McCain's Campaign

I have been completely disappointed with John McCain's Presidential campaign this year. It has endorsed no progressive policies, embodies no greater ideals for this country and the future other than patriotic platitudes and gives no impression that it will really reverse course on any of the Bush policies, which have so threatened this country's place in the globe, and the continuing prosperity and peace of the world itself. The Obama campaign, while far from perfect, has put together a coherent energy and semi-coherent economic policy. The McCain campaign offers none of the above. It has spent millions of advertising dollars blaming Obama for high gas prices (really, is it Obama's fault that the rising economies of the developing world are increasing oil demand at the same time that oil production is stagnating?) while promoting it's own plan of offshore drilling. A scheme, which sources as varied as T. Boone Pickens, an oilman, and the genius behind the 2004 Swift Boat ads and the White House's own Department of Energy, concede will make a negligible dent in oil supply, and whatever dent is made won't be present for at least ten years. None of this matters though because to voters who don't have the time or means to access in-depth information about policies every day, McCain's plan seems to make intuitive sense. More drilling=more oil=lower gas prices=me not defaulting on my mortgage. The fact that this logical string is incorrect is unimportant so long as voters believe it. Same thing with Iraq's involvement with 9/11 in the 2004 Presidential campaign. Even though there was a tenuous connection at best, enough voters believed the Iraqi connection, that it had a significant effect on the election. What is important is not what is true, but what voters believe to be true, and the McCain campaign has capitalized on this for the betterment of his candidacy and to the detriment of the country (the irony here is incredible as McCain made the recent assertion that Obama would rather win a Presidential campaign and lose a war.) John McCain may be a war hero and an honorable man, but his action's over the past few months have proved that he is not fit to be President of the United States.

Tomorrow: The Campaign and Race