An Endless Campaign
Clinton vs. McCain vs. Obama
Obama’s Unknowns
I still maintain that Obama is the easier candidate for McCain for a variety of reasons that remain unchanged. He has no experience in adversarial politics, neither at the state nor federal level. Just five years ago, no American knew who he was. He has never weathered a hostile press conference; and to the degree an obsequious press has ever rubbed him wrong, he seemed offended and off-putting. His wife is a complete loose cannon, far more so than was Teresa Kerry or Hillary Clinton. In a current fawning piece in The New Yorker, we nevertheless still hear her in action:
Back in the Explorer, I asked [Michelle] Obama if she thought that her husband, as the Democratic nominee, could take John McCain. “Oh, yeah. We got him,” she replied.
We “got him”—as if the Harvard duo have had far more life experiences than the man whipped and tortured at the Hanoi Hilton?
Her speeches are tales of woe, with the constant Hillarian refrain “People, ask me how do you do it!” Then references to camp, lessons for kids, etc follow, with the usual Ivy League Law School loans to repay.
I keep expecting a John McCain to say, “People stop me all the time, and ask, “John, how do you do it when you can’t raise your arms above your head?”
It’s Not Over!
I had a bet with Peter Robinson that Clinton, Inc. would pull out all the stops. I think I will win it. Note the story line emerging: (1) Florida and Michigan should not be “disenfranchised”; (3) the “big” important states, won by popular votes, should not count as much as small red-state “caucuses”; (4) the candidate going into the convention with the more recent wins and the momentum should not be denied; (5) the duty of the super delegate is to weigh the intangibles that transcend mere states won or lost; (6) the Democratic primaries simply don’t reflect popular will, when a Hillary can win Ohio by a landslide (add CA, MASS, NJ, NY, etc.) and yet pick up scarcely more delegates than the loser Obama; (6) how can a caucus delegate in a small state count more that the aggregate votes of thousands in a big-state primary?
And all these innuendos are before we get to Clintonian arm-twisting of the super delegates, and the return of Carville, Begala, et al. I admire Obama for taking on and nearly dismantling this machine. But he is in a vampirish war where the stake must be driven and left in the heart. So he will have to welcome the fray, go head-to-head with the Press, reply in kind to Hillary, and stop the messianic come-to-Jesus holy man approach—that, yes, got him where he is (but I don’t think any further).
Meanwhile McCain
There is a great opening for McCain in the Dickensian rhetoric of the Democrats. His more honest review of issues rather than horror stories of the hapless eventually will come across as the more serious.
In contrast, their speeches are simply strung-together macabre stories of the repossessed, evicted, uninsured, gas-less, car-less, and undernourished—in other words, just about the opposite of what you see in a Wal-Mart parking lot. I just went to one, in one of the poorest cities in one of the poorest counties in California. The people had nice cars (and big 4×4 trucks!), there was a line at the electronics and photo-lab section check-out lines; 85% of the people seemed to be on cell phones; 60% could be charitably characterized as moderately overweight; and the carts most definitely were not just full of staples.
So far McCain talks of America as an idea, a society in it together, his opponents as the loose confederation of various groups and constituencies, each with a higher insatiable claim on the public purse than its rival.
Which America?
So what is the real America? Two points: one, 4-7% are in dire straits, either jobless, facing home repossession, or without some type of medical coverage—in other words, somewhere around 12-20 million. And that is something society should try to address and must. But the notion that the country as a whole suffers these maladies, or that they are entirely induced by outside forces, or that individuals don’t have some responsibility for their fates is ludicrous.
The second, is that with $4 a gallon gas looming, a global recession perhaps on the horizon, massive collective debt, and a psychological mood of retrenchment, perhaps half the country will need to scale back a notch or two—but from a level of existing privilege and affluence that is simply staggering.
Not the 1970s
While killing time at the kidney-stone doctor, I was browsing through a recent sales catalogue of homes in the Fresno area. What struck me was not that they are discounted or not selling, but rather the sheer size and amenities in comparison to their counterparts in the 1970s.
