February 25, 2008
Hawk versus pragmatist
Hillary Clinton’s campaign is not over, but the US presidential election in November seems ever more likely to be between Barack Obama and John McCain. It would be a fascinating struggle and a quite different one from the nomination contests seen up to now. The issue of personality, which dominated the Democratic race from the start, would not disappear – nor should it – but it would subside and leave space for an overdue debate about policy. This shift may test Mr Obama, if he is indeed the nominee, more than he and other Democrats expect.
Mr McCain’s victory speech after the Potomac primaries entirely ignored Mrs Clinton. Without saying his name, Mr McCain attacked Mr Obama. “To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude.” That was a Clintonesque line of attack, to be sure. And of course Mr McCain will emphasise his years of experience (he has more to boast of, quantitatively and qualitatively, than Mrs Clinton) and contrast that with Mr Obama’s callow youth. But whereas the Democratic contest was about nothing else – Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton disagree about almost nothing – the general election will turn on large, substantive questions.
Interestingly, Mr Obama and Mr McCain do agree about some big controversial things – more than you might expect, remembering that the first is a liberal Democrat and the second a conservative, albeit quirky, Republican. They agree about global warming, for instance, a huge change on the Republican side. Both are calling for a cap-and-trade system to curb emissions of greenhouse gases. In office, perhaps either would be pragmatic enough to consider instead a carbon tax, which would be more cost-effective, or failing that a cap-and-trade system modified to emulate a carbon tax. They should study the proposal of Warwick McKibbin and Peter Wilcoxen, which I discussed on this page on June 7.
They agree about Guantánamo (both want to close it); they agree about waterboarding (both call it torture and want it banned). They agree about immigration reform. It is a miracle of US politics that John McCain has the Republican nomination all but sewn up, despite the fact that he appalled much of his party last year by co-sponsoring (with Edward Kennedy) a plan to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. To appease popular opinion, Mr McCain is now stressing border security first, with more liberal regimes for legal immigrants and measures to normalise the status of illegal immigrants later. But so is Mr Obama. You cannot tell them apart on the subject.
This convergence is welcome, because on all four of these issues they are right. But their disagreement in other areas is stark. On national security, including Iraq, and on the government’s role in the economy, the distance between them could hardly be greater. On Iraq, both can plausibly claim to have been right all along – Mr Obama for opposing the war in principle, Mr McCain for demanding a much bigger initial commitment of resources. But Mr Obama now wants a speedy withdrawal, whereas Mr McCain has talked of a 100-year commitment if that is what it takes. The opportunities for triangulating a compromise from those starting points look limited.
Can Mr McCain convince US voters that “success” in Iraq is still achievable and that their safety depends on it? On the first, maybe. Arguably, as Mr McCain emphasises, the surge has worked. Mr Obama acknowledges as much (though in last week’s Democratic debate he called it a tactical success imposed on a strategic blunder: a good line). On the second question – will a heavy and indefinite commitment of forces in Iraq make the US safer? – Mr McCain faces a far more sceptical public. Much as Americans admire his patriotism and his grit, persuading them that this sacrifice is worthwhile will be extremely difficult.
On taxes and spending, the two men again have fundamentally opposed world views. Measured by his voting record in the Senate and his economic plan, Mr Obama is a tax-and-spend liberal. He is a pragmatist, not an ideologue – which makes him such a compelling politician – but his plans for health reform and other new outlays nonetheless call for big tax increases (going beyond merely allowing the Bush administration’s cuts to expire). He calls for new forms of industrial policy activism. As the campaign has progressed, he has become markedly anti-trade – attacking Mrs Clinton, for instance, for ever having favoured the North American Free Trade Agreement, while at the same time (and preposterously) calling for the US to support faster economic development south of the border.
Mr McCain is a small-government, fiscal conservative and a hawk on public spending. His proposals on healthcare focus on cost control – which makes sense – but fall far short of Mr Obama’s commitment to extend access and, ultimately, achieve universal coverage. He is unapologetically pro-trade. The priority he repeatedly emphasises is keeping taxes low.
Barring some national security emergency, health reform will be pivotal. It is hugely important in its own right and has enormous long-term fiscal implications. It crystallises the two men’s differences and the choice that confronts the US. Most Americans (not just the uninsured) want comprehensive health reform. But they are also suspicious of tax-and-spend politicians. The country’s instincts are sound on both points – but which is stronger?
