We are almost down to the wire on the Veep Sweepstakes. The McCain campaign has certainly milked this for all it’s worth. Like the rest of us on this site, I am hoping McCain does the common sense thing and picks Mitt Romney. Not just so we can have bragging rights, I truly do not care about that. I do care about the country. I worry about what this country will be like after four years of an Obama presidency.
IMHO, we are on our way toward national bankruptcy if we don’t stop the profligate spending. Both parties are guilty of this and I leave it up to our readers to make the judgment about where the bulk of the blame lies. One thing I do know is the mood of the voters in this election. You hear it from people from all walks of life, from both sides of the political spectrum. The mood of the voters can be summed up in one word. Anger.
I won’t attempt to publish a laundry list of grievances, you know them as well as I do. But the anger that ordinary voters feel towards the political class is higher than at any time in my memory.
Obama has proven to be an old line machine politician from the southside of Chicago, just like we were told months ago, when his idolization was in full bloom among an electorate that yearned for a new style of leadership from a new style of politician. His choice of Joe Biden, who is by all accounts an affable and likable man, but a unimaginative and “safe” pick who has done nothing to boost the political fortunes of the man who would be President, speaks volumes about the governing style of a future President Obama. It doesn’t say new, it says business as usual.
I don’t see any of the positive “change” that as been talked about so much in this election cycle. I see the same dreary old tactics that the Dems have been slavishly following since the days of FDR. The politics of envy, of class warfare, of “the little guy” pitted against the “privileged few.”
The Dems look like they will limp out of Denver fractured and frustrated. Frustrated with the internal battle for the nomination, that has left them bruised and battered as a party. I just hope against hope that McCain & Co. don’t shoot themselves in the foot by naming some obscure Governor as Veep because he is so “well liked” by McCain personally. Or by naming an obscure woman, because she is a woman. How condescending and patronizing is that? I have in mind Sarah Palin, a woman who probably will be a force in the Party eight years from now, but not in this election. Or Kay Bailey Hutchison, whom I like, but she will not fare well in a debate with Joe Biden. Or Meg Whitman, a very successful and accomplished businesswoman, but if you asked 100 American voters at random who she is, how many could tell you? Three, two, bupkis?
That is why I view the end of the Veep Sweepstakes with some dread. If McCain fumbles the ball this early in the first quarter, what will our prospects look like as the seconds on the scoreboard count down to zero?
Obama has played it safe. To me, he appears more like a man who is trying not to lose than one who is trying to win. If McCain picks Romney and lets Romney be Romney, playing it safe ain’t gonna work.
Governor Romney will elevate the rhetorical level and will bring the right balance of intellectual and emotional appeal that a winning ticket must have. The McCain campaign must make specific, nuts and bolts recommendation for it’s view of where the country should go over the course of the next four years and Romney will be unsurpassed at that, but it also must connect with the voters on the emotional side as well. When Romney waxes Reaganesque, when he defends the sanctity of life, talks about the preeminence of the American family, that America’s best days are not behind us, but ahead of us and that this country can achieve astounding things when the creative power of Americans is freed from the heavy hand of government, that is when he resonates with the majority of voters.
We will know, in about thirty six hours, if we will play offense or defense for the next two months.
~~John Cronin~~
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/28/america/28repubs.php
WASHINGTON: Senator John McCain has decided on his running mate, two Republican strategists in contact with McCain’s campaign said Wednesday. He is expected to reveal his choice at a rally at a basketball arena in Dayton, Ohio, at 11 a.m. Friday.
McCain’s decision is known only to his small inner circle of advisers, no more than three or four people, who have refused all public discussion on the matter. Republicans close to the campaign said that the top contenders remained the same three men who have been the source of speculation for weeks: former Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and, possibly, Senator Joseph Lieberman, independent of Connecticut.
Romney remained the most talked-about possibility on Wednesday among Republican Party officials and on cable television, not least because of the theory that he would help McCain win Michigan, a crucial state in this election and where Romney’s father served as governor.
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