House defeats $700B financial industry bailout

I just got done reading a post about how McCain may miss a Senate vote on the $700 billion bailout plan, but it turns out that they bill fell apart in the House. The real question for this blog surrounds what this means for the candidates and the rest of the country.

Now that the economy is in the crapper, what is the plan of the candidates to fix what Bush messed up (both directly and indirectly...)? (look, its the challenger strategy) Both candidates will surely post/publish responses that criticize the House and the Bush administration for their failings. The problem of our failing economy goes beyond party lines, but that's where the lines will be drawn in the sand. But after all that mud/sand/poop slinging will come the optimism for the future where both candidates will talk about how their, and only their, plan will be enough to fix things.

I personally think that no matter what happens, or who wins, the president really does not have the power to fix a failing economy - it all comes down to Congress. The entire "candidate plan" crap will only be a facade by which voters will be swayed, and then dropped from the face of the Earth once a winner is announced. Don't buy into it, people. Stay true to what this election is about - the issues.

John McCain may skip bailout vote

In the recent Presidential debate, the current financial crisis dominated the debate. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have spoke about the economic situation over and over again. However, neither candidate has committed to returning to the Senate to vote on the bill which will provide $700 billion to avoid economic collapse. This is particularly odd for Senator McCain whom wanted to postpone the debate because the Senate needed to focus on the economy, not the Presidential election. If John McCain does vote on this bill, it will be his first since March 14th. The last vote of Senator Obama was July 9th.
What is this really showing, particularly for John McCain whom has often criticized Barack Obama for not caring about anything else but winning the election? By abstaining from the vote, the candidates may criticize the effects of that bill, which would be advantageous to both candidates. I find this particularly odd from the McCain campaign, especially since the campaign has tried to show that Senator Obama has not done much in the Senate. Abstaining from this vote is a big risk. John McCain said on ABC's "This Week" that "doing nothing [not voting on this bill] is simply not an acceptable option." Again, if the bailout has terrible, unforeseen effects, then John McCain can say, "I did not vote for this bailout because I knew it was a mistake." However, if he does vote for it and it backfires, he will be on the record of supporting a huge burden on the taxpayers that provided no help to the economy.
The bill could be voted on as early as Monday afternoon, and both candidates are seemingly too busy in swing states and may not be able to return to vote. It will be interesting to see how the either candidate votes, if they do at all.

McCain appears on SportsCenter

In the past week John McCain appeared on ESPN's SportsCenter. He wasn't on the show to talk about the normal political issues, but to appeal to the sports world. McCain talked about how some sports need a better pension plan to help athletes. He also talked about the steroid problem that is facing Major League Baseball. The week before, Barack Obama also appeared on the show to talk about different sporting issues. I believe by appearing on the show, both candidates have appealed to a group of people who doesn't really follow the the political debates, or maybe some who don't care. I feel that this is a good way to get more people out to vote, and also have people get to know the candidates.

Debating: What's at Stake?

Debates have been held between political candidates in the US since before 1858, and they have become an unavoidable part of US presidential races since 1976. Obama and McCain may have found a good excuse to back down from this general election tradition in the Congressional discussion of the economic bailout package; Senator McCain certainly indicated his priorities by suggesting the suspension of the public debate in favor of the task on Capitol Hill. Friday night, the debate proceeded as planned, but are these debates advantageous to both candidates, and was there a hidden motive behind McCain’s hesitation?
According to Trent and Frieburg, deciding whether to hold a debate is a strategic campaign decision. Debates are more likely to take place when the election is close between two major candidates who are not incumbents, who each see a political advantage to be gained in debating. While the first three criteria were met by virtue of this 2008 presidential campaign, each candidate’s advantage in the debate is not as clear. Senator Obama’s strong backing of the debate, even in the midst of financial crisis, indicates that he had much to gain: the opportunity to prove himself in public discourse, distance himself from the current administration and the opposition, articulate his positions, all while gaining invaluable media coverage. Obama thus caught the public’s attention, identified the problem, and proposed his own solutions.
Though each candidate had an opportunity to accomplish these goals, neither came out as the strong leader of the debate. Resulting commentary has critiqued the topics discussed in this “foreign policy” debate, the lack of an image or theme developed by either candidate, and the resistance of the candidates to speak candidly to each other. We will see if either campaign learns from this first round and improves its showing in the next debates.

The next President: Bush #3

In an article entitled, “Bush Binges; Obama, McCain will pay” the authors claim the next president will be too busy working with picking up after Bush, that he will not be able to start his new policies. Saving the country from a financial tragedy, and working with getting the country out of debt, will be the president’s main job. The article mentions that since the Bush administration has taken over, the government has started two wars, and we are now finding ourselves close to $400 billion in debt. The next leader will have to get America back on track. Obama mentioned in the presidential debate that America’s image in the world needs to be restored. Both of the presidential candidates agree that something needs to be done about the financial and foreign policies of America. From past elections, we have seen the candidate progress from a positive changer during the campaign, to a leader who seems not to follow thru on any of their promises. We can only hope that once either McCain or Obama is elected, there really will be change.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/26/debate.friday/index.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/14027.html

Presidential Political Involvement in Washington’s Economic Bargaining: Helpful or Hurtful?

Last Friday Treasury Secretary Paulson released his bailout plan for Wall Street. Yet, still on Monday, John McCain thought the fundamentals of the economy were strong, which is why by Tuesday, he still had not bothered to read the three page proposal. All of a sudden by early Wednesday afternoon, we were in such a financial crisis that it became necessary to suspend the presidential campaigns to go to Washington.

Was it for hype or did John McCain seriously want to go to Washington to help regulate the economy, something that he boasts never before doing in his political career?
From what I have read, it is mostly a partisan debate. Since McCain was the one to suggest and emphasize the importance of being in Washington during the negotiations, his supporters have said that they were helpful. "I actually think Senator McCain and Senator Obama were one of the catalysts of this effort," Republican Senator Judd Gregg told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "Having them here in Washington highlighted dramatically for the American people just how dangerous this situation was to folks on Main Street."
Senator Dodd had a different view of the Presidential candidates’ appearances in Washington: "Will all due respect…That delayed and slowed down this process. I think we would have gotten closer to an agreement… had they not come ‘parachuting in.’" Senator Dodd also said, "Respectfully, John McCain did not help. In my view, that was a political stunt."

I agree with Senator Obama, that the eventual president will have to multitask in his job. While I think it is definitely important to hear about the different candidates’ views on the economy, I do agree that being in Washington was mostly a stunt by McCain to try to hold on in the polls, which has proved unsuccessful so far.

Check the facts

While I watched the debate Friday night, I felt frustrated by being presented with facts from both candidates that seemed contradictory. In response to some of McCain's accusations, Obama would say, that's simply not true. Oftentimes, both of them would say yes, that is true, but here's the full story.

Well, what is the story? What did Henry Kissinger actually say? Why does McCain want to give $4 million tax breaks to oil companies? Did Obama really say that we would have universal health care?? Why has Obama voted to support tax breaks to oil companies and to cut off funding for troops in Iraq?

For answers, I recommend this site:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gADGK1dtPMQ5bMNUHc70I2fLYGGwD93EQLEO0