Monthly Archives: November 2008

There are still plenty of pundits posting articles on why or how Obama won the election. Several writers are making a big deal about the amount of money raised by Obama (implying that illicit means were used), and that the electorate was uniformed or just plain stupid.

One website features video exit interviews outside a polling place. The point is made that voters knew far more about gossipy matters such as Sarah Palin’s wardrobe, than anything substantive on the issues. In addition, they seemed to know almost nothing about the candidates. Since nearly all of those interviewed said that they voted for Obama, the implication is that Obama was able to rally all the fools into his camp, and this was more than enough to tip the balance in his favor.

The problem with this argument is that the electorate has always been less than well-informed on the issues. Moreover, with the advent of television, physical appearance of the candidate has become much more important. For example, in the debate between JFK and Nixon, most of those who listened on the radio though that Nixon won, while the majority of those who watched it on TV felt that Kennedy had won. Nixon’s famous five o’clock shadow did him in. By the standards of the time, whereby TV had not yet been properly factored in, Nixon had been favored to win the election.

Another problem with the “fools” argument is that no decision that anyone makes in their entire lifetime is completely rational. Far from it: Most decisions are based largely on emotion.

In a classic example, when Toyota was setting its sights on the luxury car market in America, they contacted a number of loyal Mercedes owners, giving them the chance to try out their new model (which would become the Lexus) at no cost except for the gasoline, for 30 days. At the end of the evaluation, the subjects were interviewed. They were asked to rate the new Toyota versus their Mercedes in several aspects of performance, comfort, and reliability.

The Toyota overwhelmingly beat out the Mercedes. Yet, when the subjects were asked if they would purchase one of the new Toyotas, virtually none of them answered “yes.” A typical remark was on the order of, “Yes, the Toyota is better in every way, but I just can’t bring myself to change from my Mercedes.”

In the 1964 election, Barry Goldwater promoted himself as a “choice, not an echo,” and that he surely was. While LBJ was going to expand his Great Society, and claimed to favor only a “limited” war in Vietnam, Goldwater wanted to cut back the ever-growing social programs, and advocated a more aggressive strategy in Vietnam. Now, 44 years later, and with 20/20 hindsight, few—except the most ardent liberal—will even attempt to dispute that Goldwater was onto something.

However, at the time, it was easy for the Dems to portray Goldwater as a dangerous ideologue and racist, and emotions drove LBJ to a landslide victory.

Of course, there was another element working against Goldwater: He was a terrible candidate, prone to making off-the-cuff remarks that would only work against him. At one rally, in which nearly everyone present was a supporter, the crowd began to chant, “We want Barry, we want Barry.” This went on for a few minutes, as an impatient Goldwater approached the podium, and said, “Well, if you’ll just shut up, you can have him!”

Although McCain did not get crushed anywhere near as badly as did Goldwater, he was also a terrible candidate, who could simply not inspire a crowd. And, with the exception of his pro-life position—which many say was forced on him years ago by the party— he articulated no differences between himself and Obama.

Thus, it all comes down to one simple thing: Field a good candidate! Does anyone think that Jimmy Carter or Walter Mondale could have defeated Ronald Reagan if they had seriously outspent him? Could the self-righteous Leftie blowhard (and Alger Hiss supporter) Adlai Stevenson have avoided his crushing defeats by Eisenhower with more money?

Hardly. Get a good candidate who stands for something, and he will always win.

The latest wrinkle in the bailout merry-go-round is the proposal that we taxpayers should give billions of dollars to dinosaur automakers GM, Ford, and Chrysler. The touted benefit is that millions of jobs would be saved, but at what cost?

In the last two years, GM all by itself has lost about $57 billion. We can cite a variety of reasons: High labor costs; living off truck sales, and producing cars that no one wanted to buy; dicey arrangements with way too many dealers; rapacious unions; and terrible entrenched management.

Most people realize that any bailout would amount to little more than good money after bad. Clearly a Chapter 11 filing seems to be the best medicine, even if Big Three management fears that consumers would not buy cars from companies in bankruptcy. What a specious argument! Hundreds of well-known companies—especially airlines—have continued operating under bankruptcy conditions, with little change in the way they were perceived by consumers. (People always hated the airlines, and people always hated auto companies.)

Bankruptcy did allow these businesses to get out from under stifling union contracts and work rules, and in many cases, the bankruptcy judges forced changes in operations and management. At least, the companies were being watched very closely.

Industry experts note that with a bankruptcy done right, the companies could emerge with expansion capital, and they could retool idled factories with better car designs, and jump-start sales within their established brands. Moreover, the Big Three could keep running, and the job loss would be controllable. It remains to be seen, though, what will happen under a Democratic administration.

Obama could pull a Nixon, whereby a “conservative” president played against type and reached out the the Red Chinese. Likewise, Obama could call BS on both union and management and really offer some change in the auto industry. I offer no predictions here, other than to remind you that even the biggest liberals must realize that we are running out of bailout cash. When Barney Frank was asked where these massive bailouts should stop, he had no answer.