My parents bought a small (1200 sq ft) tract house in Santa Cruz ($25,550) in 1972. It was fairly typical of a new mass- produced home of the era. The bedrooms were small, the baths tiny, the kitchen as well, with a single car garage and minuscule yard. In comparison today’s new tract home has the unimaginable, kitchens with granite, stainless steel enormous appliances, bathrooms designed for aristocrats, etc.. My point is simply that our homes, our TVs, our cars, almost everything we use are far bigger, nicer, better than what the 1970s offered, and to such a degree that the difference is not conveyed by a mere word “house” or “car”.
Our 1972 Olds 98 (my dad bought it used) in terms of reliability, comfort, ease of driving, and safety was a relic, a deathtrap, a clunker compared to a 2007 Honda Accord or Toyota Camry. None of these considerations appear in statistics about income, unemployment, purchasing power, etc.
After all, how do you measure the value of a lap-top with wifi, or the notion that you can sit at Starbucks and have a 10-million volume library at your fingertips? What does one pay for that privilege? At the same Wal-Mart, I was behind someone who spoke no English and seemed to have just arrived from Mexico. He was talking to no one in particular but very loudly—and then I noticed he had a high-priced blue-tooth remote cell on his ear—an appurtenance only a Wall-Street financier would have had just 10 years ago. This is not the first time I have noticed the access to high-tech electronic goods and purchasing power of our seemingly most underpriveleged citizens.
Yesterday, (as an example of the widely diverse information at our fingertips) I was tracing a short in my car, and trying to finish an ancient Greek composition. I got online in 5 seconds to download the Honda service manual, and also glimpse at Woodhouse’s English-Greek (reverse) dictionary for the proper word for “outlaw” in ancient Greek (wanted to know whether it was phugas or adikôn), a reference work that I could never have afforded to buy even as used. So life is richer, more varied, and, yes, better than before, and not even Barack Obama can convince one otherwise.
A Sad Campaign
The public doesn’t want bromides like Obama’s “Change” and “Hope” but honesty and detailed analysis and suggestions. Instead we get from Obama and Hillary let’s go green, get solar and wind and, presto, get off foreign oil! There is no information offered along the following lines: A is how many barrels we import; B is how many we consume daily; C is the shortfall; D is how we can make up the difference with a. more drilling; b, more conservation; c. alternative energy sources; d. nuclear power; or e. flex fuels.
That would take about 30 seconds of a candidate’s speech. Better yet, he/she could say I support a or b or c and d, but not e and here’s why. And because Obama sets the professed bar of honesty and transparency so high, he falls the most into hypocrisy when his platitudes are even more empty than the others.
When he and Hillary go at it, trying to oubid each other in entitlements and new programs for an apparently 1930s America, they sound like feuding Roman wannabe emperors, each offering the Praetorian Guard more cash and the public more bread and circuses.
Sierra Splendor
I’ve been up to Huntington Lake again this week. In some places (remember this is nearing mid-March) the snow has drifted up to 10 feet and more in depth (and another storm is coming). At about 2 PM it was in the 60s, bright and sunny. Again what struck me was that on weekends, a mere 1 ¼ hours away from the greater Fresno area of 1 million, the place was completely empty, hardly a soul except for hard-core snow-mobilers. One would think a family might get in their used Toyota, drive the 130 miles round-trip, spend their $20 in gas, and experience spectacular views, crystal clear air, warm temperatures and snow everywhere. And yet again not more than 5-6 seemed to be doing that. Are the alternatives of TV, the video game, the Internet, the mall, Wal-Mart/K-mart/Costco still available in Depression-era America?
Dr. Hanson,
Your recognition and appreciation for the shear abundance we enjoy in America is spot on. If the opportunity presents itself, have a look around your local public high school. The average student where I teach travels to school daily with more electronics in his rucksack than I have in my entire house: laptop, i-pod, cell phone, and other gadgets I can’t even identify. I sometimes take the opportunity in class to contrast their lifestyle with that of my father who grew up on a chicken farm during The Great Depression: no plumbing, wood burning stove, only recently electrified, and the family’s one prize possession – a radio. You will not know the true meaning of “entitlement” until you examine the state of our youth culture today.
apparently obama cant take being treated roughly (finally asked relevant, salient questions) by the press without peevishly complaining. unsurprisingly, he doesnt sound half so messiah-like when he’s in a snit.
somebody needs to tell michelle that black is not her color, and yes, that dress does make her derriere look big.