Send your comments to clive.crook@gmail.com
More columns at www.ft.com/clivecrook
Thank you, Mr. Crook, for a welcome and focused discussion of the issues. On immigration, however (an issue in which, as an immigration lawyer, I can claim to have some professional expertise) there is one point that should be made. The article states that Senator McCain is now “stressing border security first, with more liberal regimes for legal immigrants and steps to normalize the status of illegal immigrants later.”
This is entirely accurate as far as it goes. The only problem is that “later”, almost by definition, will never come. The notion of postponing any sort of relief for legal immigrants beset by acute visa shortages ( such as the one for H-1B skilled worker visas, about which we will no doubt be reading yet another anguished annual FT editorial or article in early April), or illegal immigrants facing mass deportation, until after the Mexican border is “secure” (since hardly anyone ever mentions the much longer and more porous border with mainly white Canada) is nothing more than a marketing ploy by immigration opponents to postpone any real immigration reform indefinitely. When will the Mexican border ever be “secure”? That will happen (at the earliest) around the time that Senator McCain, or his great-grandchildren, to be more precise, are ready to say “mission accomplished” in Iraq at the turn of the next century.
For Senator McCain to sign on to this transparent ploy to deny any sort of relief for legal or illegal immigrants represents a complete repudiation of everything he tried to accomplish in co-sponsoring the doomed “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” bill last year. Anyone struggling to achieve or maintain legal status in this country, who actually has to deal with our convoluted and irrational immigration system, would recognize this change of policy as a “flip-flop” of major proportions. However, Senator McCain will be under increasing pressure from the immigrant-hating, Latino-bashing Republican right to lash out at illegal immigrants even more as the campaign goes on, even though he cannot win without Latino votes.
Confirmed immigrant-haters such as Lou Dobbs and Patrick Buchanan, and their many supporters, will no doubt try to force Senator McCain, a fundamentally decent, compassionate and tolerant man, into trying to pretend to sound like a sort of latter-day anti-immigrant Torquemada, but one who cannot win high office without support from the heretics. This will be a real dilemma for the Senator.
Mr. Crook also states that one cannot tell Senator Obama apart from Senator McCain on immigration. But when has Senator Obama ever said that immigration reform should be put off until the Mexican border has been “secured”? If he has said so, can Mr. Crook tell us when and where this was? What I have heard Mr. Obama say (though, admittedly, I have not listened to every debate) sounds quite different.
In a direct, in your face rebuttal to the bigots who want to make English the official US language, Senator Obama has said that every American should learn a foreign language. Which one? I don’t think he was talking about Indonesian or Swahili (beautiful and rich as these two major languages are - I was fortunate enough to have had a very small amount of exposure to both long before anyone had heard of Senator Obama).
Roger Algase
Posted by: algasema | February 25th, 2008 at 1:37 pm | Report this commentAttorney at Law
1) McCain and the “100 years in Iraq neocon Lobby” just got another super-vote: Ralph Nader,running for the third time as an Independent-Green is a way for the Republicans to get votes away from the Democrats,in 2000 and 2004 Nader was able to take between 30.000 and 70.000 votes away from the Democrats ( aprox.) , which really made a huge difference if not the election , shameful that this 74 year old investor-promoter is trying again to wreck the election, what a shame and what a farce!
2) as many bloggers in the USA point out,McCain got a huge “muscle boost” overnight and over the last 2 months, he just gained 50 pounds of muscle,square solid jaw and energy, and many are demanding a HGH and steroid blood test for this 71 year old veteran, but let’s face it,all his Lobby advisers,including Wayne Berman and Henry Kissinger , will make sure the media never even mentions this( in fact my post most likely will be asked to be taken down at once,right? ) so he is safe….
3) the fact is that none of the candidates has the clear intent of making America Energy Independent, as long as the USA and Europe is hook on Middle East Oil, we will have to spend billions every year in weapons,soldiers and “partners” in that region, a trap that none of the candidates is even willing to mention, very sad !
4) the undocumented immigrant issue demands a Latin America ( or Africa for Europe) Economic Growth plan, a massive jobs and public works plan, but the neocons want the EU and USA addicted to “only Middle East Oil”,so huge deep reserves in Brazil,Venezuela,Bolivia and Caribbean-Cuba as well as Antartic Sea are being kept underground with “political” conflicts and fabricated media issues, as well as solar, wind,ethanol and geothermal possibilities ,also distracted, amazing and sad!
