It Ain't Over Yet: Before V(ictory in the) E(lection) Day Comes The Bulge

The Online Etymology Dictionary explains that “campaign” comes from the Old French “champagne,” meaning “open country that is particularly suited to military maneuvers.” At its root, the word derives from the Latin “campus,” which means “a field.” Old armies spent winters in quarters and took to the open field or “campus” to seek battle in summer.

Not surprisingly, the extension of meaning from military to political is distinctly American, and it’s still the best way to describe what it is we do in politics. We wear buttons and t-shirts, just as warriors put on their insignia to identify with their side. We display yard signs and bumper stickers the way ensigns used to fly the colors as they marched forth with armies from their respective pavilions to battle.

In that spirit, I think the Democrats are in for a long, bloody campaign these next three weeks.

Over and over again in American history, people looking for quick and easy victory have been discouraged. (See Bull Run,* Shiloh,** and D-Day.***) Overconfident armies have missed opportunities to strike final, decisive blows. (See Gettysburg.****) Prematurely triumphal leaders have emboldened their enemies by talking about how land would be divided and armies dismantled after surrender.***** In the famous Yogiism, it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.

On Monday, we had just a 10-point lead among registered voters in the Gallup poll. That number dropped to seven points among likely voters. Though we seem to be ahead in states for 343 electoral votes right now, 79 of those votes are in states where Obama leads six points or less. Take those away, we have 264 votes and a John McCain presidency.

Commentators and pundits like new Nobel laureate Paul Krugman are starting to presume an Obama presidency. As early as July, Frank Rich of the New York Times, whom I admire, wrote a column headlined, “How Obama Became Acting President.” There’s talk of Obama’s Cabinet. Particularly among former supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton – Lanny Davis, Howard Wolfson, and President Clinton himself – the tone is stridently jubilant.

As to Congress, there’s talk of Democrats reaching a filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate majority. People are rubbing their hands together, speculating how little time it will take for the Democrats to throw Joe Lieberman under the bus once they don’t need him to have a majority anymore. And on the House side, partisan pundits with tons of hope and no perspective toss around giddy numbers like bean bags.

But predicting any win is foolish, let alone predicting a landslide. Overconfidence only emboldens the other side and makes our side less likely to vote or work hard leading up to the election.

There’s a reason Woody Allen is my favorite director: I perceive the world through anxiety. But just because I always imagine all the terrible things that could happen in life doesn’t mean that kids don’t trip and impale themselves on the spires of wrought-iron fences, that people don’t accidentally step on their pets in the night and crush them to death, or that John McCain can’t whittle away at Barack Obama’s lead for the next three weeks and win this election.

Remember 2004? After two wars, the Patriot Act, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and everything else, I just knew that there was no way the American people could let Bush have another term. On Election Day, Gallup had the race tied. As late as November 1 – the day before the election – John Kerry led in the Electoral College 298 to 247. And while things were, as Dan Rather might say, tight as a tick, we were assured that Kerry’s ground game, and all the young and first-time voters, would surge to the polls and push the Democrats over the top.

I spent Thursday, October 28 through Tuesday, November 2 in Cincinnati, Ohio, doing get-out-the-vote operations for the Kerry Campaign. I had bet my Dad a steak dinner that Kerry would win, and the night before the election, I was so sure Kerry had it in the bag, I boasted to Dad, “Somewhere in America, the cow from which my steak is coming is already dead.” In my journal, I wrote, “Bush is done. Over and done. The election is ours for the taking.”

On Election Day, turn-out was up, all our voters were getting to the polls, and there was a prevailing spirit of cooperation and we-shall-overcome-ness. I left Cincinnati about 5 p.m. to drive back to Bloomington, Indiana, where I arrived just in time for my friends and me to watch Kerry lose the election. Instead of steak, I ate crow.

This past spring, after the Iowa caucuses, I predicted that if Sen. Obama could win the New Hampshire primary, he’d be unstoppable. But we’ll never know, because Clinton won New Hampshire, and the two of them went on to engage in the longest, most expensive primary campaign in U.S. history, one that felt every bit like the Siege of Petersburg. Those six months were a nightmare.

I love Barack Obama. I have believed in him and his politics ever since I first met him in 2004. But this battle is no longer about the people who love Sen. Obama versus the people who love Sen. McCain. It’s about people in the middle, who want what’s best for their families, their homes, their towns, their jobs, their paychecks, and their country, but who still don’t know which way to turn.

Several factors cut in Obama’s favor. It’s hard for any party to control the White House for more than two terms; it’s been done once since 1952. The economy’s in shambles. The war is unpopular, and so is the president. Democrats now significantly outnumber Republicans, and for once, their campaign coffers are much fuller.

But Obama is relatively new, and he’s black, and his name sounds foreign. People are constantly reminded that he’s got that crazy preacher in his past, and he’s from Chicago, where all those shady characters live. McCain’s a war hero. Many folks still believe that all Democrats are good for is raising taxes, losing wars, killing babies, and confiscating guns. And there is still a genuine terrorist threat in this world, one that the Republicans are trying every day to hang around Obama’s neck. Particularly if our stock market and those around the world continue to rally, people might stop worrying about Hoovervilles and bread lines and some of McCain’s nasty lies might start to filter through.

A Billboard in southeastern Missouri that just about sums up the Republican line on Obama.

No election is ever easy, even for the best leaders. Lincoln almost lost in 1864, FDR almost lost in 1940, and Truman almost lost in 1948. Churchill was replaced in the United Kingdom by Clement Atlee before World War II was even over.

I pray that we wake up on November 5 with 350 electoral votes for president-elect Obama, 60 Senate seats, and 250 House seats. But I will thank Almighty God if we wake up with 270 electoral votes, 50 Senate seats plus a tie-breaking Joe Biden, and 218 House seats.

Happily, for those of us who support the Democrats, we can do more than hope. We can go to http://www.barackobama.com/ right now and see how to get involved. Using phone lists there, we can make calls to encourage people to vote and to ask them to volunteer election weekend. We can give money. We can find out where our nearest Obama office is so we can show up to help knock on doors or stuff envelopes. This election is in our hands!

But let’s just please, please hush up this malarkey about a Democratic landslide and how screwed McCain is. Noses to the grindstone, let’s do everything we can to work for 1932, but let’s not count on anything but 1948. Otherwise, rather than being our new Roosevelt, Obama could be our new Dewey, and we Democrats could be banished to another four years in the wilderness.

