By Peter Galuszka
Thankfully, we’re done with two underwhelming, policy-idea-deficient political conventions that, save for a couple of speeches, offer limited hope for the November election from either party.
The best part of the Democrat-confab at Charlotte was Bill Clinton’s rousing speech, as well as Michelle Obama’s class-act performance, but they gave Barrack Obama a hard act to follow. He couldn’t.
In Tampa, Ann Romney did well, but not as well as Mrs. Obama, and Romney and Paul Ryan were less than inspiring. Clint Eastwood’s awkward attempt at humor cast a pale over the event, underlining just how off tune the event was.
As conservative columnist David Brooks writes in this morning’s New York Times, the Republicans deliberately chose not to push much concrete proposal-wise because “most Americans don’t presently want every aspect of life to look like the market.”
Brooks notes that Bill Clinton’s rousing oratory filled the void left by the GOP which seemed to harp too much on Obama’s much-chewed comments about job creators. And Clinton is absolutely right that the country is somewhat better off than it was in 2008. The GOP seems to be summing up their case against Obama this way: “We left him a total mess. He hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough. So fire him and put us back in.”
The Dems seemed to steal the initiative from the Republicans which did have a significant stick — weak job growth — – to beat Obama with. GOP minders had the chance but seemed overwhelmed with off-point social conservatives demanding and end to all abortions, ending gay marriages and the like. These peripheral matters do nothing to address America’s very significant economic problems.
We heard precious little about how to grow the economy, pump prime growth, what the proper role of government spending should be instead of just repeated the “cut, cut” mantra, what America’s place in the world should be, how to deal with climate change, fossil fuel, subsidies for nuclear and wind and so on. Some ideas are in the platforms of the two parties, but you didn’t hear much about them at the conventions.
The dearth of progress on either side will be a major focus of Bob Woodward’s new book “The Price of Politics” due out next week. It deals with how Washington politicians, led by Obama and John Boehner, almost took the country to the brink of fiscal disaster last summer that would make the 2007-08 housing, credit and bank meltdown look tame.
Apparently, the one person who is bound to look especially bad is Henrico Congressman Eric Cantor, who is House Majority Leader. Cantor’s overweening ego got in the way of his debt dealings with both Obama and even fellow Republican Boehner, the Speaker of the House.
Cantor, who appeared to have no presence in Tampa, appears to act like a whiny, spoiled child utterly unsuited for the serious matters he is supposed to deal with, according to Woodward’s account. His performance should be a big part of the 7th District campaign this November.
It won’t be, of course. Cantor is snugged warmly into the Richmond political bubble that acts as its own parallel political universe that travels through time and space untouched by much outside of it, especially reality.
All sides look bad after the conventions, but no one sums up the current problems with governing more than Eric Cantor. Continued howling about federal spending and government-bashing to please the Tea Baggers and fiscal right wing, plus being unwilling to compromise for dogmatic reasons, won’t change anything. A switch in leadership might, starting in the Richmond area.
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