i voted for hillary in the texas primary (took a pass on the caucus), but i didnt need rush limbaugh to tell me to do so. i didnt have to be a genius to figure out that enabling the democrat crazy quilt of a primary contest might just aid the republicans in the long run.
my husband is fond of saying that stores like walmart allow lower middle class individuals to live a middle class lifestyle. my daughter likes it well enough to work there.
we are downsizing and we preach its attributes like a new religion to our old neighbors. we are very popular at our local salvation army store, which acted as a conduit for a sizable portion of what used to be out stuff.
yes, things are afoot, change is in the air. but it isnt the kind of change that obama hankers after. it’s individuals taking care of themselves and each other, trying to be responcible, each in his or her own way. mccain fits that sort of lifestyle way more than obama or clinton.
what i wouldnt give to be 65 miles from a mountain range; a hardy hill would do…
Dr. Hanson- I won’t presuppose that you remember me. We met at the University of Minnesota Law School a year and half ago when the de Tocqueville Society invited you to speak on the reasons we needed to stay in Iraq. I was the one who asked if the conflict with the IU president was ever resolved (as humor).I also asked about the number of foreign fighters in Iraq and their impact.I then briefly talked to you after your address and asked if you had ever received royalties from your interview with Hugh Hewitt on the history of war (you hadn’t).
I had thought that Hillary would have made the better candidate for McCain to face. High negatives, her candidacy would also certainly be a reason that would draw many reluctant Republicans out to vote if for no other reason than to end the Clinton era once and for all. A genuine vote against Bill and Hillary.
That being said, you make quite valid points. Obama’s temperament was certainly on display as he walked away from his press conference yesterday justifying his exit by stating he’d answered at least eight questions (obviously few enough that he could keep track). It also appears that his relationship with Tony Rezko is birthing more questions all the time. And I agree that he has never really been in a situation that required a legitimate testing. Or at least a testing on a national stage. Platitudes make quite poor policy. I had heard that there are quite different skill sets needed to run a primary election (nominating) campaign than to run a general election campaign that are altogether different than those required to run the office of POTUS. It would appear that Obama’s failings that you pointed out would become readily apparent in a general election campaign.
Agreeing with your comparison of 1972 America and 2008 America though, my concern is that do we as Americans now believe that there should never be business cycles? That 5% unemployment is the new ceiling? That our 401k’s will always be higher quarter on quarter? That oil companies are seen as greedy for making a profit only one quarter as much as the government takes in from taxes on gasoline? That all mortgages should always be affordable? Foreclosures are always the “overly aggressive” lenders fault and never the “poor victimized” borrower’s? I remember someone describing my generation (Boomer) as the Expectation Generation. That if we worked hard we fully presumed to earn and be well off. But, the author was deeply concerned that the following generation would be the Entitlement Generation. That by being born and showing up they were entitled to and would demand satisfaction. I see Hillary and Obama appealing to that basic spoiled and irrational child flaw. If true, then even my generation has arrived at an attitude of entitlement that bodes ill for America.
I keep expecting a John McCain to say, “People stop me all the time, and ask, “John, how do you do it when you can’t raise your arms above your head?”
Devastating, absolutely devastating! I hope to hear Senator McCain say this.
And the Obamas won’t be saying “Uff-da” when confronted with this.
I may be adding one more voice to the “halleluiah chorus” here, but once again Dr. Hanson has reflected on and accurately recorded what any observant person has in our nation; that we are awash in plenty. To be sure, there are those who are in poverty and in need, but it is not the legions that the Democratic Oracles of Woe and Clarions of Calamity would have us believe.
And I have had similar scenarios as Dr. Hanson when I have accessed online technical manuals and then surfed over to see what the weather radar looked like, all on the PC in MY SHOP!
It is apparent to anyone paying even the slightest attention to the popular culture, the shopping malls, TV and movies and what passes for entertainment is that by and large we have a culture that has way too much money and time on its hands already as it races breathlessly from one shiny trinket to another in the vain hope of filling the voids. As a culture we may have a paucity of spirit, and many are addicted to the government promises of “something for nothing” but we certainly all have enough “stuff”.
