Why is McCain Playing Defense on This Market?

His other forward-leaning arguments aside, McCain has been playing defense on the recent decline in the stock market. His defensive posture, insofar as he doesn't have much of a posture at all on the stock market, can subconsciously be interpreted to mean that he feels a bit guilty about it, and therefore avoids the issue. It's become the millstone around his neck.

This is the wrong tactic for McCain! The argument he should be making is that one contributing reason for the market's decline this year is that the market participants dislike Obama's plans for taxes, spending and regulation. Imagine the political narrative if at least half of Americans had come to believe that this is a reason for the market decline?

The merits of the market causality argument can be debated until the end of time. Obama supporters would disagree that his tax, spending and regulation plans are contributors to the market decline. Free-market people will claim that the argument is basically axiomatic in its logic. The point here, however, is not with the fundamentals of that market causality argument – even though I think it is indeed axiomatic in its logic – but rather one of political tactic. By failing to make the argument, McCain is essentially ceding this election season's most valuable real estate to Obama because of a lack of resistance on this crucial issue. This is probably majority of the reason why McCain fell behind in the polls starting in mid-September.

McCain's failure to blame some part of the stock market decline on the market's fear of an Obama Presidency is an even bigger omission than McCain's failure to rebut Obama's linking him to George Bush: I never once heard McCain rebut Obama on this issue – such as in the TV debates – by reminding people that the only one in this election who has ever run against George Bush is actually John McCain, in the 2000 Republican primary. McCain conspicuously fails to rebut Obama by reminding the American people that he sat across the table from George Bush on live TV and basically called him a scumbag. Nobody else has done this.

At this point, McCain's failure to link Obama as one contributing factor to the market decline, will likely cause McCain to lose this election. That is, unless he starts to make this argument his central one for the last 10 days.

Comments

[rdr4:]

perhaps he is the senile individual he appears to be, paired with a bimbo who can't get her story straight or think on her feet, what logic dictates they would have anything productive to say about anything? And when McFossil's lease is up, we get the bimbo (Miss Hypothermia) as president. Clearly a productive plan.
Voting a straight party ticket is evidence of diminished capacity, voting itself is a choice that brings one to the same end regardless of choice.
Voting does empower the next thieves, liars, and buffoons that will conspire to lead us and forget they are representatives.

Cartman for Prez.

2008 Oct 26 09:08 AM

[goldenhinde:]

Anton: First, get a picture that doesn't make you look so mad. It is not flattering to you and makes you look - well, mad. Sorry to break the rather simplistic news to you but the market doesn't give a rat's ass about Obama in so far as he represents the least scary thing "out there".

The really scary thing is that Republicans don't recognize that the policies of their beloved Reagan are coming home to roost.

As other citizens wake up to the simplistic but accurate notion that the only thing that is different about Republicans and Democrats is that Republicans borrow and spend while Democrats tax and spend.

Frankly, while neither is a model of leadership, he Republican framework has burst and anyone who thinks that we ought to keep trying it - deserves what they get.

2008 Oct 26 09:58 AM

[Ironcross11:]

When was the last time increased taxes resulted in a balanced budget?
The answer is never. Decreasing taxes result in increased revenue. When we had a balanced budget for 15 minute prior to 9/11 it was because the Newt and the house, shoved welfare reform and tax cuts down Billary's throat 4 years earlier.

