a Clinton in a lie? Say it isn’t so. And then the pendulum seemed to swing back again to Obama last week with his elitist comments about ‘bitter’ citizens in small town America who’ve turned to religion and guns to divert their attention from the utter miseries of being forced to reside in the good ‘ol US of A. So the stage was set for a contentious exchange between the two wounded candidates, an opportunity for both of them to try and achieve some separation from the other, to finally prove that the other candidate’s half of the Democratic voters had been flat wrong during the primary season – that the man or the woman was really the clear choice, which would be played out next week when Pennsylvanians go to the polls, hopefully to settle the matter once and for all. And it didn’t happen. I don’t know why I’m surprised, or maybe it’s because I listen to the pundits too much – here was a chance for one of the candidates to really start landing some body blows on the other, and neither took it… again. Perhaps some political advisor or focus group told them to play ‘nice’ when they’re together, but both candidates just don’t seem to have the gumption to get nasty (at least in each other’s presence). Or maybe it was the persistent uncomfortable questioning from ABC’s debate moderators Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos that kept them on their toes. Both candidates were clearly uneasy with the topics, which ranged from Obama’s association with Wright, to Hillary’s ‘lies,’ to whether they’d take Mario Cuomo’s advice and agree in advance to choose the other as the ‘2nd choice’ on the Democratic ticket, to what they’d specifically do to reduce gas prices. Seeing as this was the twenty-first Democratic debate, ABC News deserves a lot of credit for posing subjects that largely hadn’t received much attention, at least in a debate format. There was the perfunctory question on the Iraq War, but thankfully there wasn’t any direct exchange on their respective health care plans, and we didn’t even have to hear much about the mortgage ‘crisis’ and their socialistic solutions. Both were asked about their respective plans for ‘taxing the rich,’ and to reveal an income number from which they would pledge not raise taxes. Now there’s good comedy where Democrats are concerned, as both practically swallowed their tongues in trying to avoid having to promise not to raise taxes. Winner? Neither, but from this observer’s chair, Barack Obama was more poised. I paid particular attention to Obama’s ability to wade through the difficult questions – and while he clearly was stumbling for words on many occasions, he seems much more ‘sincere’ than Hillary in the effort. Obama without a script is not a sight to behold, but there appears to be more character than with his opponent – but that’s something that most people would come to expect. The words ‘character’ and ‘Clinton’ do not often collide in the same sentence. Another ‘odd’ observation – Chelsea Clinton comes to all these debates, and the camera periodically catches her prideful (if phony) smiles in support of her mom, but neither ‘first-spouse’ is ever there to lend a watchful eye. Michelle Obama and Bubba Bill Clinton were conspicuously absent, as they have been at most of these forums. It’s unlikely that this debate helped sway undecided Democrats in either direction, though the groundwork was definitely laid for some contention during the general election season. For the first time, one could easily imagine either of these candidates sharing a forum with John McCain – I don’t know if that’s something to look forward to, or to dread. Guns and Populism Both candidates emphasized repeatedly the ‘frustration’ that Americans are experiencing with their government and their individual lots on life – and to listen to them constantly throw out personal stories about all the downtrodden that they’ve met on the campaign trail is truly becoming nauseating. There will certainly be those in any free society that are left chasing the prosperity train, but if you listened long and hard enough to Hillary and Obama, you’d have a hard time believing that the unemployment rate in this country is near all-time lows. They say there’s lots of misery out there – and for their electoral prospects, they appear almost hopeful that that’s the case. Hillary in particular is fond of discussing all the folks that she’s ‘met,’ who apparently have stories to tell about how the Republican-led government has failed them – failed to save them from ‘predatory’ lending, from terminal disease, from the ravages of ‘corporations’ and from themselves – Hillary sounds like she’s ready to knock on every door in the country with clipboard in hand. She’ll write down every household’s particular needs and wants, and then return to Washington to devise a federal solution. The Republican-led government has betrayed us alright, but not because it’s failed to solve all our personal problems – it’s because it’s failed to stay out of them. Most people don’t want George W. Bush’s ‘compassion,’ and that goes double for Hillary or Obama’s. Perhaps the most ironic question of the evening concerned 2nd Amendment rights, where both Hillary and Obama repeatedly tripped over themselves in trying to ‘defend’ a citizen’s right to own firearms, yet also give power to states and local jurisdictions to ‘regulate’ and deny that ownership. The one-year anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre provided the perfect backdrop for such a discussion, a real chance for both Democrats to lay on the anti-gun rhetoric – and both largely took advantage of it. Hillary suddenly became a proponent of states’ rights while she continually dodged whether or not she supported Washington DC’s complete gun ban. Hillary doesn’t care a lick about local control of such important issues like education or property rights, but suddenly she’s all over the federalism question when it comes to guns. In Hillary’s world, federal power is only a good thing when it comes to furthering the nanny-state. Taxes, taxes, taxes One particularly interesting exchange concerned taxes, deficits and revenues. Both candidates had devoted much time to beating up the Bush Administration for adding to the federal deficit (richly deserved), but when it comes down to balancing the budget and paying for their federal programs, where’s the money going to come from? Obama reiterated that he would actually cut the federal tax burden for those making less than $75,000, but with this group already carrying such a minute amount of the income tax burden, how is that going to make much of a difference? Both Hillary and Obama are fond of beating up on the ‘wealthy,’ the typical Democrat line of attack – that the well-off are a group of scofflaws who employ lawyers and accountants in sinister attempts to avoid the federal tax man. But what they fail to reveal in their populist rhetoric is the plain fact that if you’re going to cut taxes, it’s probably going to have to come from a group that actually pays taxes. Liberals have plenty of opportunity to reduce the federal tax burden on individuals, should they choose to head in that direction. They could always slash the payroll tax, the corporate tax or the gasoline tax, just to name a few. The dreaded capital gains tax (which was brought up during the debate) is another area where a cut would benefit many, many people. But the discussion always comes back to income taxes, where the Democratic demagoguery is at its height. Both candidates assured their constituents that their taxes wouldn’t be going up, though Obama wouldn’t rule out lifting the cap on wages subject to social security withholdings. Character, or lack thereof As alluded to above, much of the first part of the debate focused on Obama’s association with Reverend Wright, then on Hillary’s fabricated story about avoiding sniper-fire in Bosnia. Character has very much become an issue in this campaign, and both Democrats seem desperate in their attempts to change the subject. Obama repeatedly said that such delving into his personal past and church is a ‘distraction’ from the ‘real’ issues of the election, but is it? If a white candidate were a member at a church that preached racial and national hatred, would that be a mere ‘distraction’ for the population at large? Obama can make all the claims that he wants – his long-time association with the race-based civil rights establishment will continue to be an issue in the campaign, because it gets down to what the potential president really believes. Would Obama invite Reverend Wright to his inauguration ceremony? Would he put his hand on a Bible? Likewise, Hillary was almost dismissive of her Bosnia lies. She acknowledged that she’d written about the incident in a book and that she was in error in doctoring up the story – but that doesn’t explain how she lied repeatedly about the incident. If she’s lying about Bosnia, couldn’t she be equally stretching the truth about all these ‘citizens’ that she meets on her campaign stops? Are they a figment of her imagination too? If we can’t trust these candidates to associate with reputable individuals or to even tell the truth, how would we feel good about handing them the keys to the White House and to have a say on the use of the federal treasury? As much as they’re trying to get around it, character counts – and neither Hillary nor Obama appears to possess any. Break-up of the odd couple Maybe it’s because we’ve seen them together so often, but watching Hillary and Obama on a stage behind lecterns is becoming ‘stranger’ all the time. Perhaps it’s campaign fatigue, but Obama is looking taller and more gaunt all the time, and Hillary is appearing shorter and more elfin – with her spiked up, bleached blonde coif being etched into the pixels on our television screens. Then you take a step back and remember that we’ve still got a couple months of the primary season to go, then the Democratic convention, then the general election – and Lord forbid, if one of them wins, we’ll be subjected to him or her for years. Brace yourself. But there’s also some comfort in knowing that this ‘odd couple’ is on the verge of break-up. One of them will be going away very soon, and conservatives will be able to turn their attention towards the real ‘debate,’ which is whether or not to support John McCain for president. That’s a very difficult and troubling question – but the notion of voting for Hillary or Obama is an easy one to answer, and any principled conservative could not even consider voting for one of these two. So we’ll just let the odd couple go their separate ways and get down to the dirty work of trying to determine what to do with the Republican Party. And that doesn’t sound like much fun at all. |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|