John McCain for president
Published: October 19. 2008 4:00AM PST
Barack Obama is, without question, the more charismatic and better-funded presidential candidate. Because newspaper endorsements are supposed to recognize substance, however, we urge Central Oregonians to support John McCain. His long experience in Congress argues in his favor, as do his leanings in crucial policy areas from taxation to energy.
Obama, for all of his personal appeal, has served less than four years in the U.S. Senate. This would matter less if Obama had performed spectacularly during that period. But he hasn’t. He has sponsored no truly noteworthy piece of legislation. He has demonstrated no willingness to reach across the aisle when doing so might irritate leaders in his own party. Instead, he has used his brief tenure in the Senate primarily to launch a bid for the presidency.
That doesn’t make him a bad guy — he isn’t — but it isn’t much of a résumé. Voters certainly have no reason to believe that Obama is capable, or even willing, to transcend partisanship. He may be a great candidate for party-line Democrats, especially given the likelihood that Congress will remain under Democratic control. But for everyone else? Not so much. McCain, on the other hand, would be an invaluable check on some of a Democratic Congress’ most damaging impulses.
It’s true that McCain has run an uneven campaign, and his Senate career certainly carries the scratches and dents that come with long tenure. But to dismiss him as a Bush clone is silly, to say the least. McCain has, in fact, demonstrated a bipartisan inclination that Obama can only promise. He worked with Democrat Russ Feingold to tighten campaign finance laws. He worked with Democrat Ted Kennedy on immigration reform. And he has been famously willing to criticize the Bush administration’s conduct of the Iraq war. In 2004, he joined with former Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf in calling for more troops, saying that he had “no confidence” in then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. One year later, he pressured the president to sign a ban on the use of torture.
McCain also has had the courage to take enormously unpopular positions when convinced they’re right. He was one of the most vocal supporters of last year’s Iraq “surge,” for instance.
As much as we admire McCain’s political courage, we support him largely because we happen to agree with his positions on those issues that matter most: taxes and the economy, health care, energy and national defense.
Under the looming Nov. 4 deadline, both Obama and McCain have proposed a raft of tax cuts, job-creation incentives and other measures to help those in financial straits. But campaign gimmickry isn’t going to restore economic prosperity. Big-picture policy is, and in that respect, McCain is the superior candidate.
Broadly speaking, McCain’s economic-policy preferences are intended to create healthy, competitive businesses capable of hiring people and providing reasonably priced goods and services. He has supported various free-trade agreements, including NAFTA, which was signed by President Bill Clinton. He also enthusiastically supports lower corporate, capital-gains and other taxes.
And broadly speaking, Obama’s policy preferences will make job creation more difficult and raise the price of goods and services. He has opposed free trade agreements, including NAFTA. He’d like to seize and redistribute “windfall profits” earned by oil companies, and he has consistently supported measures to empower labor unions at the expense of employers. Obama is also prone to destructive demagoguery targeting large corporations. It may be tempting to wag a finger at business giants that use cheap foreign labor — as Obama does — until you wonder what such attitudes might mean for Oregon economic powerhouses like Nike. Nothing good, surely.
Obama’s redistributive impulses target individuals as well. Families earning more than $250,000 would see their taxes increase under Obama’s plan, and more of their money would be handed out in the form of tax credits to many people who pay no income taxes at all. Progressive taxation is a fact of life, but at some point a desire to “spread the wealth around,” in Obama’s words, verges upon the kind of class warfare practiced this fall by would-be senator Jeff Merkley. Vote for me, the thinking goes, because I’ll give you some of your neighbor’s hard-earned money. That’s no way to reward success, and it’s no way to foster national unity. It is, rather, an impediment to investment in businesses and, therefore, job creation. That’s bad policy regardless of how today’s economic mess began — and goodness knows there’s plenty of blame to go around.
Both candidates, meanwhile, have trotted out sweeping, expensive health care proposals without any credible source of funding. But it’s McCain’s plan, not Obama’s, that represents real change. Obama’s plan would create a national health insurance program, guaranteeing access to everyone, but providing little incentive for health care consumers to exercise discipline.
McCain’s proposal, on the other hand, would provide tax credits of up to $5,000 per family, allowing people to shop around for private coverage. Any money left over could be deposited in health savings accounts. This policy direction would break the employer-insurance link, creating health care portability and driving home the fact that visits to the doctor cost real money.
Perhaps nowhere do McCain and Obama differ more than in energy policy. Obama would like to spend vast sums on renewables like wind and solar, which now generate a tiny fraction of the nation’s electricity. But when it comes to boosting domestic production of conventional sources like oil and nuclear, his support is limited and grudging.
McCain, meanwhile, supports substantial incentives for renewable energy production. But he’d also like to expand domestic oil exploration — on the outer continental shelf, for example — and build dozens of nuclear plants over the next couple of decades. And why not? Fission is a proven, safe, clean technology that already provides about 20 percent of the country’s electricity. Boosting output makes perfect sense.
McCain, finally, is the more credible candidate when it comes to national security. This is so, in part, because of his long tenure in the Senate, a period during which he’s learned a few things about pursuing and defending the nation’s interests in a frequently dangerous world. McCain also is more likely to invest adequately in national defense and more likely to make — and stick with — difficult decisions despite fluctuations in public opinion. For evidence, look no further than his consistent support of the war in Iraq.
Obama, of course, would have voters believe that McCain’s 2002 vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq was an act of incredible irresponsibility. But if that’s so, then the vote also indicts many of his fellow Democrats, including former presidential aspirants Hillary Clinton and John Edwards and his own vice presidential nominee, Joe Biden. Obama was not in the Senate when that vote took place, leaving him free to disagree from the safety of the Illinois Legislature, where his view — unlike McCain’s — carried absolutely no responsibility. But Obama was in the Senate in 2007 to debate the surge, and he opposed it. McCain supported it, and in doing so he knowingly risked his presidential aspirations. That willingness to place principle ahead of ambition is what defines true leaders.
Obama is an exceptionally smart and charismatic political figure with a unique personal story. He also has managed to generate more interest in a presidential election than this country has seen for many years. But he’s also a largely unproven candidate, and what voters do know about his policy positions is neither new nor likely to inspire confidence in his ability to transcend partisanship. The only candidate in this race with the demonstrated ability to build bipartisan coalitions is John McCain. He also happens to be a better candidate on the issues, and for that reason alone voters should choose him.
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