How the presidential candidates response to real-life economic crisis is an excellent barometer for the kind of leadership we can expect from them if we elect them in November.
So, Barack Obama stayed cool. He has been measured, stern and, frankly nonpartisan in his response. He has offered to “refrain from laying out a more detailed plan” to deal with the crisis until he has been fully briefed of the response being put together by Treasury Secretary Paulson, Fed Chairman Bernanke and congressional leaders, in an effort to keep highly-charged presidential politics from poisoning the well. This is “not a time for fear, for panic,” he said today, but a time for “resolve and leadership.” As I heard Pat Buchanan say tonight on MSNBC’s Race to the White House, Obama “realizes the near catastrophe” that could ensue if a swift and effective government response careens off course. Buchanan went on to compliment Obama, whom he called a “quasi-statesman” in his handling of the crisis, and added that, having been dealt a good hand (in an accidental and unfortunate way) in the economic news this week, Obama has “played it exceedingly well.”
John McCain’s response to the news out of Wall Street has been slightly more excited:
McCain has gone from being “fundamentally a de-regulator” of private markets to lashing out against Wall Street, calling for heads to roll, creating new agencies, introducing crisis plans and taking ridiculously cheap potshots at Obama in a rush of negative ads. On ABC’s This Week, the conservative George Will criticized McCain’s performance as “unpresidential” . . . “substituting vehemence for coherence.”
This is not to say that the credit crisis is not to be taken very seriously. But McCain’s political exercises– during a genuinely fragile time for the markets — are transparent and in poor taste. From an L.A. Times story:
McCain did not comment on the administration’s rescue plan Friday. Campaigning in Wisconsin and Minnesota, the GOP nominee instead devoted large sections of his comments to assailing Obama in increasingly personal terms.
McCain repeatedly questioned Obama’s ethics and accused him of putting his own interest ahead of the nation’s. And he issued dire warnings about the consequences of supporting the Democratic nominee. “A vote for Barack Obama will leave this country at risk during one of the most severe challenges to America’s economy since the Great Depression,” McCain told thousands of supporters at a rally in Blaine, Minn.
Obama, who has also grown increasingly combative, fired back at a rally in a sports arena in Coral Gables, Fla.
“This is a guy who spent nearly three decades in Washington, and after spending the entire campaign saying I haven’t been in Washington long enough, he apparently now is willing to assign me responsibility for all of Washington’s failures,” Obama said.
“I think it’s pretty clear that Sen. McCain’s a little panicked right now.”
I think so too.
Inform Your Consent 