The reason politicians from neither party will address the very reasonable energy questions Professor Hanson asks in this post is because the numbers are not encouraging, at least in the short term. And if a politician honestly addressed any of the questions, he or she may have to speak of “sacrifice” and “risk” for the sake of future generations and that simply isn’t going to fly, at least not yet.
Another great column. Nails everything I’ve been saying myself lately- namely, does anyone remember the 1970′s? All of this kvetching about the economy, blah blah blah. Yeah it’s tough, I guess…Or not. Yeah maybe if you get into a stupid frenzy and borrow way more money than you should to buy a severely overpriced house because you absolutely refuse to even acknowledge the history of property markets. Here’s a fun one- google ‘LA housing bubble’ and an article FROM 1984 shows up from the NY Times. It’s good for a few laughs.
Thing is I just lived a few years in Louisiana, spent time in Mississippi- supposedly the poorest states in the union. Like your experience in Fresno- a whole lot of new trucks, abundance, etc. Of course the retort of all of my lefty friends is “yeah on credit!!”. Hmmn, some of it, but gee is that iPod on credit, or that nice new laptop? We live in times with a tremendous lack of perspective and a tremendous amount of hubris… What the hell do these people expect from a nation, from a society? A damn spa in their house? Spas for everyone!! Oh wait, they already have that. Sheesh, I’m not even that old and I know this stuff! People have lost their minds and their perspective.
Thanks again for your always excellent work.
Q 1) “He has never weathered a hostile press conference”;
A 1) Nor will he. No Republican candidate would be encased in the protective airtight bubble that Sen. Obama has enjoyed, given even remotely similar circumstances as we find when the curtains are pulled back just a smidgen.
Sen. Obama will never be questioned by a hostile MetaStasisMedia about his continued attachment to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. Ever.
Had a Republican candidate been deeply involved and affiliated with an organization that heaped praise upon David Duke, would that candidate been given a free pass with a mere “disagree with some, agree with some” flippancy?
Hardly. The question would have been hammered home, if this is the flock you choose, are we to assume similar feathers?
Were the signs not clearly evident prior to today? It’s not just that you disagree or renounce, the question is, why is this the company you seek? And why is this the company you keep?
If a person’s hateful, bigoted, fringe, bizarre, seditious, behavior and attitudes become known to me…and I keep that person close, closer, closest…does that signal how comfortable I am with that Worldview? Is the question unreasonable?
Set aside for a moment the strong divisiveness that wafts from the TUCC on racial grounds, it is the groundswell of class warfare that really fuels its negative energy.
Angry Socialism is its neutrino, and it can’t help but pass through the congregation, invisible to the naked eye, but relentless nonetheless. Would you continue to support such an institution? Would you choose it for the altar of your holiest rituals? Embrace it to your bosom and cleave it to your soul?
Would a Republican be free from hostility for attending EVEN ONCE a parallel extreme right service?
And would a Republican be awash in yawns and abject apathy from a press conference horde of the MetaStasisMedia, if he had met with Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols and described them as “friends”?
Again, the issue is not how closely tied Sen. Obama is to fringe Angry Socialists, but that his comfort with them is undeniable. And that a Republican with parallel ties to fringe terrorists and seditionists would be a raging public storm by now.
If a Republican had been able to swing a sweetheart land deal with a political fixer, would his dalliance be swept under the rug, because he said it was “boneheaded”?
The New York Times and the rest of the MetaStasisMedia seem to be more interested in a dalliance with pretty girls that may not have even existed.
Q2)”Her speeches are tales of woe”
A2)Not surprisingly, Sen. Obama needs to play good cop, so someone has to play bad cop in order to whip the class/race warfare crowd into a frenzy. It would be pretty difficult to blame America for his middle class childhood upbringing, partially spent in Jakarta, coddled by loving family who sent him to exclusive private schools and for his Ivy League undergraduate and law degrees.
But, the MetaStasisMedia won’t lay a glove on Mrs. Obama. She has been able to secure an Ivy League education, work for Sidley & Austin, amass annual income in the highest levels of our society, sit on a number of boards,… but lacks pride in America throughout her adult life, because we are an angry, mean, slothful, ugly, nation.
I realize that I am one of the Unbidden Americans, but I don’t even recognize the country of which she speaks with such scorn and distaste.
