paying-attention

This year's presidential election will not be decided by negative campaigning. For the first time in years, Americans have a choice of two positives. If McCain wins, it will be because people trust him and want the kind of governance he stands for. If Obama wins, it will be because people trust him and want the kind of governance he stands for.

The McCain campaign and the Republicans in general have plenty of material -- much of it spurious -- to aim against Obama. I hope they realize that this year that isn't the path to victory. (As an Obama supporter I'm not hoping too hard.)

The Democrats, even in the Obama campaign, seem to be relying on an even more dangerous mantra: "A vote for McCain is a vote for a third Bush term." Really? They really can't see the difference between McCain and Bush? No matter how energetically McCain panders to the so-called Republican base, he will never resemble George W. Bush.

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait is on to the problem. He writes,

" ....even though Democrats are extremely enthusiastic about Barack Obama, that life-and-death quality is absent. I think the reason is that a lot of liberals kind of like John McCain. I know I do.

Eight years ago, I was a hard-core liberal McCainiac. Here was a Republican saying things no other Republican would say and fighting, Teddy Roosevelt-style, to wrest his party from the hands of the plutocrats who controlled it. And, in the years immediately following that run, McCain established himself as perhaps the country's foremost progressive champion. He was an opponent, on moral and fiscal grounds, of tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefited the rich. He was also a fierce opponent of the extreme elements of the religious right. He was a proponent of global-warming legislation, the Law of the Sea Treaty, a moderate immigration bill, expanded public financing of elections, a tobacco tax, and many other liberal reforms....

....Where Bush is peevish, entitled, and insecure, McCain's charming, ironic, and self-deprecating. Bush's path to public life was trading on his father's name to run a series of business ventures into the ground before being handed a baseball team. McCain's was an episode of awe-inspiring perseverance...."

We should celebrate the fact that each party seems to have chosen its most original thinker, and best listener, as its candidate for president. Whichever way this election goes -- and I'm confident that Obama is our next president -- Bush will be history.

Labels: Barack Obama, George W. Bush, John McCain