I hope no Democrat who sees this picture can sleep soundly until he or she has done everything possible -- giving money, time, cell phone minutes, door-to-door volunteerism, and prayer, to make sure this nightmare doesn't come true.
______________________

* July 1861: Bull Run. The Union Army marches southwest out of Washington, D.C. to Manassas Junction, hoping to crush the Confederate forces decisively to end the rebellion as quickly and painlessly as possible. Many Congressmen and the upper crust of Washington society pack picnics and bring their families to the battle, expecting free entertainment and an easy victory. And guess what? The Confederates win the day, sending both the Union Army and all the prematurely gloating spectators flying back to the safety of the capital.

** April 1862: Shiloh. The Confederates take Grant’s army by surprise and attack in what becomes the deadliest battle of the war up to that time. For the very first time – sixteen months into the Rebellion – the North understands this will be a war to the bitter end, with nothing quick or easy about it.

*** June 1944: D-Day. American and British forces land in Normandy and imagine that they’ll be able to roll through France and into Germany like a wave to end the war by Christmas. But the Germans dig in and fight fiercely, and in December, they begin the counteroffensive known to history as The Bulge (in which my Grandpa Harris and Sen. Obama’s Grandpa fought). The Bulge kills more Americans than any other battle ever, and the war lasts another five months.

**** July 1863: Gettysburg. After the deadliest battle of the Civil War, the victorious Union Army allows the Confederates to retreat unmolested, instead of rushing in on them and crushing them to end the war, which goes on to last nearly two more years.

***** Autumn 1944: Morganthau Plan. When the Axis learned in 1944 of the Allied plan to carve up Germany after the war, the news galvanized the Germans like “thirty fresh German divisions,” and made them hang on for another half a year.

Tiger by the Tail: McCain/Palin Campaign of Fear Works Too Well

I remember as a little boy hearing a missionary at my church tell a story about a political rally he’d witnessed in Romania, sometime in the years leading up to the revolution. As President Nicolae Ceauşescu spoke, one woman out of the masses had the courage to speak up. “Liar!” she shouted. “You’re a liar!” And she spat on the ground in disgust, before promptly being carried away, likely never to be heard from again.

The late Communist President of Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, who had the good fortune not to have to call himself out on his own lies.

This week, confronted with the sobering fact that none of the attendees of McCain/Palin rallies had a similar courage to call the nominees out on their lies and demagoguery, John McCain finally had to step up to the plate and do it himself. Let me say that again: he repudiated himself.



I’d like to say I was happy to see “the old McCain” make a rare reappearance, peeking out like a little like a fleeting whack-a-mole before disappearing again beneath the tide of negativism that has overwhelmed his campaign.

But for at least two weeks now, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin, trailing in the polls, have been beating the drum that Sen. Obama is the candidate of false gods, palls around with terrorists, supports the killing of babies born alive in failed abortions, is funded by “foreigners,” doesn’t love his country, doesn’t support the troops, and condones the damnation of America by Rev. Wright. Their surrogates have been comparing Obama to Osama bin Laden, referring to Obama by including his loaded-word middle name – “Let’s leave Barack HUSSEIN Obama wondering what happened” – and calling him “a guy of the street.” Somehow I don’t think they mean Main Street.

After mentioning all these things, McCain’s been connecting the cognitive dots for his followers by asking over and over at rallies, “Who IS the real Barack Obama?”

Responding to these highly developed Rorsach inkblot tests, McCain/Palin followers and other GOP supporters have been heard screaming “terrorist,” “traitor,” and “treason” at the merest mention of Barack Obama. Some, in a violent fervor, have screamed racial epithets at the media crews. Others have yelled, “Off with his head!” Still others have dispensed with politeness altogether and apoplectically ejaculated, “Kill him!” and “Bomb him!”

When McCain has clearly heard the charges at his rallies before, he's not missed a beat. And they've clearly had tons of opportunities to condemn these things after learning about them later, even if they didn't hear them at the time. So McCain pretending to put “country first” and stick up for Obama now is a little like throwing a match on a gasoline spill in a garage, and then blowing on it and pretending you don’t know how it got there.

Now, don’t mistake me. I think it’s important to know everything we can about the candidates. The problem is that this territory has been gone over very thoroughly by the press and in umpteen debates. Most of us know more about Barack Obama’s life now than we do about our own cousins. This rehashing of old non-news is about nothing more than equivocation, circumlocution, innuendo, thinly veiled inflammation, and the overall trashing of Barack Obama.

Any person who’s ever sat through a Communications 101 class knows that for there to be a communication, you have to have a sender, a receiver, and a message. To be an effective communication, the message that the receiver hears must bear strong resemblance to the one the sender intended to relay.

In this best-case scenario, John McCain and Sarah Palin are dangerously inept at sending messages. At worst, they are brilliantly effective at communicating exactly the messages they intended to. Either way, their conduct is shockingly unbecoming at least someone of McCain’s stature, and it’s definitely an insult to the eternal dignity and the present distress of the American people.

I come from a long line of very sincere and credulous conservatives who love God and country, but who sadly put more faith in Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly than in verifiable facts. I have two sainted Grandmas, one of whom believes that doctors no longer give B-12 vitamin shots because “the immigrants took them,” the other of whom believes that Barack Obama may be the Antichrist. And my own Dad persists, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, in believing that Obama is a secret Muslim.

They are not senile, and they are not making things up. They believe it with all their hearts, just as surely as I believe that the atomic number of hydrogen is 1. I get frustrated with them, but I get angry at the people who feed them this misinformation in order to benefit from their belief – higher ratings, bigger paychecks, and victorious elections. To what I believe will be his eternal discredit, John McCain has decided to become one of those people.

With Michael Dukakis and the “Willie Horton ad,” the Republicans said he’d be weak on crime and played to people’s racial discomfort. With John Kerry, Republicans painted him as weak on national security and terrorism. Now, afraid to leave anything to the imagination, Republicans and the McCain/Palin campaign have all but stated that Barack Obama is a criminal, a terrorist, and a racist. What a sad day for a once-great party.

In criminal law, there are two doctrines that defendants often have a hard time wrapping their brains around. One, the felony murder doctrine, says that if someone dies during the commission of a felony like kidnapping or armed robbery, the kidnappers are on the hook for first-degree murder, regardless of intent. If you and your buddy rob a convenience store, and the store clerk pulls out a sawed-off shotgun and kills your buddy, guess who’s going to prison for murder? You. Why? Because when you play with fire like that, you ought to know that somebody could get killed.

The other doctrine is accountability, which says that you are responsible for the conduct of another when you solicit, aid, abet, agree or attempt to aid the other person’s commission of the offense. So for instance, if your buddy says to you, “Man, I’d like to rob a convenience store,” and you let him borrow your gun, you’re going to be accountable for that robbery. And if the clerk shoots your friend, guess what? Felony murder and accountability work together to make you guilty of murder, even if you’re sitting at home eating Doritos. The law makes you responsible not only for things that you know, but for things that you should know.

