Hillary Clinton has spent the past few days hammering Barack Obama for saying something that doesn’t sound very controversial to me: that either Democratic candidate would be a much better President than GWB…and that John McCain would, too. Now, let’s leave aside the fact that Clinton–just a few weeks ago–was saying that McCain had the experience necessary to be commander-in-chief and Obama didn’t (I’ve never before seen a candidate compare her competitor unfavorably to the other party’s candidate)…What is so outrageous about what Obama said?
Let’s stipulate that McCain’s positions on the two big issues the war and the economy are Bushian, and dreadful. But he’s much better than Bush on a range of issues, from the environment to immigration to torture. He wants to re-open international climate talks and close Guantanamo. And he gave a terrific speech in Selma, Alabama, today, praising the Democratic Congressman John Lewis as a real American hero for his courage during the fight for civil rights in the 1960s. He also gets credit for taking a tour of poverty-stricken areas of our country this week.
But not all that much credit…not until we see what McCain actually proposes to do to alleviate the inequities that have corroded the economic system over the past quarter century. In 2000, George W. Bush bored his Republican audiences to tears talking about education and “faith-based” social programs for the poor. He managed to take the rough edge off his conservative message–and then proceeded to forget it all, especially his beloved “faith-based” part, as President. (See David Kuo’s book, Tempting Faith for the details on that.)
It is not unusual for Republicans to tack toward the middle–Nixon promised to “bring us together”–at election time. McCain has a more credible history than most of trying to work across the aisle, and of taking position at variance with those of his party. But while it’s good that he has recognized that parts of the country have been “forgotten,” the most important economic specifics he’s offered so far have involved his (belated and embarrassing) embrace of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. After George Bush–indeed, after 30 years of aggrandizing the aggrandized–“Forgotten America” tours should be presumed flummery until proven otherwise.