Time to "cowboy up" to Main Street

Townhall.com ^ | September 28, 2008 | Salena Zito

[Kaslin]

Last week, Main Street received an opportunity to sit in the front seat of the election, thanks to John McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign to go to Washington to help Congress fix the financial meltdown.

Whether that was an admirable decision by a man who once said he “would rather lose an election than a war” or a political stunt to boost his economic muscle, it did accomplish one thing: The rhetoric of both candidates pivoted to Middle America and working families.

Let’s hope it stays there.

Until now, chin-wagging by the political elite and endless e-mails from the campaigns and the national parties have driven the hour’s story.

“Those clowns make it difficult for those elected ultimately to govern, because governing is reality -- it isn't campaigning,” says Purdue University political science professor Bert Rockman.

Rockman says a lot of focus has been on the wrong things -- sort of like looking at the zookeepers, not the animals.

Voters lose ultimately when politics consumes governing, when style overrides substance, when tough -- usually stupid -- words override reflective thought that might prevent you from being painted into a corner.

Politics is gut stuff. Good government and serious policy-making, in contrast, engage the brain.

“We didn't get to the top of the food chain by out-muscling some of the larger mammals,” Rockman points out. “We got there by outwitting them.”

Now that the campaigns have paused (and perhaps realized that they aren’t just preaching to their respective choirs), what should they be saying?

First, the candidates should ask without preconditions why the current economic crisis happened -- and then not respond with stock answers.

They can't just shout “Regulate more!” without knowing what it is they need to regulate, and under what framework and oversight.

Most Americans understand that you must balance your checkbook. They want to know that the guy they’re electing operates the same way; they want to hear that, under his administration, the Federal Reserve will be more incremental in managing the nation’s money supply.

No ideological themes sung to finger-wagging -- Middle America wants to know what political commitments we can and cannot afford.

For its part, the press should ask much better questions, departing from “gotcha” or silly questions and leaping into reality, such as “What are you actually going to do?” or “What’s the basis for the claim you’re making?”

Federal Reserve historian and Carnegie Mellon professor Allan Meltzer says we have faced serious problems such as this before, most recently the banking problems of the early 1990s.

Meltzer says that because banks lend long-term and borrow short-term, “Crises occur when the market changes.”

What most people want is to understand the problem, how it affects their pocketbook and what each candidate will do to clean up the mess.

University of Arkansas political science professor Rob Maranto says that because the press focuses on such things as intercepted e-mails, pregnant daughters, Obama's slickness or McCain's temper, we all understand the candidates’ personal characteristics and can make some sense of them.

But the larger issue is, who understands today’s financial meltdown?

Only time (short-term time, since we are now just 30-odd days from Election Day) will tell if McCain cowboy-upped during his “suspended” campaign and achieved something worthwhile or if he and Obama simply picked up where they left off -- allowing the chin-waggers to frame the campaign’s final month and leaving Main Street in suspended animation.

[screaminsunshine]

The skunks will do it anyhow. They are just trying to cover their tracks. SMOKE em out man. This is total lunacy.

[So Circumstanced]

Cowboy? More like cowtow.

Looks more like McCain and Obama “cowboyed up” much in the same way as Brokeback Mountain cowboys “cowboy up”

[silverleaf]

McCain (and Palin) should study up real hard on Novak’s “Democratic Capitalism” (a term Bush used in his address to the nation)

democratic capitalism rests upon a 3-legged stool
-the order of law
-individual liberty and property rights
-personal morality

All three legs of the stool have been under assault, but the one that brought us to this point was personal morality.

I think the American people would “get it” if it was ADMITTED that govt officials AND Wall Street executives, in pride and greed, lost their personal morality

And “Main Street” is not a blameless victim.

People who lied and cheated and defrauded the banks and govt agencies, took loans they couldn't pay or took kickbacks for making loans they knew wouldn't be repaid- and people who could but choose NOT to pay their bills because they got stuck at the top of the ponzi scheme— also lack personal morality

A guy called business show last night and asked why, if his house was worth half of what he paid for it, why should he pay the mortgage? D'OH. Because you signed the loan agreement to do so. PAY YOUR MORTGAGE, idiot.

With this kind of shiftless amoral attitude even on Main Street about taking on debt and then walking away-even by people who can afford their bills -— why would anyone make a car payment if the car depreciates? Or pay the credit card bill if the restaurant meal is all eaten or the prices of flat screen TV’s drop??

Moral behavior needs to be taught, recognized, expected of a civil society. Or there is no bail out or philosophy or handout system in the world that can “fix” us.