What’s my point? My point is that this country, in the midst of two wars and a hemorrhaging economy, is on edge. People are nervous about the present, let alone the future. And let’s be frank: even well-meaning people are nervous about the specter of the first black president, whose name has the bad fortune of sounding like BOTH of America’s arch-enemies. This is a time to tread very, very lightly on the tense tightrope of the American people’s fears.

And besides the fact that it’s doing nothing to resolve any of our several crises, the McCain/Palin rhetoric is fanning the flames of resentment, of hatred, and of abject terror, aiding and abetting some of the most extreme elements and violent tendencies in our populace. If they didn’t know about the volatility of those tendencies, they should have known, as any reasonable person familiar with American history undoubtedly does. (See, exempli gratia, Abraham, Martin, John, and Bobby. Not to mention James and William, and very nearly Franklin, Harry, Jerry, and Ronald.)

It’s simply not credible now for the McCain/Palin camp to try to wash its hands of this nastiness. This is a monster of their own creation, and they ought to own up to it.

Democrats Should Steer Clear of "Siren Sarah"

I think the McCain campaign is finally catching on that things aren't going well. Barack Obama has led in the daily Gallup poll for five days, and John McCain hasn't led for two weeks. Best guesses on electoral votes range from 255 to 227 Obama, to 286 to 225 Obama, to 301 to 237 Obama, to 331 to 207 Obama.

And there's no clear end in sight. The economy is in the ditch, and while neither candidate seems particularly expert in economics, Obama has some very competent people on his economic team, while McCain has the bad fortune of having surrounded himself with precisely the kind of people who have helped cause the problem, like former Sen. Phil Gramm, and the kind of people whom Americans are disgusted with, like lobbyist Rick Davis and golden-parachuted CEO Carly Fiorina.

Conservatives of the old school are in revolt over Gov. Sarah Palin, Republicans can't get their act together, and even the most superstitious/anxious/cynical Democrats are having to shake themselves to avoid visions of premature inauguration.

So what does the McCain camp do? It sends out Gov. Palin as the bait in two distinct traps, extremely attractive to Democrats and extremly, extremely deadly.

Discerning Democratic mice will resist the urge to pounce on this tasty morsel of Palin provolone.

First Trap: Red Meat



In case you haven't seen the latest installment of the gift that keeps on giving, watch the video above as Katie Couric unrolls a few more lengths of rope for Palin to use to hang herself.

Of course, I think much of what Palin has to say is ridiculous, but more than that, I think the way she says it illustrates just how unready she is even to be a part of this campaign, let alone to lead America, and thus the world.

But step back from this for a minute and think about the dangers this interview poses for Democrats. Here are big hunks of juicy tidbits that voters, columnists, bloggers, and pundits can't resist -- ABORTION!!! BIRTH CONTROL!!! HOMOSEXUALITY!!! RELIGION!!!

But I believe it would be an absolute mistake to take the bait, and here's why. For starters, these aren't far-out wacky views, or at least if they are, they're held by a substantial number of Americans. America's largest Protestant denomination -- the Southern Baptists, with 16.2 million members -- and the Roman Catholic Church in America accounts for one quarter of our population. Guess what these denominations teach? That abortion is murder, the morning-after pill is murder, and homosexuality is a choice. This is to say nothing of the Assemblies of God, Churches of God, Disciples of Christ, et alii.

Unless people think that somehow Democrats can win with skeptics, atheists, and Unitarians, there's got to be a place at the table for people of all beliefs and traditions. These issues just aren't the most important ones in America.

That brings me to my second reason to avoid the culture-war bait. When the national conversation gets bogged down in the culture wars, Democrats lose. It's not necessarily because half the country agrees with Palin. It's that people who disagree with her can never be as forceful as those who agree with her. If you don't think that the morning-after pill is murder or that being gay is a chosen abomination, you'll never be able to match passions with people who do. (Unless, perhaps, you are gay without equal rights or unexpectedly pregnant without access to an early-term abortion, which certainly must account for a minority of Americans.)

To put it another way, most potential Democratic voters don't go to sleep at night thinking, "Man, I could really use an abortion," or, "Gosh, I wish I could have a gay marriage." For that matter, they don't go to sleep wondering just how stupid that Gov. Palin will look the next time she opens her mouth for a primetime interview or a cheesesteak sandwich.

They go to sleep wondering how they're going to pay for their health insurance, how they'll keep their jobs, what will happen to their folks when they get older and dont't have nursing home insurance, and whether their sons and daughters will ever come home safely from two wars that seem to have no end. So if the Democrats spend all their time talking to American voters about how they'll give them evolution education and the morning-after pill, voters will tune it out the way I tune out the infomercials for the Jack Lelane Juicer I don't need.

Polling shows this. Go back and look at where the McCain-Palin ticket stood in the polls when the national narrative was about "lipstick on a pig" and Obama killing babies. Those conversations miss the voters you can get and really really energize the voters you hope stay home.

Liberals like Unitarian Keith Olbermann (whom I generally like) and agnostic Bill Maher (whom I don't), if they really support Barack Obama, do themselves no favors deriding not the extreme policies of the McCain/Palin ticket but the personal convictions of the members of that ticket, which untold millions of Americans share.

Serious-minded Democrats should distance themselves from these criticisms of Palin's no-doubt genuine religious views and keep the focus on the economy, the war, and the disaster that was the last eight years. If someone says, "I think all the gays are going to hell," say, "Terrific. How does that help you feed your family?"

Second Trap: Wounded Animal

The other snare Palin is setting with her Siren song is one of low expectations. President Bush has famously spoken of the "soft bigotry of low expectations," but in this case, I think the Republicans in the short-term only stand to gain from how little the country has come to expect from Gov. Palin.

We've already seen the McCain camp exploit these expectations once before. When McCain first named Palin right before his convention, bloggers and partisans nationwide spent four solid days denouncing the decision simultaneously as a boneheaded blunder and a self-serving stunt, rapidly firing every possible criticism at Palin to see what stuck. She was a book-banner! Her daughter was knocked up! The First Dude had a 20-year-old DUI! She'd fired someone for political reasons! People were running pools to see how long she'd survive on the Republican ticket.

And then what happened? She stood up and read a great speech from a teleprompter at the convention, and Democrats looked stupid. They'd made her look like a victim, a martyr, a working-class hero. Meanwhile, Gov. Palin -- still unqualified, mind you, and still extremely dangerous to our nation -- was innoculated from criticism for weeks to come.

It took CBS's Katie Couric (someone else who's faced the soft bigotry of low expectations) to really pull back the curtain on the Wizard to let American voters sneak a peek to observe what Democrats had ham-handedly tried to pound into their heads a month before: Palin was clueless.

