E. J. Dionne: At the End, a Clash of Substance

[babylonsister]

At the End, a Clash of Substance

Posted on Oct 31, 2008

By E.J. Dionne


SHIPPENSBURG, Pa.—Emily Daywalt decided to go to the first political rally of her life because she wanted to cheer Sarah Palin, who was here a few days ago to inspire the faithful. Daywalt said she likes it that Palin “hunts and that she believes in God and that she is a strong, independent woman.”

But ask the 19-year-old from South Mountain, Pa., why she is voting against Barack Obama, and she hones right in on John McCain’s closing argument. Obama, Daywalt said, “wants to spread the wealth,” which she interprets as meaning that he’d “give it to people who don’t do anything.”

For all of the McCain campaign’s relentless use of guilt-by-association techniques right to the end, the 2008 campaign is concluding on a remarkably substantive argument. It is a debate about what constitutes social fairness and whether a top-down or a bottom-up approach to economic growth will define the country’s future.

Obama is often described as cautious, but he has been bold and unrelenting in his criticisms of trickle-down economics and tax cuts concentrated on the wealthy. He used Thursday’s negative numbers on economic growth to press his case against theories that conservatives have been touting for decades.

“The decline in our GDP didn’t happen by accident,” Obama said. “It is a direct result of the Bush administration’s trickle-down, Wall Street-first, Main Street-last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years.”

Yes, economic populism is thriving right now, and if Obama wins, his election would not simply be a nonideological verdict against the status quo. It would be a clear repudiation of conservative economic ideas and of McCain’s claim that a more-egalitarian approach to growth constitutes “socialism.” McCain’s attacks on Obama’s thinking have been so forceful and direct that they require this election to be seen as a referendum that will settle a long-running philosophical argument.

Obama has presented McCain with a problem. By endorsing tax cuts for Americans earning less than $200,000 a year—i.e., the vast majority of taxpayers—Obama has complicated the typical Republican claim that Democrats always support raising taxes.

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http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081030_dionne_column_spread_the_wealth/

[fencesitter]

1. they do this cause it has always worked.

worked for reagan.