Posted by: blogger | February 25th, 2008 at 7:32 pm | Report this comment1) McCain and the “100 years in Iraq neocon Lobby” just got another super-vote: Ralph Nader,running for the third time as an Independent-Green is a way for the Republicans to get votes away from the Democrats,in 2000 and 2004 Nader was able to take between 30.000 and 70.000 votes away from the Democrats ( aprox.) , which really made a huge difference if not the election , shameful that this 74 year old investor-promoter is trying again to wreck the election, what a shame and what a farce!
2) as many bloggers in the USA point out,McCain got a huge “muscle boost” overnight and over the last 2 months, he just gained 50 pounds of muscle,square solid jaw and energy, and many are demanding a HGH and steroid blood test for this 71 year old veteran, but let’s face it,all his Lobby advisers,including Wayne Berman and Henry Kissinger , will make sure the media never even mentions this( in fact my post most likely will be asked to be taken down at once,right? ) so he is safe….
3) the fact is that none of the candidates has the clear intent of making America Energy Independent, as long as the USA and Europe is hook on Middle East Oil, we will have to spend billions every year in weapons,soldiers and “partners” in that region, a trap that none of the candidates is even willing to mention, very sad !
4) the undocumented immigrant issue demands a Latin America ( or Africa for Europe) Economic Growth plan, a massive jobs and public works plan, but the neocons want the EU and USA addicted to “only Middle East Oil”,so huge deep reserves in Brazil,Venezuela,Bolivia and Caribbean-Cuba as well as Antartic Sea are being kept underground with “political” conflicts and fabricated media issues, as well as solar, wind,ethanol and geothermal possibilities ,also distracted, amazing and sad!
Posted by: blogger | February 25th, 2008 at 7:33 pm | Report this commentOpen season on Obama has clearly begun, with media attacks on his patriotism, the release (widely believed to be the work of the Clinton camp) of a photo showing him in Somali traditional dress during a trip to Africa, and a report (on CNN, I believe) that the Republicans are conducting a poll to see how far they can get away with racial attacks against him.
In addition, as mentioned in today’s FT (”Clinton under fire over photo”) false and scurrilous right wing attacks against Obama’s imagined “Muslim” background are on the increase. If there ever was any doubt as to why Karl Rove (in his FT article) and other Republicans have been trying to egg Obama on to beat Hillary (with considerable success) there can be none now. Obviously, Republicans believe that it will be easier to beat a black man with Arabic sounding names than it would be to beat a white woman with the name of a former, and still popular, US president.
While Mr. Crook should be commended for his article’s discussion of some of the real issues, we are not likely to see much of this type of rational analysis in the US media as the campaign progresses.
Posted by: algasema | February 26th, 2008 at 3:22 pm | Report this commentI have yet to see much on “false and scurrilous” right wing attacks on Sen. Obama.
Any time there is any scrutiny of his politics, his cheerleaders come out to claim “false and scurrilous”, “lingering racism”, “post partisan candidate” and other such nonsense.
At least a few Republicans want to defeat an ultra partisan, Leftist Candidate in the Presidential Election, regardless of his racial or ethnic background.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | February 26th, 2008 at 4:37 pm | Report this comment“In a direct, in your face rebuttal to the bigots who want to make English the official US language, Senator Obama has said that every American should learn a foreign language. Which one? I don’t think he was talking about Indonesian or Swahili.”
First, English should be the official language (and FYI, english is not my primary language). This has nothing to do with bigotry and everything to do with communication between members of society.
Secondly, when Sen. Obama stated that every American should learn a second language he was not talking about, as you imply, a single second language; your interpretation suggests that you are as bigotted as you percieve the English First people to be.
Posted by: Blogged | February 26th, 2008 at 7:12 pm | Report this commentJBP, opposition to Barack Obama on the issues is legitimate. Implying that he went to a madrassa in Indonesia, that he is (or ever was) a Muslim, that there is any significance to his Arabic names, or that he is unpatriotic (as William Kristol claims in yesterday’s NY Times) because he refuses to wear the American flag lapel pin favored by the Republican right certainly qualifies as “false and scurrilous” as far as most fair minded people are concerned. Here is one prediction that we are in for a lot more of the latter kind of campaigning that the former.
At the start of the 2004 campaign, if I remember correctly, someone predicted that by the time the Bush campaign was through with John Kerry, no one would know which side he had fought with in Vietnam. The Swift Boaters didn’t get quite that far, but they came pretty close.
By the time they are through with Obama, half the country will think that he was the biggest drug dealer and slumlord in Chicago, and that is wife is a member of the Black Panthers. Throw in some good old fashioned anti-black racism, and you will have the Republican campaign plan for this fall’s election.
