Things would have been very different under a President McCain:
“I would have called up both Republican and Democrat leaders and say, ‘could everyone please sit quietly, let me deliver my very important message not only to them but to the American people? And then after it’s over stand and applaud and cheer or boo or leave or whatever you want,’ ” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told ABC News after last night’s State of the Union address.
“I think that the American people don’t really enjoy these pauses of seeing members of Congress jump up and down like juveniles,” he said. “It’s just — these are very difficult times. Seems to me we ought to maybe restrain ourselves.”
Rick Klein “John McCain and the Sounds of State of the Union Silence” – The Note.
Comments 9
“I would have called up both Republican and Democrat leaders—”
And told them the truth about our economy,our currency,our trade policy,my plan for fighting the deficits without causing a 30%unemployment rate,and my plan to win WW4,the Infamous War on Terror,and the truth about our victory in Iraq,(that we will have to keep a large military presence in Iraq or else),and the Truth about what we need to win in Afghanistan(300,000 troops on the ground),
that WOULD be very awesome.
January 28th, 2010 at 10:31 am
It was like a bunch of teen agers throwing a party as soon as Nancy’s parents were out of town.
It also conjures up images of Rome burning while the fat and happy politicians enjoy an orgy at the palace.
January 28th, 2010 at 10:49 am
@ Rex Caruthers:
Without quibbling on the particulars, talk like that would be super-duper awesome, especially if it came from some middle-of-the-road figure whom the elites had been promoting for years and the public had generally accepted as one of the sane ones, or knew little about. No name springs to mind right now. Maybe that’s a baseline qualification for “next president”: Someone you can imagine convincingly delivering and forcing action on such a message – though, of course, no one person could be expected to sell it all by him- or herself. You’d need your President Truthteller, a circle of elders nodding their heads sagely, and Sanjay Gupta, Dr Phil, and Jon Stewart pronouncing him sane.
January 28th, 2010 at 10:50 am
George Washington, who invented the term “Mr. President” instead of “Your Excellency,” would have agreed about seeing members of Congress jumping up and down.
On the other hand, we can’t know what he would have thought about politics in the 21st century.
January 28th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
@ George Jochnowitz:
well, George, as Dyer would say, we’re only 40 or 50 years into the bulk of the 21st century, so it’s a bit soon to know what to think.
January 28th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
As I mentioned elsewhere, with the exception of foreign policy, where McCain would be worlds better than OSlash:
“Actually I think Obama has been preferable to McCain. If McCain had won he would have been bipartisian, partly because he believes in it and partly because he would have had to work with the Democrats, who maybe not with 60 votes in the Senate, would have still had a substantial majority.
A version of Cap N Trade would have passed, relegating our manufacturing sector to China and India and destroying millions of jobs in the process. Our budgeting issues would not be nearly so front and center, but would still be bad and moving in the complete wrong direction. The conservative wing would not be energized, it would be sullen and uninterested. Massachusetts would still have 2 dem senators too.
All and all, Obama has been a great president really. Just not in the manner he expected.”
January 28th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
JEM — I’m not so sure McCain would have had the legislative success you suggest. He would have faced a Democratic Congress, and it would have been unfriendly simply because of the partisan labels. It would absolutely have put politics above the legislative agenda.
It wouldn’t have been in Congressional Democrats’ interest to give McCain leadership photo ops in the left’s traditional issue categories. My bet would be this: that the Democrats in Congress would have been unable to agree on legislation that McCain would sign. I think McCain is wrong on C&T even as far as he goes, but he doesn’t go far enough for the Pelosi Democrats. His health care regulatory reform proposals pretty much mirror what the GOP has been advocating for the last year; he wouldn’t have signed what either Pelosi or Reid put together.
I definitely agree that he’s too much of a big-government/”good”-government guy, but he does think both the suite of health care bills, and Waxman-Markey, are too much. He wouldn’t sign them, and Congress can’t override a veto on either of them.
January 28th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
He would have accepted too much on cap n trade because he did feel that AGW was real, he stated so, the dems could have easily put a bill in front of him and sucked off Graham and Snowe and Collins and signed it. He was drinking the koolaid.
Yes, his tax treatments on health care benefits was a good policy, but the dems never would have given it to him due to the need to placate organized labor. What we would have gotten was the Massachusetts plan, which would have failed just as fabulously as it has in Massachusetts, only with more characters left of the decimal point and then left the dems saying, see, we need to give it to the government.
His outlook was big government though not as big as OSlash, though I doubt the porkulus would have looked like it did. It would have been half as big but still without enough true tax treatment to make a difference. SO the spending would continue and no one would have complained all that much.
His need to be seen as bipartisan, which is defined as the dems only getting half of they want instead of all of it while the GOP gets a few scraps for show, would have resulted in still greater increases in spending but without enough exposure to get people to start really focusing on the dire financial straights we are in.
January 28th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
All the same, I think a Maverick versus Rahm shouting match would be highly entertaining if one could somehow be arranged.
And don’t forget that during the runup to the War of Northern Aggression one of our fine Southern paladins chastised a Yankee interloper to within an inch of his worthless life, right in the well of the Senate as I understand it. Don’t the McCains themselves originally hail from Mississippi?
January 29th, 2010 at 6:41 am