It is not the policies of Reagan that brought us here. It is the policies of FDR, LBJ, Jimmah Cahter, Pelosi and Obama. Taxing the producers to subsidize the non-producers is a losing game. The jobs will go over seas. It is a mathematical certainty. With the exception of ultra luxury markets, any business that does not seek to produce at the lowest cost is doomed

2008 Oct 26 12:05 PM

[JOSEPH FOSTER:]

ANTON THE DIRE HEART REPUBLICAN LIKE YOUR SELF REMAIN IN A STATE OF SELF DENIAL.
BOTH PARTIES HAVE FAULT BUT THE REPUBLICAN IN THE LAST 8 YEARS HAVE DONE THE FOLLOWING.
1. BORROW AND SPEND WHEN CLINTON LEFT THE NATIONAL DEBT WAS 5.3 TRILLION NOW 10 TRILLION.
2. TWO USELESS WARS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN HANDLED BY THE CIA COVERT OPERATION.
3. AFTER RUSSIA LEFT EASTERN EUROPE RATHER THAN CULTIVATE FRIENSHIP WITH RUSSIA WE INFLAME THE RETURN TO COLD WAR.
4. PUTIN SAYS ABOLISH NATO AND LETS CREATE A NEW DEFENSE TREATY WE SAY NO. MORE ARMS EXPENDITURE AND FREE
DEFENSE FOR EUROPE WHICH HAS CUT THEIR DEFENSE BUDJET,
WHY SHOULD THEY SPEND MORE WHEN THE US OFFERS THE SERVICE FOR FREE AT THE EXPENSE OF THE US TAX PAYERS.
THE STOCK MARKET PAYS NO ATTENTION TO OBAMA OR MCCAIN,
ITS ATTENTION IS FOCOUSED ON THE BANKS THAT ARE ALMOST BANKRUPT.
ANTON WHAT ABOUT THE TIME BOMB THAT IS TICKING WHICH IS SUPPORTED BY BOTH PARTIES. THIS TIME BOMB IS CLOSE TO EXPLODING. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE MIDDLE CLASS, OUR INDUSTRIES SEEKING SLAVE LABOUR IN CHINA AND INDIA.
THE AMERICANS HAVE FINALLY WOKE UP AND REALIZE THE DECEPTION OF THE SYTEM CONTROLLED BY LOBBYIST AND SPECIAL INTEREST.
JOSEPH FOSTER MIDDLE REPUBLICAN.

2008 Oct 26 04:00 PM

[User 286144:]

Reading this commentary, I believe the writer should take up comedy. The market isn't tanking because of any fears of Barack Obama being a disruptive factor, especially if elected president. We're looking at massive losses primarily because of a failed long term experiment in market fundamentalism which stripped away necessary financial regulations leaving nothing except hot air to support trillions in idiotic mortgage backed securities and their even worse derivatives.

2008 Oct 26 06:10 PM

[User 278660:]

Trying to blame Obama for the problems we are having now is a bunch
of BS. Wake up. It`s this administration that caused it and should take the blame. You rebublicans are great in passing the buck, it will not fly this
time. We dems. have finally wised up. Go Obama Go!!!!

2008 Oct 26 06:15 PM

[Jason Rines...:]

McCain had golden opportunities and blew it big time:

1) Keeping Phil Graham around whom stated that "Americans are whiners". If you don't realize that the press is going to snip soundbites, you should not be running a presidential election.
2) McCain sounded just like President Bush when he stated the 'fundamentals of the economy are sound" in September.
3) The Republicans refused to invest heavily into media and should have learned from the Clinton years.

Here is how I sum up each candidate:

Obama = ex coke user, fanatical, attempts to care for people but has never taken care of his own personal issues. Kind of like the a person that becomes a policeman or social worker to try and do right and make a better world, but becomes abusive in power. Corrupt Chicago politics tied into fringe beliefs of how things 'should be' versus how they really are. Economic understanding is very poor.

McCain = American war hero unwilling to leave his company behind in the face of torture. Unfortunately, that applies to other people in his life he views as his private platoon such as Phil Graham. Get a grip McCain, some should be disonorably discharged and some a court martial. Economic understanding is very poor.

No, I will not choose between the virtuous vs. the corrupt. I will vote Ron Paul. And we'll see what Obama's mettle is made of. Every time a Democrat is elected in a fiscal crisis the enemies of America further the communist agenda, although Obama is not too far off from that form of politics in the first place.

2008 Oct 27 05:23 PM