Tuesday, October 7th, 2008...4:02 pm
The Less Bad Candidate!
Over at Culture11, I have a cranky squib on what to expect from the candidates this evening. I’ll just add that there is a massive gap between Obama’s actual rhetoric and the conservative portrayal of him as some sort of naive, starry-eyed internationalist. There is no globalist in this election, naive or otherwise. There is the candidate who insists that foreigners are bloodthirsty killers, and the one who keeps reminding you that foreigners will shutter your factories, poison your children, and destroy your domestic motorcycle industry. Yes, yes, I realize that we aren’t supposed to listen when the Obama campaign depicts economic engagement as un-American. That’s just smoke and mirrors for some nice folks in Michigan; the rest of us are supposed to shove our fingers in our ears, dream of container ships, and wait for Austan Goolsbee to fix the whole thing later. The problem with this approach is that every time Barack Obama says something intelligent about trade, some guy in Ohio plugs his own ears and waits for Obama to stop pandering to globe-trotting pansies too weak to build their own vehicles or churn their own butter. The only thing I know about Obama is that he is less scary than the other guy.
McCain’s bloodlusty glory-and-honor-at-any-cost orientation terrifies me. On the other hand, I’m reasonably hopeful that Obama will emerge a calculating and not at all honorable politician, thus talking the protectionist talk and doing nothing to advance an economics of resentment. I have a largely unjustified faith in Obama’s faithlessness, which is why I am voting for him.
11 Comments
October 7th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
[…] this post from Kerry. A taste: Yes, yes, I realize that we aren’t supposed to listen when the Obama campaign depicts […]
October 8th, 2008 at 7:44 am
I hope so too, but if protectionism is popular, and it is, it’s not clear that a calculating politician would reject it. In fact, since protectionism is popular, I’d say that you also have to be assuming that the Republicans will be intelligent, honorable, and put country ahead of party on the issue of free trade, refusing to go protectionist or make protectionist attacks if Obama and the Democrats ignore their rhetoric and push free trade. That’s despite trade being a losing issue (such as in quite a few Senate seats last time around, where protectionism gained strongly in almost every seat that flipped.) That’s what would allow Obama and the Democrats to be rhetorically protectionist but in practice only very slightly less free trade than the Republicans. Needless to say, I think that’s a harder thing to have faith than Sen. Obama’s fecklessness. On the other hand, at least Sen. McCain has been very devoted to free trade, rhetorically as well, regardless of the political opportunities.
In any case, another point seems rather clear to me. Politicians have to make ridiculous statements in order to be elected, not least because plenty of people believe ridiculous things, but also because they have to forge coalitions from groups who believe contradictory things. For many of us, there’s generally guaranteed to be as many or more statements we violently disagree with than ones we really agree with. For that reason, politicians are actually better off if we believe that they’re capable of being smooth liars. We want their statements we disagree with to really be just things to fool the rubes. That’s why we look for trivial-seeming things in a President so that we can feel that he’s “just like us.” “Since he’s smart, and just like me, he must really agree with me and just be saying those other things to win the election.” Sen. McCain is terrifying because of the reputation for “straight talk.” It’s terrifying that he might actually believe everything that he says. Even if libertarians appreciate his unpopular stands that they agree with on, on farm supports or free trade or elsewhere, they’d rather have the hope that the intelligent and educated Sen. Obama is lying to the rubes and will govern well than the certainty that Sen. McCain will do some good but certainly some bad. Of course, it’s compounded by the problem that many of Sen. McCain’s libertarianish positions, such as being against the prescription benefit, being against farm supports, being for free trade, or his health care plan, are unpopular enough that they wouldn’t be adopted, whereas he’d have a lot more leeway in foreign policy. Libertarians might well reasonably decide that, on the whole, they appreciate him in the Senate (more than some other options), but not as President.
October 8th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
You’re going to vote? Yikes… Didn’t you get the memo?
October 9th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
I honestly do not see any point in having a libertarian movement if it leads to casting a vote for someone like Obama. Perhaps there is none. Perhaps there never was.
Candidate says regulate more, candidate says tax more, candidate says fear trade, candidate gets “libertarian” vote. Useless, useless movement.
I’d say this makes me tempted to pack it in and become a video store clerk instead of writing on political topics, but certain sorts of anarchists among us would just say “Right on, now you’re making a difference,” and I have no wish to encourage them either.
Back to quiet scholarship and hoping the twenty-_second_ century is one in which politicians aren’t rewarded for bashing trade, perhaps…
October 11th, 2008 at 11:18 am
The candidate that sponsored the Immigration Reform Act of 2007 views foreigners as “bloodthirsty killers”?
October 11th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Todd Seavey,
Outside the arena of martial honor, John McCain has no discernible political principles.
Barack Obama is only better than John McCain because he understands that military adventurism costs real money, as well as (usually) being destabilizing and strategically unwise. This does not make Obama worth voting for, but it makes him immensely preferable to someone who seems to relish geopolitical confrontation.
October 13th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
“bloodlusty glory-and-honor-at-any-cost”? But he won’t even follow bin Laden “to the cave where he lives.” Maybe Obama was just pandering to the fly-over states with that little crackerjack, eh?
So you’re basically saying your vote is based on the belief that Obama (allied with two houses of Congress) won’t uphold any of his promises? Ok. At least you’re cognizant that this is unjustifiable. If you’re looking for a reason to vote for Obama without violating your libertarian principles, the more justified belief would be that Obama’s economic policy will usher in the inevitable market purge and may cause a devastation large enough to tear down the walls of the mixed economy.
Happy voting.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
[…] Kerry Howley, who is getting a lot of crap from her commenters for this: On the other hand, I’m reasonably hopeful that Obama will emerge a calculating and not at all honorable politician, thus talking the protectionist talk and doing nothing to advance an economics of resentment. I have a largely unjustified faith in Obama’s faithlessness, which is why I am voting for him. […]
October 19th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
I’ve got to agree with Todd Seavey here, though I don’t quite share his level of despair. The I-hope-the-candidate-doesn’t-truly-believe-all-those-terrible-things-he’s-saying approach to voting seems misguided. There is one clear reason why Obama *is* a less bad candidate: He is more likely to end our pointless, disastrous occupation of Iraq. I say more likely only because he has said the U.S. should have “residual troop” presence in the U.S. What does that mean? And, I suppose, according to Ms. Howley’s logic, Obama’s calculation may ultimately be that an endless occupation is a political winner, lest he be seen as responsible for the civil war or full-scale genocide that might break out in Iraq after the U.S. troops leave.
I find the prospect of an undivided, filibuster-proof, Democratic Washington, D.C. scary. Not scary enough to vote for McCain. But voting either one of these goof-offs when they both clearly demonstrate no love for, or even feign passing allegiance to, liberty is perhaps the scariest of all.
October 23rd, 2008 at 12:16 am
I too hope that Obama doesn’t mean it about trade (all the accounts of his time at UChicago describe him actively engaging in discussion with the libertarian faculty members, so we can hope).
But as folks at Unqualified Offerings noted, this is a weird way to think. After all, let’s hope he means it about the Iraq War. I’m too lazy/tired to look it up, but didn’t Nixon promise peace with honor in ‘68? How long did it take him?
November 18th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I took about six years and shitload of bombs before the US was finally out. As for the “honor” part, I have no idea.
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