Both candidates for the US Presidency were looking up-all-night haggard as they gave their early morning comments to the press about the cartwheeling stock market on the day of their final debate.
Obama suggested some short term life rings, including letting the cash strapped middle class dip into their retirement money without penalty.
McCain said "I'm a fighter" and flew into a flurry of furious chest beating pro wrestler pronouncements. He would "take on" the profiteers of Wall Street as he had members of his own party in the Senate. This is a central theme of McCain's campaign: the scrappy fighter who will battle on in Iraq, combat spending in Washington, butt heads with Russia and drop veto bombs on the Democrats in Congress. He is the raging bull of this election.
In sharp contrast, Obama's talent is in forceful negotiation. From his days heading the Harvard Law Review to his time in the US Senate he has shown himself adept at bringing combatants to an area of common ground and compelling them to cooperate based on mutual benefit. Lincoln amazed pundits of the time when he kept his fiercest rivals close by giving them high level cabinet posts. Forced into the same room with a man of Lincoln's talents, the men (including Seward, a patron saint of Alaska) became a very effective team at a time in history when we needed it most.
I appreciate McCain's tenacity, and I think I now have a clearer view of the Senator's role as a volatile and passionate spur to that sometimes sluggish body. But his combative nature and admittedly impulsive style of decision making are not what this nation, or this planet, needs right now. We need a skipper with a steady hand.
Because the nature of the skipper determines the culture of the boat.
Some skippers tear around town in their pickups without a plan, quickpatching the equipment, yelling at the crew, leaving the dock at the last minute to arrive on the grounds just in time to overload the boat on the port side and nearly roll over, but you barely get all the fish down without sinking and head back to town where you will do most of the gearwork before the skipper shows up to tell you he wants to change out all the hooks so you'll have to do the gearwork all over again but he just got a tendering contract so you can do that and paint the boat while you pack salmon unless he sells the boat next week. These people are exciting to work with and can even be successful, right up to the moment they sink the boat.
John McCain is that kind of skipper: hot-headed, impulsive, driving without a compass. Early on his campaign squandered its first twenty four million dollars, fired its staff and rolled into New Hampshire listing badly. Since then he has been tearing around the nation in his pickup- without a coherent message, but catching enough votes to make it pay. Straight talk was junked for Bush style win-at-any-cost politics. He has patched together a crazy coalition of independents who used to like him and hardliners who used to hate him (Republicans seem strangely caught between self-loathing and loathing for everyone else.)
In contrast Obama's campaign has been the height of cool efficiency. Again he has attracted a coalition of talented and dedicated people united by their common ground, its bounds so well articulated by Mr. Obama. He is a skipper who inspires confidence, and hard work.
At the debate McCain wants to fight. Fidgeting and grimacing in his chair, he throws his haymakers-- invoking the "anger" of the public over "redistribution of wealth" and "sitting down with terrorists". Jake LaMotta has his head down and is punching furiously. He's swinging wild. In the end he looks frustrated.
Obama has his head up. He has stepped easily away from McCain's charge. He is looking into the camera. He seems to be looking beyond Mr. McCain. He's talking to us now. Articulating the common ground where we can all meet, and fix this country.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/05/presidential-debate-moder_n_117048.html
Obama suggested some short term life rings, including letting the cash strapped middle class dip into their retirement money without penalty.
McCain said "I'm a fighter" and flew into a flurry of furious chest beating pro wrestler pronouncements. He would "take on" the profiteers of Wall Street as he had members of his own party in the Senate. This is a central theme of McCain's campaign: the scrappy fighter who will battle on in Iraq, combat spending in Washington, butt heads with Russia and drop veto bombs on the Democrats in Congress. He is the raging bull of this election.
In sharp contrast, Obama's talent is in forceful negotiation. From his days heading the Harvard Law Review to his time in the US Senate he has shown himself adept at bringing combatants to an area of common ground and compelling them to cooperate based on mutual benefit. Lincoln amazed pundits of the time when he kept his fiercest rivals close by giving them high level cabinet posts. Forced into the same room with a man of Lincoln's talents, the men (including Seward, a patron saint of Alaska) became a very effective team at a time in history when we needed it most.
I appreciate McCain's tenacity, and I think I now have a clearer view of the Senator's role as a volatile and passionate spur to that sometimes sluggish body. But his combative nature and admittedly impulsive style of decision making are not what this nation, or this planet, needs right now. We need a skipper with a steady hand.
Because the nature of the skipper determines the culture of the boat.
Some skippers tear around town in their pickups without a plan, quickpatching the equipment, yelling at the crew, leaving the dock at the last minute to arrive on the grounds just in time to overload the boat on the port side and nearly roll over, but you barely get all the fish down without sinking and head back to town where you will do most of the gearwork before the skipper shows up to tell you he wants to change out all the hooks so you'll have to do the gearwork all over again but he just got a tendering contract so you can do that and paint the boat while you pack salmon unless he sells the boat next week. These people are exciting to work with and can even be successful, right up to the moment they sink the boat.
John McCain is that kind of skipper: hot-headed, impulsive, driving without a compass. Early on his campaign squandered its first twenty four million dollars, fired its staff and rolled into New Hampshire listing badly. Since then he has been tearing around the nation in his pickup- without a coherent message, but catching enough votes to make it pay. Straight talk was junked for Bush style win-at-any-cost politics. He has patched together a crazy coalition of independents who used to like him and hardliners who used to hate him (Republicans seem strangely caught between self-loathing and loathing for everyone else.)
In contrast Obama's campaign has been the height of cool efficiency. Again he has attracted a coalition of talented and dedicated people united by their common ground, its bounds so well articulated by Mr. Obama. He is a skipper who inspires confidence, and hard work.
At the debate McCain wants to fight. Fidgeting and grimacing in his chair, he throws his haymakers-- invoking the "anger" of the public over "redistribution of wealth" and "sitting down with terrorists". Jake LaMotta has his head down and is punching furiously. He's swinging wild. In the end he looks frustrated.
Obama has his head up. He has stepped easily away from McCain's charge. He is looking into the camera. He seems to be looking beyond Mr. McCain. He's talking to us now. Articulating the common ground where we can all meet, and fix this country.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/05/presidential-debate-moder_n_117048.html
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