But rather than having learned their lesson, Democrats (and some Republicans, by the way) are piling on again, Democrats gloating at how abysmal Palin is, Republicans fretting and begging her to fall on her moose gun for the good of party and country. The result is that come this Thursday night, when she has to debate Sen. Joe Biden in the vice-presidential face-off, expectations are set so low for her that if she manages not to trip or swear, she'll be hailed for proving those snobby elitist critics wrong again.

Moreover, wounded animals are always 100 times fiercer than animals in good shape, so I reckon that the wound-ier the McCain campaign gets, the more ferocious its attacks on Obama/Biden will become.

What's the right approach? I say back off and let Palin continue to write her own epitaph. The American people are not stupid. Between the War on Terror and the Terrible Economy, folks know that times are tough and fraught with the potential for disaster. They also know that John McCain is old and more likely to die in office than any president we've had at least since Franklin Roosevelt's fourth term. The more they see of Palin, the more even her admirers are going to realize, "Darn the luck, she seems like a swell lady, but we just don't have the luxury of rolling the dice on her."

Don't make her a martyr. Don't waste breath and column inches pointing out what Palin daily makes painfully obvious. Let Palin be Palin -- in fact, just let Palin be -- and let's take our argument for real, lasting Change to the American people, reminding them at every turn that John McCain isn't it.

Is Anybody In Charge of the Republican Party Right Now?

Let's recap. Yesterday, John McCain took credit for passing this bill before it passed. THEN he blamed Barack Obama for its failure to pass.

THEN, this morning, after everyone in America knew the bill had failed, the Republican National Committee ran an ad blaming Obama FOR PASSING the bill, that of course failed to pass.



Forget whiplash, I've snapped my neck!

McCain Counts the Chickens While His Party Smashes the Eggs

As John McCain's folksy running-mate, Sarah Palin, could have told him, you don't count your chickens before they hatch. Only in this case, you don't count your Republicans before they vote.

This morning, Sen. McCain lambasted Barack Obama mercilessly for "sitting on the sidelines" instead of taking leadership the way he did to save the economy by building a coalition for the bail-out. Then, when it came time for McCain's party to put up or shut up, McCain's own party balked, bucking both their nominee and their president and killing the bill 228 to 205.

It's one thing to take credit for things you had no hand in creating, like when McCain's campaign said he helped create the BlackBerry, or when Al Gore claimed to have "taken the initiative" in creating the Internet. But where some men see things as they are and ask "why," John McCain dreams things that never were ... and takes credit for them.

Car-"Mac" the Lackluster

Nobody can predict the future, and that's why all but the mentally infirm and the fraudulent snake-oil salesmen among us don't even try. I'm not saying Sen. McCain is mentally infirm or a fraud, but gosh, he's really not doing much to convince us all he's not.

In the best case scenaio, McCain isn't crazy or lying, but trying his hardest to make things come true merely by saing them. He's done this with the economy, with Sarah Palin, and every other thing that's gone south, so it's no surprise he's doing it now. This morning, he was Sky Masterson, cooing "Luck Be a Lady" into the ears of House Republicans and rolling them like dice, hoping against hope that he'd roll a winner.

"Sometimes luck has a very unladylike way of running out."

Then, when ol' Maverick Masterson's luck ran out, who did he blame? Barack Obama.

To sum it up, McCain's either crazy, a liar, or an unlucky compulsive gambler. None of the three leaves him fit to lead this great nation, in my judgment.

Obama Won the Debate By Showing Up Without Horns

After Friday night's presidential debate, I was initially very disappointed. "Well, we blew that one," I muttered, disgusted, much the way my Grandpa used to when the Cubs would give up a three-run homer in the top of the ninth.

I think my reaction was similar to Maureen Dowd's: why did Obama leave so much unsaid?

Why didn't Obama point out that McCain's campaign advisor's lobbying firm was still on the Freddie Mac Payroll until last month? Why didn't Obama get angry and fight back when McCain made those ridiculous allegations that Obama said he would just nance over to Iran to play footsie with Ahmadinejad?

When McCain bloviated for minutes and minutes about earmarks (to avoid having to talk about the economy), why didn't Obama remind McCain that his own running mate secured earmarks for Alaskans to study the mating habits of crabs? When McCain belittlingly scolded Obama that "the next president won't have to decide whether to go to war in Iraq," why in the world didn't Obama say, "No, Senator, but they might have to decide whether to bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran, and I don't think the American people can trust your judgment on that"?

Why, why why? Instead of doing what I thought he should do, Obama made his points firmly but respectfully, and then backed off to let McCain speak ad nauseum to "my friends" about Vietnam, being a maverick, earmarks, and any number of other things he loves to drone on about.

I was sure we had lost the debate, and that after two disastrous weeks for McCain, Obama had just allowed McCain to recapture the initiative.

Boy, was I mistaken!

Within minutes, the "insta-polls" showed that debate watchers preferred Obama's performance by a wide margin. (CNN. CBS.) So why had I been so wrong? Why had more voters found that my candidate Barack Obama did so much better than I thought he did?

As I thought about it, I came to three reasons. First, most Americans probably have better things to do with their time than to follow every single piece of election-related news from hour to hour each day. Thus, they don't know all the minor details; they just know the big picture. So while I was judging Sen. Obama on what he didn't say, most of America probably judged both candidates on what they did say, and they liked what Obama said better.

Second, McCain really lived up to his reputation for nastiness. Over and over again, he said things like, "My opponent just doesn't understand," "what Sen. Obama doesn't seem to understand," et cetera. He spoke about Obama's "naivete." In other words, it wasn't that he thought Obama was wrong, it's that he thought Obama was stupid, and that an argument with Obama was really beneath him.

Nobody likes to be talked to that way. A friend of mine recently began an argument with me by saying, "Let me see if I can break it down for you in a way you might comprehend." Of course, I tuned out everything after that, because that's not the way grown people speak to one another.

McCain partisans will be quick to point out that Obama's most enduring indictment of McCain from his Democratic Convention speech was, "It isn't that John McCain doesn't care. It's that he doesn't get it." The thing is, I think John McCain has demonstrated over the past two weeks that he absolutely doesn't get it when it comes to the economy and how it's affecting working families. So when Obama said it, it rang true.

When McCain said that Obama "doesn't understand," however, it directly conflicted with what people could see before their very eyes, which was that Sen. Obama certainly did get it. You might disagree with him about Iran, Pakistan, tax cuts, or whatever, but there's no mistaking that Obama knows what he's talking about. Thus, rather than really cutting Obama down, McCain undermined his own credibility by repeating over and over again something that was demonstrably false.

(With no disrespect towards fans of Sen. Clinton, I might make the comparison to the primary season. Clinton ran as the "invincible" candidate, the only Democrat who could win. Then she lost in Iowa to Obama, and her argument that nobody but her could win was out the window. It's the same now with McCain saying Obama "doesn't understand.")

