On the Contrary

I am afraid.  The election is going to depend upon what has been estimated as the 10% who are undecided voters.  Now after almost a year of campaigning how can there be undecided voters?  The difference between the candidates is striking, not only in tone, but in philosophy of government.  So the choice is stark.  One wants to continue the policies of the past, only with less “waste, pork, and earmarks” and other says the government is fundamentally going in the wrong direction and government needs to play a much stronger role in choosing the strategic direction of this country.  So it is not like these two candidates have similar policies and we are just trying to decide which would be more effective in implementing them.  Basically you either like the way things are, you are benefiting from our present course, and you think a little house cleaning will sort things out, or you want a whole different direction.  So why are there so many undecided voters?

It is fairly apparent these 10% are neither deep thinkers, nor have any real understanding of the political choices.  They are going to vote based upon how they “feel” about a candidate or which one promises them more goodies/free rides.  When you hear independent voters interviewed, as we did after the first debate, it was truly frightening.  Most of these people had no in depth understanding of the issues and were reacting to how they “felt” about who looked stronger.  Strong is good, but if your strength leads you in the wrong direction, it is wasted energy.  It leaves the nation’s future in the hands of those least equipped to judge where the nation should be heading.  These are the voters most susceptible to the argument of free rides.  By that I mean that with just some minor adjustments and no sacrifice on your part, we will be up and running in good working order in no time.  This is the argument of the Republicans.  This is the argument of the magical and invisible hand of the marketplace.  This is the argument that lower taxes will fix everything.  This is the argument that says why are we bailing out Wall Street?  Where is my handout?  This is the argument that says we need to stay and win in Iraq, but you need do nothing as we send our troops over for their fourth rotation and we will pay for this war by borrowing from China.

A prime example of this mentality is the belief that all of our problems can be solved by rooting the waste out of our government.  The present attack on earmarks is a perfect example.  As Barack pointed out in the debates, it is easy to get headup about these personalized appropriations, but they only represent a very small fraction of our spending and their elimination will make negligible impact on our spending problem.  The problem is one person’s wasteful spending is another person’s lifeline.  In the earmark debate John McCain has referred to the Bear DNA study as an example of this kind of waste.  In another attack, Barack Obama criticized the earmark funding of the study of the mating habits of Alaskan king crabs.  The problem is both of these studies produced valuable scientific information, one on de-listing the black bear as an endangered species, and the other to help an important fishing industry become sustainable.  Sure there are frivolous earmarks, but not all are.  They are cheap shots to appeal to that 10% that doesn’t think very deeply.  The key to earmarks, which is a minor problem, is to make them fully visible, not to outlaw them.  But that is beside the point and distracts from the real issue, do we have the self-discipline to reign in our feelings of entitlement and live within our means?

The issue here that neither candidate has addressed is that Americans have a strong sense of entitlement to their life style.  Even though they can’t afford that life style any more, they are unwilling to make the hard choices about what is important and what needs to be jettisoned.  We don’t want to pay taxes, but we want government there when we need them.  We want government to spend less, but when it comes to cutting programs, there is a great out cry.  I watched as one of my conservative friends who is now facing a severe medical crisis in his life, became appalled at the sorry state of medical insurance and wondered why doesn’t government do something?  This is the same guy who voted in George Bush and is against any increase in taxes.  So the demand for more and more services with less and less sacrifice on our part to pay for them is a non-partisan issue.  On a personal level we buy more and more on credit.  We need to have these things now and payment is in the future.  If you look at our balance of payments, we are borrowing to acquire all the stuff we have to have, and we are not bringing in the income to pay for them by selling our own stuff overseas.  As Andrew Bacevich pointed out in his highly insightful interview with Bill Moyers last week (Bill Moyers Journal) we all say we support the troops, but are not willing to make one sacrifice to support them.  Just keep on shopping.  We are on a path to total self-destruction.

So as we enter the last month of this campaign, the final outcome rests in the hands of that 10% who is clueless and looking for who promises them the best free ride.  They are not looking for the candidate to paint an honest picture of what we need to do in the future to get back on track, and the sacrifices they will have to make if we are to recover.  What they are looking for is who will promise them most convincingly that things will be all right and you don’t have to do anything.  They are looking for their bailout.  In this equation, it is weighted toward the Republicans.  I fear for this country’s future.