Sloth? If anything, we work too hard and too long and don’t take time to smell the roses. Mean? There isn’t a natural disaster around the world where we don’t try to find a way to help, and then suffer guilt at not having helped enough.
How and when did the world of Angry Socialists pull so far apart from the Unbidden Americans? Sen. Obama says he wants to heal and seeks a laying of hands on us, while his wife raises her to slap our faces time after time. When they at home alone, whose America do they see together?
“their speeches are simply strung-together macabre stories of the repossessed, evicted, uninsured, gas-less, car-less, and undernourished—”
Angry Socialists need anecdotal evidence to fuel the fury. Statistical evidence is not going to support their causes. Facts are unfriendly. The “masses” are being oppressed by the “establishment”.
“We are the ones we have been waiting for”. There are no hard questions for Sen. Obama in our future. Because we aren’t the ones anyone is waiting for, we are the ones they have been waiting to discard.
message to sen, obama: welcome to the “monster” ball.
something there is that cant control the uber-dissing remarks of a senior aide.
the obama campaign may just succeed in doing what was thought to be impossible since around ’92, making people feel sorry for hillary.
1. Check out last weekend’s WSJ. Michelle O has copied the hairstyle, clothes and accessories (sans pillbox hat) of Jackie Kennedy.
I submit this was *not* an accident.
2. At the end of the same “New Yorker” piece the author wrote, “Three days later I couldn’t recall a thing Obama said, but I still felt good.”
This was written well over a month ago.
At that point I knew white libs had turned on HRC and had their new JFK.
What a joke.
While VDH and many here are absolutely correct in pointing out that we live a life of much greater plenty today than we did in the 1970s (and I was there too), I get a little exhausted with the morally pessimistic refrain that people just want too much; that’s why there was a housing bubble; and that’s what the whole problem is.
The real problem for our economy is not the relatively few buyers who mortgaged too much and might be foreclosed on. The real problem for the ECONOMY is the dramatic nationwide loss of wealth held as home equity over the past two years — for millions and millions of solvent homeowners who are making their payments just fine.
More than 80% of new business start-ups and small business expansions are backed by equity in residential real estate. And as we know, 70% of new jobs created in ANY quarter are created by small business.
Moreover, home equity is the prime wealth sump tapped for other activities with direct and indirect economic impact, from home improvement to major consumable purchases to sending kids to college.
Let’s also keep in mind that with a growing and increasingly affluent population, and with land use in urban areas increasingly restricted by government, housing prices HAVE to go up. It’s not stupid to expect them to. Let’s further keep in mind that the most “absurdly” expensive housing, such as $1.2m 900-square-foot bungalows in LA and San Francisco, has NOT lost value. It’s the new additions in the exurbs, where people were mistaken to borrow $400K two years ago, that are infested today with “Bank Owned” signs.
The real issue, which we may not see clearly for some time, is that the economic model used by all our government agencies has no use for home equity. The Fed is like the rest of them: it does not see home equity as a wealth source for investment (as in small business), but solely as a driver to overconsumption — the famous “excess liquidity” that is held to lead to inflation.
When the Fed raises interest rates, it is trying to drive the investment dollar away from real estate equity, and into market securities investment, which its model sees as THE source of capital for business investment. Individuals are not entrepreneurs in the standard economic model; to be most precise, entrepreneurs make no quantifiable, model-able economic difference. Individuals consume and earn wages; only corporate business “invests” — and the health of its investment sources is measured through securities markets and lending institutions.
The Fed in 2006 actually intended to depress home equity by raising interest rates, because the economic model sees it as an inflationary evil. And in a way, the Fed has gotten exactly what it wanted: home equity down, many people tightening their belts and holding off on projects that would represent business and jobs to millions, because the equity in their homes has declined.
Notably, the Fed has not brought inflation in consumer goods down, however. And slowing economic activity is inevitable, as the slowing housing market leaves buyers and owners uncertain about home values, and therefore about their own individual economic situations.
We don’t need to lower interest rates any further. The Fed needs to leave them alone, for at least a year, and let people regain confidence in the real estate market.
For some good reading on the documented relation of home equity to entrepreneurship, individual investment, and national economic health, see Hernando de Soto’s The Mystery of Capital. Larry Kudlow is another good writer on this topic.