Third, because each candidate needed something very different from the debate, Obama had an easier job. McCain's playing the role of the drunken abusive boyfriend who's begging to be taken back again, because, "I promise, things'll be different this time." Obama, meanwhile, is the new guy trying to convince us all that we really deserve better.

"Stella! I promise having a Republican president will be different this time!"

What do I mean? The economy stinks, and McCain doesn't get it. When he pulled his little stunt and promised to save the economy or else skip the debate, Obama called his bluff, and not only did McCain come to the debate without saving the economy, he made it worse. Palin is a joke -- a loveable joke, but a joke nonetheless.

The Afghanistan War is seven, the Iraq War is five and a half, the deficit is the largest in history, credit is freezing, unemployment is creeping, banks are failing, other countries are catching up, Russia is saber-rattling, Galveston is a rotting corpse, and Bush has cried wolf so many times that even his own caucus in the House of Representatives doesn't trust him. The American people are crying out for change, and in their minds, they are all screaming, "ENOUGH!"

They want to vote Democratic. They want to reject McCain, the last eight years, the turbulent 1960s culture wars and Vietnam turmoil, incompetence, mean-spiritedness, unnecessary wars and uncontrollable economic turbulence.

But they also want to know that the sky won't fall and their kids won't die and they won't burn in hell for voting for a black Democrat with a funny name. Exhausted with the status quo, they are waiting for permission from their anxieties, their consciences, and their dead ancestors to vote for a dramatically different kind of president. And every time Obama appears in public not burning a flag or performing an abortion on live television, they are given that permission, because they see he's really just a regular guy.

I grew up in a very conservative Republican household in very conservative downstate Illinois, so I was 11 years old before I ever met someone who admitted that he was a liberal. Mom had a new boss, and when she introduced him to me, she said, "Ron, this is my son Levi. He's never met a liberal before. He thinks you all have green horns and tails." Ron laughed pleasantly as he shook my hand, then he leaned forward and showed me the top of his head. "See? No horns. Pleased to meet you."

My hand didn't wither and drop off. I didn't turn to stone. Ron didn't kidnap me or curse God. All of a sudden, everything I'd ever heard about the evil baby-killing, atheistic, taxing-and-spending, military-cutting, sodomizing liberals rang false. Ron was just a normal American guy.

What Barack Obama needed to do last night wasn't to grit his teeth and fire again and again and again at John McCain like John Wayne in The Sons of Katie Elder. He didn't need to get too many zingers in on McCain, or talk jnoisily over McCain to make sure he was the loudest debater. All Obama needed to do Friday night was lean forward to show the American people that he has no horns.

Because he did that, he won.

**Post script: the Gallup poll seems to confirm what I've said here. On Sunday, September 28 -- the first day following the debate -- the three-day average for the national poll of registered voters moved three points, with McCain dropping two points to 42 and Obama gaining a point to rise to 50. Obama leads by eight points.

You can watch the entire debate here.

With the Soft Touch of a Bull in a China Shop, McCain "Suspends Campaign," Dons Captain Maverick Suit to Save the Day

It's not surprising to me how devious and calculating the McCain campaign has become; after all, as they say, politics ain't bean bag. It's just surprising how poorly McCain pulls it off.

Surely you've heard by now that today, John McCain announced that the economic crisis was so big that it just couldn't be solved without him. So, saying he was putting his country ahead of politics, he suspended his campaign, tentatively called off this Friday's debate, and headed to Washington to fix everything.

Except, of course, none of that was true. The bail-out deal is nearing a consensus,and McCain is trying to swoop in at the last minute and take credit for something that the rest of Congress and the Bush Administration has sweated out for a week.

And McCain's campaign sent around a talking points memo to tell his surrogates how to exploit his "non-partisan" decision for nakedly partisan political gain. (Which, by the way, is to be expected 40 days before the election, but McCain shouldn't blow smoke up our wazoos by telling us that HE is completely above politics and is marching off to Washington self-sacrificingly. That's just patronizing and insultingly transparent -- maybe the first transparent thing about the McCain campaign since it chose Palin as McCain's running mate.)

Plus, if it's that important to McCain, why did he wait until today to bail out? Why not yesterday or the day before, when the Dow dropped much more precipitously than today and a bail-out seemed a lot more tentative?

And if it's such a terrible emergency, why did McCain ditch David Letterman, falsely claiming that he had to fly to Washington post-haste to save the world, when he (1) hadn't cast a roll call vote on ANY matter since April and (2) went over for a make-up job with Katie Couric rather than rushing to Congress like he said?

(Look for the make-up about 6:40 in the video.)

And if McCain is really just trying to put country first, if he isn't sneakily trying to cheat the American people out of 1/4 of their chances to hear from the two campaigns on the most important issues in debates, then why is he trying to get everyone to agree to scrap the vice-presidential debate altogether?

Maybe because Gov. Palin deals painful blows to the campaign every time she opens her mouth in public lately?

It kind of reminds me of high school, when some of the kids would drag in bleary-eyed on the Monday morning of a test and beg to postpone it, because something important came up over the weekend. (Nine times out of 10, the "something important" was a keg party rather than, say, a grandparent's death.) Surely the American people can sense that McCain is stalling, casting a grappling hook as far as he can and hoping that it catches on something he can use to stop his precipitous slippage.

Let me be clear. I do not believe for a second that John McCain really thinks that now, at the end of this bail-out negotiation, he needs to be in Washington. But I also don't believe that he's afraid to debate Barack Obama. After all, if the primary season is any indication, Obama usually doesn't shine in debates.

"There's no need to fear! Underdog is here!"

I think McCain is terrified at new polls showing his grasp on the race eroding. I think he is mortified that either his campaign manager Rick Davis has lied to him, or he has been caught in his own lie to the press, about Davis's lobbying firm receiving $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until last month. I think he realizes what an absolute disaster last week was, as he flipped and flopped on his response to the economic crisis enough to make John Kerry look like the Rock of Gibraltar. And he figures, if I can just get people back to talking about how ambitious and selfish Obama-the-Celebrity is, instead of talking about how unscrupulous and clueless and volatile McCain is, then maybe he'll have a shot of winning.

I've got to hand it to McCain. He's not afraid to shake the snow globe and see where the flakes fall. If you gave him one of those choose-your-own-adventure books, I get the sense that he'd just pick the first option, every time, without batting an eye.

The problem, of course, is that the world isn't a snow globe, but an actual globe globe. And in the real world, the first option that comes to mind isn't always the best one, and sometimes it has disastrous consequences.

