Column: A Disappointing Campaign
This story was written by Stuart Baimel, The Stanford Daily
The media has hyped this elections set of nominees as heralding a new era of postpartisan politics. John McCain is supposed to be the maverick favoring principle over politics. And Barack Obama is supposed to be the postracial, postpartisan visionary that will bring America together.
This was supposed to be the first positive campaign in memory with opponents who actually respect each other. Imagine that! After the intense bitterness of Bush-Gore and Bush-Kerry, we could look forward to an election season of serious debate over the direction of the United States, instead of dreading an endless series of attack advertisements come late October.
What we have seen emerging from the candidates, as the campaign heats up, has been nothing like what the media wants them to be. Both candidates have been markedly conventional in their policy positions and attacks on each other. John McCain talks almost exclusively about national security and the experience card, knowing thats the only area where he has a big advantage over Obama. The Democratic nominee, for his part, has become markedly less positive in the weeks since wrapping up the nomination (and in what seems like his worst fundraising month).
It is true that Election Day is still four months away. The campaigns have time to move to the center and engage in real debate as the American people start paying more attention. In a sense though, voters in the primaries have been deceived. No Republican voted for McCain thinking he was truly conservative in the Christian-fundamentalist sense it has come to mean today. He won most early states, despite losing self-described conservatives in pretty much all of them. McCain won because of his maverick credentials, which have eroded precipitously in the eight years since his last presidential campaign.
For all of John McCains supposedly maverick principles, hes established himself well within the Republican mainstream. The quixotic primary campaign of 2000 has been replaced by a conventional campaign no different than the two Bush campaigns--negative and pandering. McCain once opposed Bushs tax cuts for the wealthy when they were passed in Congress, but now supports making them permanent. To his credit, he is relatively pro-environment, but his plan to reduce carbon emissions is so watered down that it cannot be taken seriously. McCain has been in a long series of photo-ops with the fundamentalist Christian leaders he once condemned, while allowing Republican leaders to attack Obamas wife, his patriotism and his religion without significant public or private condemnations.
Obama is no better than McCain. He does not have a single major policy position that differs significantly from the left wing of Democratic politics. He is somehow attempting to unite from the left and for all of his supposed bipartisanship, that has not been shown in the substance of his campaign. Its unclear how Republicans are supposed to agree with such huge spending increases. Obamas rhetoric on trade and the war has put off many moderates who dont see the easy solutions (protectionism and a quick withdrawal) that he seems to see. Senator Hillary Clinton, in the latter stages of the primary, seemed far more likely to challenge Democratic orthodoxy than Obama, who was really running as the outsider/reformer candidate.
The Obama-McCain contest so far has been vacuous and conventional. The battle was supposed to be for the independents and the moderates in the center, but instead, both candidates are spending their time mobilizing their bases and placating the partisan powers-that-be on their respective sides. Maybe that will change as Election Day draws nearer and the undecideds become more important. More likely not.
The election season so far raisesimportant question about how each candidate will govern as president. Both promise to work with both sides in Congress to reach agreeable solutions, but we certainly have not seen that in the rhetoric from both campaigns so far. For all of the hand-wringing over the bipartisanship in Congress, neither candidate seemed inclined to do much about it. Thats disappointing, considering why millions voted for these candidates and what they once offered, symbolically and substantively.