Political Philosophy

McCain's false suspension of the campaign (all his field offices were operational, and the ads still on the air), in order to attend to negotiations on a three page bailout plan (which he hadn't read!) smacks of someone who is unhinged. By that I mean, in times of crisis, we need and want leaders who deliberate, get informed and then make executive decisions; not leaders who shoot from the hip (because they can't raise their arms over their heads) and mislead the public.

When Obama reached out to McCain to issue a joint, and therefore bipartisan, statement, it was the sign of someone truly willing to suspend politics in the face of a crisis. So McCain took the opportunity to inject partisan politics, said sure no problem, and then issued a unilateral statement instead. I know it is a cliche, but it was truly and breathtakingly Bushian in nature.

The debate will probably go on tonight, but the fact that McCain even suggested suspending or delaying it in the face of a crisis that he happens to know nothing about intellectually looks desperate, but also cowardly. It has completely backfired. The panic is evident because even though the debate is supposed to be about foreign policy, there is no way the economy won't come up, and he will look worse then Palin did on Katie Couric.

What McCain lacks is an ability to inspire. Anything. This has more to do with the fact that he has been a bureaucrat for 30 years than anything else. Critics of Obama like to say that all he does is inspire, and is incapable of anything else. Well if that's true, I'll still take it. What we need is a President capable of inspiring Americans to bring out the best in who they are, but more importantly, who can inspire the world to rally around American ideals. Why? Because hopefully, once they are inspired by our ideals, they will be inspired to buy our products. All I could think of when I saw Obama's impromptu rally in Berlin was, how many of the 240K specatators were going to buy our products after that rally? I saw a consumer base! And as someone who travels around the world selling American product, I'm here to tell you, we need that consumer base!