Moving on to the economic meltdown in general, one more factor should be considered, and perhaps it will be comforting to some: Consumer retrenchment, away from overblown luxury goods and services.

Suppose that a certain percentage of our pre-meltdown economy was based in these overblown goods and services. Let’s be conservative and say it was somewhere around ten percent. That would be more than enough to create a “slowdown.”

Maybe a lot of people woke up one day and decided to forgo their overpriced Starbucks coffee entirely, or replace it with the much less pricey Dunkin’ Donuts brand. While people will continue to drink wine, I’m confident that the utter snobbery I observed during a Williams-Sonoma cooking class in which the instructor assured us that to make risotto, you had to use $50/bottle wine, is fading fast.

Now that business casual has taken over even the Wall Street law firms, and easy care fabrics are available for virtually all kinds of menswear, there has to be a toll on clothing sales and dry cleaning revenues.

Many more examples of getting back to basics can be counted up. There is a trend to boutique law firms, and away from the giants. By the same token—although this will take a long time to really play out—parents are questioning the benefits of high tuition prestige private colleges, and as a result, even the Ivies have gotten more aggressive about finding financial aid for nearly all students. Ironically, the Ivies could solve any competitive issues if they just admitted that what they were really selling was networking, not education—but don’t hold your breath.

In short, people may be returning to value, and away from pure hype. That, along with lower oil prices, could be the silver lining in the current meltdown.

While it might have been possible for a Republican to have won this election, given all the negatives of an unpopular lame-duck incumbent of the same party, and the hagiographic media coverage awarded to Obama, McCain as a candidate and his unbelievably inept campaign were not the way. As Forrest Gump said, “Stupid is as stupid does,” and we now have the less than gallant commentary of certain McCain campaign officials suggesting that Sarah Palin lost it for them.

Palin may have her faults, but no one can seriously argue that she hurt the campaign. She energized it, but she was not enough. McCain never took on the Democrats’ many foibles, including the fact that they were primarily the ones behind the financial meltdown, and that Obama was one of the biggest recipients of Fannie Mae campaign cash. Never mind that the vast majority of McCain’s positions were essentially indistinguishable from garden variety liberalism, or that he seemed to be attacking his would-be supporters—including the Swift-Boaters and aggressive state Republican organizations that wanted to really take on Obama.

In fact, I will probably think even less of McCain if he doesn’t quickly defend his running mate from the brickbats of his own campaign staff. But, don’t hold your breath.

I knew that McCain had lost the day he decided to “suspend” his campaign during the vote on the bailout. This would have made good sense if he had come to Washington to rally the troops—and there were many—against the bill, but he did no such thing. What a great opportunity to distance himself from Bush! Instead, he went against the will of more than 90% of the electorate, and voted for it, just like Obama. A more stupid campaign move can scarcely be conceived. Some maverick.

So, what do the next four or eight years have in store for us?

Certain pundits on the Right are painting a doomsday scenario, whereby Obama will use every trick in the book to set forth a socialist agenda. They believe that with a combination of the Fairness Doctrine, a series of Executive Orders, and numbers in both houses of Congress sufficient to pass whatever they like (except for filibustering in the Senate), the country could change considerably. Moreover, they argue that Obama can pull a 1936 FDR-like move in which he would stress that he needs more time (another term) to get his plans going.

In the 1936 election, some of FDR’s programs such as unemployment insurance and Social Security were quite popular, even if the Republicans were correct in condemning Social Security. FDR would defeat Republican Alf Landon (another poor campaigner) in a landslide. It would not be until the 1940 election that FDR’s policies would be exposed and understood by most people to have been an abject failure. Had the election not occurred under the shadow of the war in Europe, FDR would probably have lost to Wendell Willkie.

OK, the doomsayers can cite an interesting analogy, but I don’t think it applies to our era. For one thing, voters these days would have no qualms abandoning a current administration or party in the midst of a war, let alone the winds of war blowing elsewhere. For another, people are far less patient, and would not easily grant Obama another term if his remedies were not already working.

Even if he and the Congress want to pass all sorts of socialist legislation, there is the little problem of no money and a huge deficit. Then there’s the matter of trying to pass tax increases in a down economy. Democrat or not, members of Congress have to get reelected every two years, and selling a tax increase to people already scraping to get by will be extremely difficult.

Finally, we have seen that the elite media can turn on a dime. At the beginning of the primary season they were all for Hillary Clinton, and then virtually overnight changed to Obama. In fact, the Republicans can take advantage of the fickle media by criticizing everything Obama tries to do, and when some of his efforts fail, their attitudes could suddenly get traction.

Obama’s fatal mistake could have been setting expectations way too high. When he is unable to deliver, watch the press honeymoon go up in smoke.