The Effects of the Wall Street Meltdown on the Presidential Election

The presidential race has been fundamentally transformed by the news of the Wall Street meltdown still in process as I write.  The outrageous, petty, deceptive  strategy of the McCain campaign, along with the Sarah Palin phenomenon, has now been overcome by the reality that the economy, under the control of a Republican President over the past eight years and a Republican Congress for most of the twelve years from 1994 to 2006 has put us at present into an economic crisis unmatched since the Great Depression and President Herbert Hoover.  When McCain claimed earlier today that the economy was fundamentally sound, one could hear reverberations of Herbert Hoover statements in 1932 when running for reelection against Governor Franklin D Roosevelt.  The Republican love affair with big business in the 1920s took away the Republican majority in voter registration that had existed since the time of Abraham Lincoln, and now the present economic crisis threatens to make the Republican party a basket case in Congress and send the party into the wilderness as it has not been since the disastrous defeat of Barry Goldwater in 1964.  People vote their pocket book, and right or wrong, they blame the party in power for economic hard times.  So the Democratic party, with 50 days to go, can now see the ball returning to their court.

However, it is essential that both Barack Obama and Joe Biden perform well in their scheduled debates from September 26 to October 15.  They both have to show a command of the facts but NOT act overly intellectual and cerebral and therefore lose their audience.  If they seem too professorial, that will be a detriment to the campaign, as supposedly most voters don’t want a President or Vice President who appears to be too much above the average American, but rather want to feel they could have a beer with the candidate and see him or her on their level.  It is amazing that with the emphasis on education as the way to get ahead, and with more people having more years of education than ever before, that for some strange reason, being too smart and knowledgeable is seen as detrimental to a candidate’s chances of being elected President or Vice President.  So my advice to Barack and Joe is prepare but act humble and avoid any image of being cocky and all knowing.

 What a sad commentary on leadership in America that this is the reality of American politics. We would rather have a  "hockey mom"  and a President (George W Bush) who have something in common–neither can pronounce the word "nuclear" correctly, but rather both say "nucular".  Wouldn’t one have thought that those preparing Sarah Palin would have made certain  that she would learn to pronunce the word Bush has so mispronounced in a correct way?  Oh well, so much for striving for excellence! LOL  Mediocrity reigns supreme and is promoted as a virtue.  So much for the idea of American greatness.  But the possibility of restoration of American greatness DOES present itself in 50 days if only this nation is so fortunate!