Got an email from my sister Jan the other day. She’s a Navy veteran who knew McCain, along with other notables. She’s also quite astute about politics, and follows it more closely than I do. I asked her if it’s cool to pass the email along, and she said yes, so here goes…
After seeing the visuals of yesterday’s (Thursday’s) White House meeting, I came to a conclusion: The Republicans need McCain to lose. Not in a landslide, just narrowly; but they really want and need him to lose.
Why? Well, first of all, because they don’t like him, or Palin. And they don’t think he represents their interests or true conservatism. And they know he is unpredictable and uncontrollable. And old and aging fast in the stress of campaigning, which does not bode well for life in the oval office. So if he dies, there would be Palin, which does not bear thinking about for them: she would set the case for leadership by women and neocons both back a generation and make the GOP the laughing stock of the world.
But the best reason to want McCain to lose is because they know that whoever wins this election will have four years of no-win:
- even if the bailout works, the economy will be a mess and hard times will hit everyone (but economic advisors and pundits)
- recovery of Katrina is still stagnant and the real extent of the Texas coast’s devastation is just coming to light; the new President will have to do the recovery right this time, which will cost billions
- at the best in Iraq all four years will be an expensive extraction quagmire
- our military will be struggling with recovering from this war’s damage for at least 4 years, if not the next decade
- Afghanistan is going to be a very hard war and Pakistan is on the brink of radicalism
- Iran will be very eager to test the next president;
- Kim will die and North Korea is a great, and dangerous, unknown that will cost us manpower and money to either keep isolated or help restorePutin will take the opportunity of our distractions to expand Russia’s power and influence and control
- Labor’s time is up in the UK
- Chavez will challenge the new president for supremacy in Latin America;
- Global warming will become more and more visible and action more urgent and because of the delays of the last 8 years, action will be more expensive
- Social security and medicare will be taxed beyond capabilities because bulk of the baby boomers who will become eligible
- taxes will have to go up, for some folks anyway
- because there will be no funds for the new President’s promises or programs, education, health care and infrastructure will not be addressed as aggressively as they should and the people will feel betrayed
So whoever is elected this time will, at best and with superb leadership, management and luck, avoid a real disaster and might just be able to start us on the road to recovery. But it will be a time of fingers in the dike, not developing a real flood control system, not visibly anyway.
So in 2012 an opposition candidate will be able to ride in on the white horse of told-you-so and have a good chance of winning.
And right now there are at least two generations of Republicans in congress, governors mansions and the private sector, just salivating at the thought of 2012. And very willing, almost eager, maybe even praying, for McCain to give them that chance.
I think she might be right. On the phone she just told me to notice that Rove is quieting down. Check the trend chart here.
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