I say the Senators go to Washington, meet with Bush, put in their two cents' worth, and then get back to taking their cases to the American people. Putting aside politics for bipartisan cooperation is what brought us the Patriot Act and the Iraq War. Let's have the debates -- all of them -- so that folks can make an informed decision about how to cast their votes in just five short weeks.

The Madam, The Pimp, and The Lawmaker: A Parable of McCain The Deregulator

This just in: John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis -- his number-one guy -- lobbied John McCain himself to make sure that failed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stayed loosely regulated.

Maverick? Change? Clean up Washington? Give me a break.

This guy was aggressively lobbied by the very industry he now denounces for "corporate greed" and "special interest" and "pork-barrel projects" -- AND HE MADE THE LOBBYIST THE HEAD OF HIS CAMPAIGN!

To break this down, how about a parable?

The Madam.

A certain Madam hires a Pimp to go to the state capital to lobby a powerful 26-year Lawmaker to keep prostitution legal and to make sure the State Health Department doesn't require too many STD tests. The Madam knows the Lawmaker wants to run for Governor someday, and it never hurts for a girl to have a powerful friend in the Governor's Mansion.

The Brothel.

Over time, the Lawmaker gets to be such good friends with the Pimp that he asks his buddy the Pimp to run his campaign for Governor. Meanwhile, a violent epidemic of syphillis breaks out, and suddenly people are understandably very angry at brothels all over the State.

The Pimp.

Sensing he needs to create a diversion, the Lawmaker pretends he's been against brothels all along and starts calling his Opponent a bunch of names, like "Consort of Ladies of the Evening." And the Lawmaker promises to give all the hookers penicillin, because right now, the main thing is just to make sure that the hookers don't spread any more disease. But boy, oh boy, when he gets to be Governor, watch out! He's going to appoint strict, no-nonsense guys to the State Health Department, and they'll shut all this brothel nonsense down. (But they won't pass out penicillin to just anybody. After all, they might run out.)

All this comes despite the fact that it is well documented that the Opponent has no use for pimps. And all the while, the Pimp is still pulling the strings of the Lawmaker's campaign, laughing hysterically in the background at just how unbelievably, brazenly shameless the Lawmaker is.

The Lawmaker.

The Lawmaker is happy, the Pimp is happy, the Madam and all her hookers are happy with their penicillin and renewed health. But you know who's not happy? The whole population of the State who's now got painful, life-threatening syphillis, thanks to making some poorly-advised business transactions with some very dirty ladies -- ladies who were protected by the 26-year Lawmaker and his buddy the Pimp.

Counting Blue Cars

Newsweek reports that while Barack and Michelle Obama have one car, John and Cindy McCain -- wait for it -- have 13.

There's nothing wrong with wealth and success, and having 13 cars certainly doesn't mean the McCain's can't understand the plight of ordinary Americans. But I'm about fed up with the malarkey that the Democrats are elite and out-of-touch.

Thirteen cars!? I don't even own 13 place settings for my table.

Proud to Be a Taxpaying American

After a disastrous week so far, today the McCain campaign tried unsuccessfully to grab some traction out something Joe Biden said.

Asked about taxes on Good Morning America this morning, Biden repeated something he'd said earlier this month: “Anyone making over $250,000 ... is going to pay more,” Biden interjected. “You got it. It’s time to be patriotic, Kate. It’s time to jump in, it’s time to be part of the deal, it’s time to help get America out of the rut.”

John McCain immediately jumped in front of a camera to rant about just how un-American it was to say that taxes were patriotic. "Raising taxes in a tough economy is not patriotic, it's not a badge of honor," McCain said at campaign stop in Iowa today. "It's just plain dumb."

Republicans and McCain's other fellow travelers of the Right wasted no time lining up to sound the alarm -- Rush Limbaugh , Matt Drudge, NewsMax, and other people who just generally hate taxes.

Of course, the Republican reaction made me angry. Biden didn't say it was patriotic to raise taxes; he said it was patriotic to pay taxes. And most folks know by now that under Senator Obama's plan, people making less than $250,000 a year will get a tax cut; folks fortunate enough to make more than that will be asked to pay a little higher percentage.

But some people get upset even when they realize that only those those with yearly incomes topping a quarter million dollars will face a tax increase. They call Sen. Obama a socialist (even though it's their party that just nationalized a large part of the mortage industry), a class warrior, and various unprintables. According to them, Obama's plan just isn't good enough if it doesn't lower everyone's taxes. It's not fair to "blame" the wealthy for their wealth, to "punish them" for being successful, they argue. Taxes are bad, government is bad, and the two together are poisonous.

I'm sure this will come as a shock to none of you, but I disagree.

Before the British hanged him, Nathan Hale said of America, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." Would he be ashamed of wealthy Americans today who aren't even willing to part with a couple more measley percentage points of income?

First of all, somebody has to pay taxes. In case anyone has forgotten, we are fighting two wars and scrambling to be prepared for a potential third. The national debt -- much of which is owned by everybody's favorite Communist country, China -- is approaching ten trillion dollars. That's $10,000,000,000,000, if you're keeping track of zeros at home. As anyone who's ever financed an extravagant lifestyle with a Mastercard knows, that bill will come due sooner or later. How are we going to pay it? Sell Alaska back to Russia?

Second of all, the idea that people who make more should pay more comes straight from the Bible. The simplest, most straightforward statement on progressive taxation in Western civilization is, "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." And remember that Christ instructed His followers to "render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Mind you, I don't think "because God said so" is an adequate justification for government policy, but I'm always intrigued that the same party that boasts the Christian Right also embraces a fundamentally anti-Christian tax structure.

You've heard the old story about the chicken who suggests to the pig that they get involved in a breakfast restaurant focusing on bacon-and-eggs: the pig, of course, has justifiable qualms about the idea. At the risk of reminding us of last week's mindless misconstrued pig metaphors, I'll just say there are a lot of pigs giving their all in this country right now while a lot of chickens do a lot of squawking every time they're asked to surrender a few more eggs.

James Otis, Jr., to whom is attributed the famous Revolutionary quote, "Taxation without representation is tyranny!" Notice he didn't say there was anything tyrannical about taxation itself.

But on a more personal level, I consider it an honor to pay my taxes. Granted, I'd like a competent, more efficient government to make better use of my tax dollars. But I love this country that has given me so much, so many opportunities that generations before me didn't have, that people in other countries still don't have today. I love our Constitution and legal system. I love our culture. I love the beauty of our landscape, the convenience of our Internet and interstate highway system, the diversity of our ideas.

I love that I can turn on the kitchen sink and drink a whole gallon of tap water without fearing dysentery. I love that I can go to sleep at night knowing that there are cops on the street to protect my life and property, and there are soldiers in distant lands standing guard to protect my liberty and the security of my as-yet-unborn children. I love that for a lousy $.42, I can drop a letter in the mailbox in Chicago, Illinois, and by the next afternoon, have it delivered anywhere in the United States (except maybe Wasilla).

