The Homa Files

Excerpted from WSJ: ” Why It’s Getting Mean”, Peggy Noonan, Sept 19, 2008

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My Opinion

This week, a couple of my friends expressed frustration that the financial crisis revealed the obvious —  neither McCain nor Obama — have the slightest clue what’s going on, why it’s going on, and most important, how to fix it.  I’ll bet that a check of their college transcripts shows that neither has even taken Econ 101; their resumes show no business management experience; neither show any instinct for “the game”, neither seem to cope well with complexity and ambiguity.

Peggy Noonan leans right, but is usually pretty balanced (meaning that I often disagree with her).  I think her op-ed really puts a finger on the the pulse.  Highlights below — worth following the link and reading the whole essay.

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Article Highlights

The financial crisis changes the entire shape and feel of the presidential election.  It isn’t just bad news; it’s deep bad news that reaches into the heart of widespread national anxiety.

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Everyone is afraid—the rich that they will no longer be rich, the poor that they’ll be hit first by the downturn in the “last hired, first fired” sense, the middle class that it will be harder now to maintain their hold on middle-classness

Both the Democrats and the Republicans spent the week treating the catastrophe as a political opportunity. This was unserious. A serious approach might have addressed large questions such as: Was this crisis not, at bottom, a failure of stewardship?

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The economic crisis brings a new question, unarticulated so far but there, and I know because when I mention it to people they go off like rockets.

It is: Do you worry that neither of them is up to it? Up to the job in general? Is either Mr. McCain or Mr. Obama actually up to getting us through this and other challenges? I haven’t heard a single person say, “Yes, my guy is the answer.”

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The overarching political question: In a time of heightened anxiety, will people inevitably lean toward the older congressional vet, the guy who’s been around forever? Why take a chance on the new, young man at a time of crisis? Wouldn’t that be akin to injecting an unstable element into an unstable environment? There’s a lot at stake.

Or will people have the opposite reaction? I’ve had it, the system has been allowed to corrode and collapse under seven years of Republican stewardship. Throw the bums out. We need change. Obama may not be experienced, but that may help him cut through. He’s not compromised.

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A mere hunch in a passing moment: In a time of crisis, confusion and fear, Americans just might, in their practicality, turn back to the old tradition of divided government.

They know the Congress will be Democratic. They assume it will soon be more Democratic. Therefore the president they choose may well be of the other party.

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What if neither of them is the right man? What if neither of them is equal to the moment? What if neither party is equal to the moment?

This is not in itself important—who cares what they think, really? But there will be a small impact in terms of tone.

If you are a longtime Obama supporter and are beginning now to admit to deep doubts, you can’t just announce you’ve been wrong for the past year. You’d look like a fool. You cannot speak credibly, or in a way you yourself believe, in rosy support. But what you can do is turn, with new rage, on the guy you’ve at least long opposed. So you ignore Mr. Obama and attack Mr. McCain with new ferocity.

Or, if you have doubts about Mr. McCain, you ignore him and turn your heat on Mr. Obama.

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Do you ever have the passing thought that the presidential election doesn’t matter as much as we think?

If you win bad in a 50/50 nation, it makes it really hard to govern. Whoever wins will govern within more of less the same limits, both domestically and internationally.

A New York liberal leaning toward Mr. McCain told me this week he has no fear that Mr. McCain may be a more militant figure than Mr. Obama. We already have two wars, “we’re out of army.” Even if Mr. McCain wanted a war, he said, he couldn’t start one.

I wonder if we follow the election so passionately because we’re afraid. We’re afraid a lot of our national problems are intractable, and the future too full of challenge.

Deep inside we think: Ah, that won’t work either.  We are all making believe this is a life-changing election because we know it’s not a life-changing election.

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Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122176556077753375.html

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