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People sometimes say to me, “David”, they say. “David. Given your well-documented loathing of Tony Blair, why is it that you don’t dislike Barack Obama with the same passion, given the similarities between the two?”
“Well”, I reply. “What you say is in part true. Both Blair and Obama are charismatic demogogues who have realized that the true way to the electorate’s heart is to make lots of fine-sounding but fairly noncommittal promises. However, it cannot be denied that Tony Blair was an utterly fantastic Prime Minister so long as you didn’t happen to be British and, by that same coin, if the Americans want to elect a President who is utterly fantastic for everyone except them, I really don’t see why I should have a problem with that.”
This usually starts an argument pretty well.
After my post last week, a couple of people asked me to write up my views on the two US presidential candidates and, as British politics is being rather predictable and boring at the moment, the opportunity to pontificate wasn’t something I could really pass up.
The problem with assessing which of the two candidates would be the better president is twofold; firstly, when the job description is “Most powerful man in the world”, it’s hard to choose any criteria which can be taken as good previous experience for the role and secondly, given that contemporary electioneering seems to consist of focusing not on why you would be good at the job but why the other person would be bad, it’s difficult to judge people on their merits. However, it must be said that simply being a better option than the other guy is no qualification whatsoever for high office, and I wish politicians would stop doing it.
Given that the campaign is now pretty much sewn up, and John McCain’s last hope for victory must be for The Guardian to arrange a letter writing campaign in support of Obama like it did for Kerry in 2004, any comment is rather old hat now, but anyway…
I base my judgement on the two candidates on the same thing that I first looked at when I got interested in who was going to win: history.
The lesson of the 20th century suggests that the very best American Presidents have tended to be men with experience of the military, warfare or both. Roosevelt and Eisenhower, who I’d regard as the choice of the century, both had experience – Roosevelt as secretary of the Navy during the First World War and Eisenhower as commander of allied forces during the Second. This experience seems to have given them a grounding in the degree of responsibility of what it means to be commander in chief of the biggest guns on the planet, and the necessity of understanding and engaging with global politics in a constructive manner. Others had similar experience; Hoover’s experiences during the Boxer rebellion in China made him a great humanitarian, for example.
On this basis, it’s pretty unarguable that McCain would make the better president. He might have a short fuse, but history suggests that his experiences lend a degree of grounding in global realpolitik which other people, who may have dodged the draft for example, lack.
Unfortunately for McCain, he has a significant weakness, and that weakness is Sarah Palin. It’s pretty obvious from watching the debates that McCain is not in the best of health and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him keel over within the next few years – and it’s also obvious that Palin recognizes this and she has spent much of her time on the campaign trail angling for a Palin Presidency with all the subtlety and decorum of an epileptic tuba.
The problem is not just that Palin is plainly an evil lunatic. It’s that she’s an incompetent evil lunatic, and given McCain’s history of heart trouble my great fear is that six months after the election the Oval Office would see a scene like this:
Palin: John?
McCain: Yep, Sarah?
Palin: You really must come over here and see this video on my laptop. I think you’ll like it.
McCain: Sure. What is it?...Say, those two dames are pretty fine lookin’! Hang on, what’s she doing with that cup? That’s disgusting!
Palin: Keep watchin’!
McCain: Now they’re…oh, god, my heart! My heart! Pills! Pills! In my jacket pocket! My heart!
Palin: Mwu haha ha ha ha ha hahahahahahahahaaaa!*
So, were it not for the Palin handicap, I’d have no problem at all with McCain based on what history has to tell us. Indeed, I came out in support of him over Hillary Clinton a few years ago.
But this is by no means the full picture. The US as a nation is at its best when it is positive and optimistic, and it cannot be said that McCain radiates positive optimism. Indeed, his campaign seems largely to have comprised of him holding a torch under his face whilst booming “Bewaaare the eeevil terrorists!” in a scary voice. Barack Obama is his polar opposite and has inspired positivity and optimism in some of the most cynical people I know. In fact, the positivity and optimism, which characterizes the US at it’s absolute best, is being compared to Kennedy (who was a rubbish president but inspired greatness in people) although I suspect it might be more accurate to compare Obama to Warren G Harding at this stage.
These things in consideration and given the lesson that history teaches I think that John McCain has the potential to be the better president, but Obama has the potential to deliver the better presidency. On balance, therefore, I’d vote Obama, but the thing which would have been the final decider for me would have been Sarah Palin.