Of course, I hope that this prediction is way off the mark and that the election will be about the issues. If it is, no matter how “left wing” Obama may seem, he will wipe the floor with McCain, who will have more explaining to do than he will be able to handle about his major flip-flops on issues such as taxes, immigration, and relations with lobbyists (and I am not talking about the lady mentioned in the controversial NY Times article) as well as his plans to keep us in Iraq for the next 100 tears.
Posted by: algasema | February 26th, 2008 at 7:18 pm | Report this commentSorry, I meant “than the former”, not “that the former” in my first paragraph.
Posted by: algasema | February 26th, 2008 at 7:20 pm | Report this commentI also wrote “100 tears” by mistake, instead of “100 years”. Was I thinking of Hillary?
Posted by: algasema | February 26th, 2008 at 7:22 pm | Report this commentOf course, the pre-emptive charge of racism for daring to oppose Sen. Obama. How silly of me to forget that to oppose is to be racist!
Still missing the falsehoods of Sen. Obama attending a Muslim School, removing his flag pin, or John Kerry’s confusing record in Vietnam for that matter. Major issues? No, but falsehood?
I am going with the vast majority of Republicans and more than a few Democrats are not in favor of the hard-left political positions of Sen. Obama.
If the media decides to focus on the issues, (and I commend Clive Crook for his discussion of the issues) an Obama loses, while a Clinton may still win.
JBP
Posted by: John Powers | February 26th, 2008 at 8:16 pm | Report this commentBlogged, when I was growing up in New York, the city was full of foreign language newspapers and signs in white, European languages. No one thought twice about it. But now, let someone with a slightly darker skin use Spanish, Korean, Chinese or Hindi and, suddenly, it means that America is about to break up.
Let someone wave an Italian , Irish, or German flag at a Columbus Day, St. Patrick’s Day or Oktoberfest parade, and that person is a patriotic American. Let someone wave a Mexican flag, and the world is coming to an end. The above seems like a pretty good definition of bigotry to me.
Posted by: algasema | February 26th, 2008 at 9:43 pm | Report this commentAlgasema,
You would be hard pressed to find Italian, Irish and German immigrants who do not speak English. This may be due to immigration patterns, but I’m sure, as you were growing up in New York, you didn’t find people saying that they shouldn’t need to learn English.
I have no problems with people continuing to speak in their native languages, publishing papers in non-English languages, and putting signs up only in their native language (after all this is a free country). However, I do have a problem with people who do not want to learn English, want to live in this country and want to have their native language supported by government.
Also, I like the way you don’t answer my direct criticism (critizing the suggestion that learning two languages suggests that the second language should be Spanish) and you reply with an answer that certainly illustrates possibly bigotted behavior but is not linked to the critisicm at hand. You must be a good litigator or an aspiring politicion.
But, enough of this “hijack”, and we can return to discussing the pros and cons of the two apparent candidates.
Posted by: Blogged | February 27th, 2008 at 1:20 am | Report this commentI find it quite silly when people claim that Obama is a far left candidate. He is not far left, in fact he is considered fairly centrist in many of his votes and views.
While I too appreciate an international perspective and discussion on real issues which we face in this country, I don’t honestly believe that you truly understand how tired Americans are of the politics as usual here in the US.
I think it is safe to say that the Bush administration has really damaged the reputation of the republican party, and personally I think it is going to take the party a very long time to gain back the confidence of many of its party members and supporters.
I believe what we are experiencing right now in the US is a real shift of in how we want our government to represent and work for us. We are tired of being embarrassed of our government and its utter lack of respect for the rest of the world.
As an American, who has spent much of my adult life overseas, I look forward to the day when I can stand strong and proud of my country again.
Posted by: meljomur | February 27th, 2008 at 3:11 pm | Report this commentIs Clive Crook living on another planet?
So Clive Crook thinks Hillary is “hollow, and gets it sincerely wrong”, HA! Another example of the media trying to bash her. She, and WE, will not be stopped! Where does he come off to think he can judge someone’s sincerity?
Also, Crook’s comments on Gideon Rachman getting it wrong when he says Obama’s speeches are lousy, and empty. Crook’s arrogant egghead explanation is that “the simplest test of a speaker is the effect he has on his audience”. WRONG! He has obviously never been to a Rock Concert, or Gangster Rap Music. The effect is hysteria much like Obama’s audiences’ experience. The effect only lasts until they come back to reality.
I am cancelling my subscription to the Financial Times, because they print Clive Crook’s crap!
Posted by: Marilyn Atkins | March 5th, 2008 at 2:13 pm | Report this comment