I love that I went to a state-funded college and state-funded law school so that, thanks to the generosity of the United States government, I have 30 years to pay back what I never could have afforded up front.

I love that I can pack my suitcase and walk one block to get on a public transportation bus that will take me five miles to an Amtrak station, where I can board a train that will take me all the way from Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico.

I love that Teddy Roosevelt sailed America's Great White Fleet ostentatiously around the world, just to prove he could. And I love that when a world got sick of sailing around Cape Horn, Teddy Roosevelt moved Congress, heaven, and a whole lot of earth to carve a canal through the Isthmus of Panama.

I love that I can drive to Kentucky and see a mass of concrete, rock, and steel where another Roosevelt and raw American grit tamed the flow of the Tennessee River to electrify a valley and power a country back to its feet again.

A miracle of American sweat and ingenuity (not to mention good Democratic governance), Kentucky Dam, seen here on August 3, 2008.

And I love that I can walk through Arlington National Cemetery and wonder how many free people there are in this world today thanks to every one of those stately American tombstones.

And none of that -- not a drop -- would be possible without the tax dollars of patriotic Americans.

After 9/11, many of my friends and family members enlisted in the Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy, and National Guard forces. Many of them fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, some served two or three tours before they were through, some still serve today. Thankfully, none of my loved ones have died, but the fact that they have been willing to die makes them worthy of eternal honor, in my opinion.

But most of us didn't go. Most of us have stayed here at home either patriotically supporting or patriotically opposing the Iraq War, and going about the business of working our jobs and raising our families and mowing our lawns and living our lives. For us, the very least we can do for America and for those men and women who served it so selflessly is to pay our taxes with a smile and thank Almighty God that we're still alive and free to do it.

With $1000 in rent and $1000 in student loan payments monthly, I'm not exactly rolling in the dough, but if I had my druthers, I'd tell Obama to keep my tax cut, because America needs it worse than I do right now. I'm just as proud to pay my taxes to keep America moving as I am to give my church offering to keep the light bill paid.

I don't know how much Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Mitt Romney, and Cindy McCain pay each year in payroll taxes, but I pay $12,284.64.

And it's worth every dime.

Washington Post Reiterates My Point

Doesn't this sound like my post from last night?

Per the Washington Post, "A decade ago, Sen. John McCain embraced legislation to broadly deregulate the banking and insurance industries, helping to sweep aside a thicket of rules established over decades in favor of a less restricted financial marketplace that proponents said would result in greater economic growth. Now, as the Bush administration scrambles to prevent the collapse of the American International Group (AIG), the nation's largest insurance company, and stabilize a tumultuous Wall Street, the Republican presidential nominee is scrambling to recast himself as a champion of regulation to end ‘reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed’ on Wall Street."

Obama Sets Forth Simple, Straightforward Plan for Economic Recovery

Here it is: real straight talk, in five plain, simple points. You can disagree with the points, but you can't say that he doesn't have a plan. Please note in this entire two-minute ad the lack of any mention of calling "a 9/11 Commission" to do a study on what went wrong.

Obama's plan: No commissions, no stalling, no bull.

McCain's Plan for Economic Tsunami: Tread Water

Rocked back on its heels by the implosion of some of America's biggest financial institutions, the McCain campaign is employing a new tactic that should be familiar to anyone who has ever seen a comedy movie, a sitcom, or a cartoon: they're stalling.

You know the comedies moments I'm talking about. It's the chase scene where the bad guys come looking for the protagonist, and some beautiful woman distracts them and says, misleadingly, "He went that-a-way!" Or it's the love scene, where the jealous and suspicious husband comes home early from a business trip, and the wife has only seconds to secret away her paramour somewhere her husband won't look. Or it's every other episode ever of Saved by the Bell, where Mr. Belding is onto those pesky Bayside kids' schemes, and Screech or Lisa has to confuse or divert him until Zack et al. can escape. Classic moments of hilarity.

The difference is that this is no comedy. In fact, if we elect a man who has no idea how to fix the economy -- heck, a man who doesn't even think the economy is broken -- his stalling could turn into an American tragedy.

Exhibit A in the case of McCain v. Economic Crisis is McCain's own words today, in which he called for a "9/11 commission to find out what happened and what needs to be fixed."

Respectfully, we don't need a 9/11 commission to find out what went wrong, for two reasons. First, this isn't a whodunnit. It's fairly open-and-shut. People gave mortgages and loans and credit lines to bad credit risks, and then tried to spread risks (and wealth) by parceling up those mortgages and loans and credit lines and selling them to the highest bidder. Billions and billions of dollars were spent on mortgages that weren't worth a tinker's damn, and the bottom finally fell out of the whole shooting match.

Second, we already have an organism in place to investigate financial crises, fraud, excess speculation, et cetera. You might have heard of it. It's called "Congress."

McCain went on to say, "I know what's wrong, and I know how to fix it." At the same time, McCain reminded Harry Smith on CBS This Morning, "I was chairman of the Commerce Committee. Every part of the American economy, I oversighted [sic]. I have a long record, certainly far more extensive of being involved in our economy than Sen. Obama does."

Fantastic. He's been in office since 1982, when I was 13 months old -- 26 years! If he has known what's wrong, and how to fix it, why hasn't he done it? Why is today, September 16, 2008, the first time we've heard him talk about it?

John McCain during an earlier financial crisis, the "Keating Five" scandal, which nearly led to the stillbirth of his Senate career.

The reason McCain knows what's wrong is because he has been a part of the problem, or at least a passive, uninterested bystander. John McCain and the Republicans saying they're going to fix the problem when they get to the White House is a little like massive amounts of cash going missing from a till while you're the clerk on duty and then promising to track down the wrongdoers if you can only, pretty please, be promoted to store manager.

As any animal owner knows, the best way to know whether a dog's gonna bite is to know whether he's bitten before. McCain has bitten before. He's long described himself as "fundamentally a deregulator." He has made a career of the Goldwater philosophy, cutting through rules, regulations, and safeguards for the American public to make things simple, to do as his wife said at the Republican Convention and get the government "out of our way!"

And now the American people are hurting, crying out for more oversight, more protections, more rules and referees to make sure that never again will the "Masters of the Universe" land daintily on their private islands using golden parachutes while the rest of us -- taxpayers and stockholders and jobless ex-employees -- are left to clean up their mess. And John McCain just doesn't get it. He's incapable of understanding the importance of sound regulations.

He just doesn't get that the American people are sick and tired of these careless Tom and Daisy Buchanans who "smash things up and retreat into their money." I doubt he'll get it until Cindy McCain can't afford $300,000 outfits and their kids can't afford $50,000 balances on their American Express cards anymore.

