both candidates lost

After all the drama that has been floating around the $700 billion bailout in Washington leading up to Friday’s debate, it was reasonable to expect both candidates to be prepared to answer questions relating to the crisis. The American public wanted to know exactly what these two men would do, but Jim Lehrer had one question that caught the two candidates off guard – since this bailout is costing a lot of money, the candidates may need to cut something out of their platform.

After all the drama that has been floating around the $700 billion bailout in Washington leading up to Friday’s debate, it was reasonable to expect both candidates to be prepared to answer questions relating to the crisis.
The American public wanted to know exactly what these two men would do, but Jim Lehrer had one question that caught the two candidates off guard – since this bailout is costing a lot of money, the candidates may need to cut something out of their platform. Since Barack Obama’s entire premise is that he is a politician who is about change and keeping his word, it was very difficult for him to abandon one of his policies on the spot.
Obama danced around the question like Cloris Leachman on Dancing with the Stars – it was painful to watch.
Obamacons need to understand that spending $700 billion might not be possible in this economic climate.
Between federal and provincial governments in Canada, health care is, far and away, the federal government’s biggest expense. With an impending financial crunch in the United States, this is not the time to institute Canadian-style Medicare.
This is the biggest fallacy in the Democrats’ argument for this election cycle. They are making promises they simply cannot pay for. John McCain will have an easy job convincing the American public they cannot pay for Obama’s big government.
Obama cannot be trusted to navigate through this financial crisis. You need to know what to cut when something unexpected happens. That is leadership. Obama failed miserably.
Americans are finding out how difficult it is to borrow money these days. Reality has set in on Main Street even though it was not on display Friday night at Ole Miss.
McCain managed to answer Lehrer’s question on the second try. Give him points for effort, I guess.
When McCain did respond, his proposal was mind-boggling: a freeze on all non-military spending. Still, while desperate times call for desperate measures, I would have liked McCain to announce he was going to wait until the storm subsided before offering the substantial part of his tax cuts. That would have been real leadership: recognizing the problem and attacking it.
For the record, McCain’s tax cuts are probably also the wrong idea right now. He mentioned Ireland’s low corporate tax rate. Ireland went into a recession last week. Low taxes aren’t always the solution.
In the early 90s, when the Canadian economy was recovering from the last financial credit crisis down south, the Liberal party didn’t promise to spend extravagantly. They promised to right the economic ship. They said it would be tough, and they were right. Our social services are still suffering from those vicious cuts made in the 1990s.
Those on Main Street who were watching Friday didn’t get the answer they were seeking. They wanted a captain who could right the economic ship. They needed a leader to step up to the plate.
They needed someone to say something bolder than being against the Iraq war when there were no consequences for opposing it, or proposing a surge in military troops in a growing quagmire.
They needed someone who was going to be honest with them. They needed someone to tell them their taxes were going up. And, they didn’t get that someone.

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