Rational Outrage

From the author of Globally Rational

We want a President who can make decisions that will benefit us all. We want somebody who promises actions rather than words. We want him to tell us what he will do and then we want him to do it. So how can somebody possibly have the audacity to face us with the crazy idea that he will make changes? How can he say that he will “change” Washington without reiterating all of his ideas in each of his speeches? Why are the most educated people in the country still siding with somebody who uses complex “plans” and unpopular “expert opinion” instead of just telling us that he’ll cut taxes and lower gas prices?

The McCain campaign has been quick to point out that Barack Obama repeatedly promises reform without repeatedly saying how to achieve that reform. But we really need him to repeat himself? He has a clear plan in place for the war, the economy, the energy problem, healthcare, and all of the other issues… but effective plans are rarely simple enough to explain in a one-minute segment of a ten-minute speech. He knows that offshore drilling will fuel our oil addiction faster than it fuels our cars; that doesn’t mean, as McCain says, that he doesn’t want to produce more energy. He knows that the gas tax holiday will create long-term economic problems as a consequence of its slight short-term relief; that doesn’t mean that he is against economic improvement. He knows that the Bush/McCain upper-class tax cut will only increase the budget deficit; that doesn’t mean that he wants to raise taxes for all Americans.

We like simple ideas. We would love to believe that we can reduce our dependence on oil by drilling for more oil. We would love to believe that we can keep our troops all over the world without having to pay for it in taxes. But in the real world, effective policies require intricate plans based on detailed economic analysis. Obama’s plans are well-known, but he can’t explain the policy analysis in every speech that he delivers; does that make him “vague”? We can have a President who just tells us what we want to hear… or we can have a President who actually does what we want him to do without much regard for whether or not we know that he’s doing it.

Any top Democrat will be able to tell you exactly what Obama’s stance is on any given issue. McCain, meanwhile, seems like he failed to effectively explain his “big ideas” even to Bobby Jindal, one of the frontrunners for his VP position. Instead, Jindal reverts to saying things that are obvious and popular; he was sure to mention, for instance, that McCain “understands that the energy crisis is [our] biggest economic obstacle.” Big-time Republicans like Mitt Romney and Mark Sanford also suffered the same fate as Jindal did. Does that mean that Jindal, Romney, and Sanford are all incompetent? Or does it just mean that they were all right to insinuate that the McCain energy policy, and the rest of his ideas, promise no improvement over the Bush administration?

The fact that the energy crisis is a big economic obstacle does not classify a “big idea”… I’d rather call it a “known fact.” Everybody understands our problems (except President Bush, who recently said that we don’t have any), but not everybody can understand the solution. Obama wants to let the expert number-crunchers figure out the details; McCain has been letting public opinion direct his course. Who do you think can make a better decision about the economy: your next-door neighbor or America’s top economists?

What is “vague”? Is Obama “vague” because the details are irrelevant to his speech? Or is McCain “vague” because the details are irrelevant to his plan?

At Rational Outrage, we're interested in facts and logical analysis--we're not here to promote a particular candidate. Have a conflicting view? Share it with us in the comments or, if you're so inclined, submit an article.