Status Quobama

Status Quobama


By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, September 25, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Election '08: Media caricatures make John McCain the tired, old candidate of standing pat and Barack Obama the agent of change. But it's becoming ever clearer that Obama is the typical politician.


Sen. McCain suspended his campaign because he thought his place as a U.S. senator was in Washington during a big financial crisis. The Republican presidential nominee also said he wouldn't be showing up for the first debate.

Call it a gimmick if you like, but you can bet Sen. Obama wishes he'd thought of it first. Instead, the Democratic nominee lamely retorted that the debate, set for Friday at the University of Mississippi and focusing on foreign policy, should not be delayed because "it makes sense for us to present ourselves before the American people" and "we've both got big planes." But that falls flat.

McCain long ago challenged Obama to 10 freewheeling debates without the usual constraints. Obama, who is clearly ill at ease in the absence of a teleprompter, refused. Why didn't it "make sense for us to present ourselves before the American people" then?

Was it Obama who reached out his hand to McCain and President Bush to meet and, along with congressional leaders, come to agreement on legislation to put an end to the crisis?

No, it was the Republicans who were building bridges between the parties this week — even if the ultimate solution is too light on budget cuts and reform and too heavy on increased debt and, ultimately, higher taxes.

Repeatedly, it has been McCain, not Obama, who has exhibited creativity and a willingness to adapt to events.

At the instant the establishment media's talking heads were revving up to spend days waxing on about the greatness of Obama's acceptance speech, he was upstaged the next morning by his GOP opponent's naming of Gov. Sarah Palin to the ticket.

Unlike the last female running mate for a major party — little-known three-term House member Geraldine Ferraro, who ran with Walter Mondale in 1984 — McCain's choice for veep actually has experience running a government and won't put you to sleep with her speeches.

It's in regard to the global war on terror that the difference between McCain and Obama really hits you. McCain bucked the Washington establishment of both parties by insisting that we must win and we can win in Iraq. Both he and the president resisted the defeat-with-dignity notions contained in the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report, and the resulting surge strategy implemented by Gen. David Petraeus fundamentally transformed the conflict there for the better.

Obama, by contrast, continues with little alteration the Democrats' years-old mantra that U.S. troops should be redeployed from Iraq to Afghanistan so we can catch the ailing Osama bin Laden.

With an electorate sick of the status quo, the choice in November is between the same liberal ideology Democratic presidential candidates have offered us for years and an open-minded, maverick Republican.