John McCain is such a horrendous “defender” of capitalism that one can only conclude he sees no purpose in defending it. This is a man with absolutely NO systemic understanding of anything economic. As awful and as socialist as Obama is, even Obama looks reasonable next to John McCain. McCain is erratic and unpredictable. He speaks, almost in the same sentence, about the need to cut taxes, preserve something like capitalism, punish “greedy evil doers” on Wall Street, and seize hundreds of billions of tax dollars and force everyone to be responsible for bad mortgages. It’s not clear that John McCain sees anything differently from Obama. Obama is horrendously overrated, because he isn’t even having to work for victory. Obama provides hollow, almost nonsensical answers–because he knows, in a general election campaign, he cannot say what he really believes, as he did throughout the Democratic primaries. We know from the primary season that Obama’s only solution to anything are higher taxes and more government spending, along with socialized medicine and pacifism towards our mortal enemies. He downplays these now, but this is all we know about what he thinks. McCain, on the other hand, presents with such a hodgepodge of incoherency and self-contradiction, that one can only turn back and look at Obama and wonder if he is all that bad. Don’t get me wrong. Obama IS all that bad–just how bad, we’ll find out in the coming years since it looks all but certain he will win the Presidency. I’m probably voting for McCain (rather than abstaining), only to undercut Obama’s expected victory, and for no other reason. But if I’m voting for McCain, and I feel this way, then how do most feel about this man who intellectually sputters and stumbles his way through issues he clearly does not understand?
Unfortunately, most people don’t know how to evaluate the candidates because they don’t know how to evaluate what is going on in the world. They have no objective measure by which to judge either or both candidates sound, or unsound, in their thinking. They don’t understand that what we have–and what we have had–is not a capitalist economy, but a mixture of socialism, fascism, and the remnants of mostly nineteenth century capitalism, that brought our present hampered market economy into existence. They assume, as both John McCain and Barack Obama do, that unhampered capitalism is to blame for our current mess, and only socialized government control can rescue us. Obama states so clearly and with confidence, only not in that language because he must win “red” as well as “blue” states. McCain states so with a profound sense of conflict, confusion and ambivalence–but clearly, he has no other answer than Obama’s own answers, on the most important issues of economics and individual rights. Given the terms of the debate, it’s no wonder Obama must win. My only question remains: How big a landslide?