*If you don’t know what I’m talking about here, trust me when I say you don’t want to. I’d rather I didn’t know what I was talking about.
“Well”, I reply. “What you say is in part true. Both Blair and Obama are charismatic demogogues who have realized that the true way to the electorate’s heart is to make lots of fine-sounding but fairly noncommittal promises. However, it cannot be denied that Tony Blair was an utterly fantastic Prime Minister so long as you didn’t happen to be British and, by that same coin, if the Americans want to elect a President who is utterly fantastic for everyone except them, I really don’t see why I should have a problem with that.”
This usually starts an argument pretty well.
After my post last week, a couple of people asked me to write up my views on the two US presidential candidates and, as British politics is being rather predictable and boring at the moment, the opportunity to pontificate wasn’t something I could really pass up.
The problem with assessing which of the two candidates would be the better president is twofold; firstly, when the job description is “Most powerful man in the world”, it’s hard to choose any criteria which can be taken as good previous experience for the role and secondly, given that contemporary electioneering seems to consist of focusing not on why you would be good at the job but why the other person would be bad, it’s difficult to judge people on their merits. However, it must be said that simply being a better option than the other guy is no qualification whatsoever for high office, and I wish politicians would stop doing it.
Given that the campaign is now pretty much sewn up, and John McCain’s last hope for victory must be for The Guardian to arrange a letter writing campaign in support of Obama like it did for Kerry in 2004, any comment is rather old hat now, but anyway…
I base my judgement on the two candidates on the same thing that I first looked at when I got interested in who was going to win: history.
The lesson of the 20th century suggests that the very best American Presidents have tended to be men with experience of the military, warfare or both. Roosevelt and Eisenhower, who I’d regard as the choice of the century, both had experience – Roosevelt as secretary of the Navy during the First World War and Eisenhower as commander of allied forces during the Second. This experience seems to have given them a grounding in the degree of responsibility of what it means to be commander in chief of the biggest guns on the planet, and the necessity of understanding and engaging with global politics in a constructive manner. Others had similar experience; Hoover’s experiences during the Boxer rebellion in China made him a great humanitarian, for example.
On this basis, it’s pretty unarguable that McCain would make the better president. He might have a short fuse, but history suggests that his experiences lend a degree of grounding in global realpolitik which other people, who may have dodged the draft for example, lack.
Unfortunately for McCain, he has a significant weakness, and that weakness is Sarah Palin. It’s pretty obvious from watching the debates that McCain is not in the best of health and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him keel over within the next few years – and it’s also obvious that Palin recognizes this and she has spent much of her time on the campaign trail angling for a Palin Presidency with all the subtlety and decorum of an epileptic tuba.
The problem is not just that Palin is plainly an evil lunatic. It’s that she’s an incompetent evil lunatic, and given McCain’s history of heart trouble my great fear is that six months after the election the Oval Office would see a scene like this:
Palin: John?
McCain: Yep, Sarah?
Palin: You really must come over here and see this video on my laptop. I think you’ll like it.
McCain: Sure. What is it?...Say, those two dames are pretty fine lookin’! Hang on, what’s she doing with that cup? That’s disgusting!
Palin: Keep watchin’!
McCain: Now they’re…oh, god, my heart! My heart! Pills! Pills! In my jacket pocket! My heart!
Palin: Mwu haha ha ha ha ha hahahahahahahahaaaa!*
So, were it not for the Palin handicap, I’d have no problem at all with McCain based on what history has to tell us. Indeed, I came out in support of him over Hillary Clinton a few years ago.
But this is by no means the full picture. The US as a nation is at its best when it is positive and optimistic, and it cannot be said that McCain radiates positive optimism. Indeed, his campaign seems largely to have comprised of him holding a torch under his face whilst booming “Bewaaare the eeevil terrorists!” in a scary voice. Barack Obama is his polar opposite and has inspired positivity and optimism in some of the most cynical people I know. In fact, the positivity and optimism, which characterizes the US at it’s absolute best, is being compared to Kennedy (who was a rubbish president but inspired greatness in people) although I suspect it might be more accurate to compare Obama to Warren G Harding at this stage.
These things in consideration and given the lesson that history teaches I think that John McCain has the potential to be the better president, but Obama has the potential to deliver the better presidency. On balance, therefore, I’d vote Obama, but the thing which would have been the final decider for me would have been Sarah Palin.
*If you don’t know what I’m talking about here, trust me when I say you don’t want to. I’d rather I didn’t know what I was talking about.