But he's starting to get it just enough to realize that he's got to stop telling Americans it's all in their head, and he's treading water, going through the motions, trying like the dickens to throw America off his scent long enough for him to squeak into the presidency by the skin of his teeth. (I love mixed metaphors, by the way.)

Last night, the McCain campaign tried to squeeze a couple more days' worth of news out of Sarah Palin by announcing it would defy the requests of the Alaska legislature to comply with an investigation into Palin's possible abuses of power while governor. The press didn't bite. The economy was too important.

Then today, McCain's top domestic policy guru Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin tried to say McCain could handle the economy because, after all, he'd helped create the BlackBerry. And then, sensing reporters might be about as inclined to buy that as they were that Al Gore invented the internet, Holtz-Eakin went on to say that although McCain had a plan for the economy, it wasn't important "to write down exactly what the plan has to be. [...] I think that the moment when we write down a specific plan is the moment we send legislation out from a McCain administration to Congress. That’s the moment that happens.’’

I have about as much faith in John McCain's secret plan for the economy as savvy people had for Richard Nixon's secret plan to end the war in Vietnam. This is a guy who has said not once, not twice, but at least 16 times over the past nine months, that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong," as the economy has careened out of control and greed has continued unchecked.

John McCain is stalling, stonewalling the American people with oblivious and empty rhetoric. He's trying his dead-level best to keep us all occupied until November. Here's hoping We the People are a lot smarter than Mr. Belding.

The Chicken of Unregulated Greed Comes Home to Roost

Today as they woke up, Americans were treated to some of the direst financial news in memory: Lehman Brothers Holdings would file for bankruptcy, and Bank of America would be buying out Merrill Lynch.

The effect on Wall Street was immediate. Bloomberg reported that "Stocks erased more than $600 billion in value as financial shares in the S&P 500 decreased the most since at least 1989." Stephen Wood, a senior portfolio strategist at Russell Investment Group in New York, said, "It'll be one of those days where people say in 10 years, 'Do you remember where you were?'"

Another Bloomberg story reported that "the Federal Reserve added $70 billion in reserves to the banking system, the most since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, to reverse a surge in borrowing costs sparked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc."

Six months ago, the Federal Government bailed out investment bank/brokerage firm Bear Stearns. Just eight days ago, the Federal Government had to step in and seize mortgage behemoths Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But this time, when Lehman Brothers asked for a bailout, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson said no.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has called this a "once-in-a-century" financial crisis. Thank God it's a new century, because I'd hate for him to be comparing this to 1929.

I don't have to tell you that it's rough out there. We've all got friends and family members in every skill set who are unemployed, from mechanics to factory workers to technicians to engineers to retail employees to lawyers. The unemployment rate rose to 6.1% last month nationally, and the rates in heavily industrial, down-home states like Ohio and Michigan have ranged as high as 7.7% to 8.5%. Thinks of that: millions of the best fruits of the American workforce are rotting on the vine.

You would think that if little ol' you and I could figure out that there's a problem with the economy, the politicians could figure it out, too. Greenspan realizes it's bad. Paulson realizes it's bad. Bloomberg realizes it's bad. Paul Krugman realizes it. Even Matt Drudge broke out his giant font sizes and red font colors to emphasize the point: the economy is in crisis.

But John McCain still hasn't gotten the memo. Just this morning, he repeated the line for which he has taken so much exasperated criticism already: "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

On Sunday, one of McCain's economic advisors wrote an 1800-word essay in the Washington Post that seemed frighteningly reminiscent of Phil Gramm's July 2008 pronouncement that we were "a nation of whiners." Donald Luskin wrote Sunday, "We have surely become a nation of exaggerators." According to him -- and I'm not making this up, I swear -- "Things today just aren't that bad."

Folks, the barn of the American Economy is in flames around us, and the McCain campaign doesn't even smell the smoke!

What has caused the blaze? If you'll bear with my metaphor, the chickens of unregulated greed are coming home to roost, and, like Mrs. O'Leary's cow, they have turned over the kerosene lanterns of speculation and junk mortgages on the economy.

Not two weeks ago, the Republican Convention was brimming with declamations against government oversight, regulation, and "bureaucracy," which of course is just another word for order. Cindy McCain received thunderous applause when she said, "Our hearts are still alive with hope and belief in our individual ability to make things right if only the Federal government would get itself under control and out of our way."

This is their answer to everything: government is bad, and if we just dispense with the rules and regulations and let everybody do what they want, America will be a better place. This is their theory, and after eight years of Bush sowing exactly this wind, we are now reaping the whirlwind in spades.

How selfish, how greedy, how petulant are these people, to simultaneously deny that there is a real problem, and then to blame the problem on government? Wall Street has run amok for years engaging in speculation and risky investment behavior so reckless it's criminal, and yet nobody has wanted the government grown-ups to come in and lay down rules for making sure that banks and investment firms are solvent; that risks are properly assessed; that small, middle-class investors are protected; and that people don't believe they can lustfully chase after more and more and more profit, without regard for the risk, because the government will bail them out.

Obviously, bankruptcy and failure hurt the economy and hurt the people who work for these banks and firms. But buyouts might even worry me more. When the government bails them out, the American taxpayers -- you and I -- have to foot the bill for the unbelievable greed of hedge fund managers and investors. And when the government doesn't bail them out, foreign entities such as the China Investment Corporation have the chance to buy the failing businesses. So think about that: just because of pure greed, not only would China continue to hold a staggering amount of our national debt, but Chinese companies could hold the private mortgages and debts of the American people.

Is that the kind of "America First" John McCain wants?

There have been times in our history when government has become too repressive, the burdens of overregulation weighing down on the American people. This is not such a time. This is a time like 1932, like 1992, when events cry out for a Democratic president to clean up the messes left behind by a decade of corpulent excess. If Carter's America faced a crisis of confidence, the Bush/McCain America faces a crisis of competence.

I don't know whether John McCain wants to keep up these Republican laissez-faire policies so that Republican donors and cronies can continue to gorge themselves at the public trough, or whether he just doesn't understand how big this crisis is.

But I know that, once upon a time, Herbert Hoover called a disastrous economy "fundamentally sound." And I know that it took a grown-up, a great American, to brew the American people a pot of strong black coffee after a decade of drunken speculation: FDR.

In FDR's First Inaugural Address in March 1933, he uttered words sadly as relevant today as they were 75 years ago: "The rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

"[...] Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

"The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."

Though those words should inspire our next president, FDR was obviously faced with greater crises than we face today. But if Sen. Obama is not running for FDR's fifth term, I think Sen. McCain is clearly running for Herbert Hoover's second.