Bush’s Baggage
The tight race between the Democrats and Republicans for replacing the war president of the United States is coming to a head. Democratic aspirant Barack Obama has for weeks maintained a rather comfortable lead over his Republican rival John McCain.
This situation is hardly surprising to pundits and political observers, because all the factors that led to the fall of the Republicans from grace in the Congress in 2007 still linger. The most crucial factor contributing to the systemic GOP decline in fortunes is the huge and irreversible failures of George Bush in foreign policy.
Neocon advisors to the hawkish McCain had calculated that in the few months remaining to the Nov. 4 vote, they could at least revive one of the ‘burnt cards’ of Bush’s disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Occupied Palestine.
Furthermore, the State Department, Pentagon and CIA were hopeful that they could accomplish a great deal by breaking the taboo of reconciliation between Arabs and Israel, or destroying Al-Qaeda and Taliban, or gaining some victory, however small, in broken Iraq.
According to White House policymakers, any of the said cards could in some way mark departure from Bush’s terrible errors and blunders in handling the global crises and help revive hope in the struggling McCain camp.
But now it seems that the chances of White House getting something from the half-century crises in the Middle East and South Asia are next to nothing.
One issue that has popped up in the Republican Party is that if Bush and his equally incompetent State Department and Pentagon missed opportunities to strengthen the GOP, McCain also missed the opportunity to appeal to US public pinion by making some wrong choices.
McCain was dragged into confronting his rival in two important areas. First, in terms of configuration of his future team, especially the choice for vice president, this is important for the American public. By selecting a relative novice and apolitical running mate like Sarah Palin, he literally contributed to Obama’s popularity.
As a matter of fact, when it became evident that Palin was pain, even some Republican big wigs dismissed McCain’s choice as political suicide.
The second case was McCain’s reaction to the deepening financial meltdown in the US and the West. While Obama spoke about cutting taxes and reallocating military funds for the welfare of needy as the “change“ desired by the American people, McCain did not divorce his platform from Bush’s miserable economic policies.
This is why Wall Street did not see any difference between McCain’s preaching and those from the Bush school. What the Americans actually were looking for after the financial tsunami was to replace the status quo with something more workable.
But soon it became apparent that that would just not happen if the staunchly pro-Bush McCain takes the White House.
The important consideration at this juncture is that some traditional Republican support bases have shifted toward the Democrats.
These include some of the key GOP bastions, political and economic personalities, the media and financial institutions. Cases in point are states like Nevada, Florida and North Carolina now leaning toward the Afro-American and charismatic Obama. Add to that the rare support extended by knowingly conservative newspapers such as the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Washington Times to the Democratic candidate.
Not to mention that survey after survey by respected polling institutions and leading TV networks show Obama has a leading edge and could well be the first black man in what for very long had been known as the White House!
By Mahmoud Mohammadzadeh .
source:
http://www.iran-daily.com/
other links:
Bush, Sarkozy to spar on finance
US and EU Plan Iran Sanctions
World pays price of faulty US policies
Obama: I want Bush to succeed with Iran