First, that McCain joke while in questionable taste is by far the funniest thing I have heard in weeks,
Second, after having left Northern California two years ago to return to my native Houston, whenever you write about visiting, even just to drive through the Sierras, or even just driving down the Western slope into the Great Valley, I just don’t understand why almost none of my friends in California ever left the immediate Bay Area. Heck almost no one I knew ever visited the coast ranges in San Mateo County, or went north of the Marin Headlands, when for myself, even just heading over Altamount Pass into Tracy always felt like magic. Over holy week, I will drive over 700 miles across Texas flatness to the Guadalupe Mountains to see scenery that while unique, has nothing on any single county in California.
The undercutting irony is that Obama and Friends are probably very aware, cynically so, that things are not such a horrific mess…no starving multitudes, no cancer victims dying in sidewalk doorways, etc. In a grand spin on Reality, they simply work to implant a perception of a systemic Threat to our national well-being and our supposedly corrupt national soul that is evidenced by our international bullying, our raping of the environment, our callous indifference to the suffering of almost everybody, blah-blah. One must ask who the real fear mongers are: the Bush administration alerting us to very evident terrorist/Islamiofascist/Russian/Chinese international dangers…or the liberals raising their spectre of internal rot and existential threat. Ahhh…the Left– a bunch of manipulative hypocrits!
Very enjoyable column as always. I think you are most right about Obama being easier to defeat. Rather then Republicans encouraging Clinton support just to make this primary last longer, we should have helped Obama. He is clearly the more beatable candidate. Having grown up in California in the 70s, your column is just another reminder how things have changed and how we dont appreciate the things we should enjoying that are outside, healthy, and relatively inexpensive.
Life style differences:
1. Look at the closest in homes from 50′s. Walk ins? At most, you could hang ten things in a 1950′s close and have two or three pair of shoes on the floor. The median house in 1950 was under 1k square feet. Today it’s about 2300 square feet.
2. There weren’t many freeways in the 50′s. You couldn’t fly across the country for today’s equivalent of $400, either. People didn’t talk long distance: it was too expensive.
3. What about the modern miracle drugs? Drugs can now eliminate acid reflux, make your hair grow, increase your libido, relieve your anxiety, reduce arthritis, etc. etc. etc. And there is no end in site to these improvements, unless government regulates and taxes the healthcare industry to death.
j.e. dyer:
i think you’re right about the fed. the factor that will get the house-buying crowd moving again is would-be buyers sensing that the cost of a home in most areas has hit clearing price range. as long as capable buyers think that the overall price of a mortgage will go down even farther, via rate reductions, they will prefer to hold back on sales. the fed needs to unpoke it’s nose from this brier patch-to mix metaphors.
wealth created by home equity always acted like saving wealth,a rather slow acting influence on the general prosperity as it accrued in “bought” homes; usually to be used during the “golden years” of a person’s or a couple’s life as needed changes of lifestyles dictated.
i’m embarrassed to say that i had no idea how relentlessly people were siphoning their equity out to buy four instead of one new skidoo. to be sure, some leveraged their child’s incredible college debt with their equity, but it is stunning how quickly that morphed into blatant consumerism.
since the consumerism of the american populace is one of the engines of the global economy we need to pay it proper homage. we also need to understand the repercussions of slowing that source of consuming too much. mortage companies would do well to restructure the majority of non-speculative mortgages on their lists and eat the adjusted losses. but this restructuring should be in house, and brokerage firms who bundled this kind of debt should take their fate on the chin. somehow, i think they will survive.
A standard question about the French Revolution goes like this. ‘Why did the revolution start late in the 18th century when living standards had been rising for the previous 80 years?’ So to say that ‘living standards have been going up so there can’t be revolutionary change’ is not really reassuring.
Here’s a little anecdote to add perspective. I bought my first home in Merced in 1973 for $34,500. It was a 2,000 SFer with some of the fancies you mentioned, like granite countertops. Due to divorce, my ex and I sold it 18 months later for $42,500. Seems like the CA housing market was squirrelly from then on. Sold my last home there, roughly comparable to the first, in 1980 for $94,500. One of the best things about Merced was Yosemite Valley 90 minutes away one way (Tahoe not too much farther) and San Francisco 90 minutes the other way. We used to picnic at Yosemite, one of the most beautiful places on this Earth, on a whim.