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Can someone please explain to me how McCain can NOT have some sort of plan as to what he intends to do about the economy? I will be the first to admit that I’m not the brightest when it comes to politics, but seriously? Are we supposed to just take him at his word that “change is coming” and he’s going to be the reformer of Washington? Shouldn’t he have SOMETHING in mind as to how how he plans on handling the financial crisis this country is in if he is to become the next POTUS?
Seriously? Please, someone help me out with this one because I am honestly baffled.
BTW, if this doesn’t belong in Great Debates I’ll understnad if it’s moved. I just would really, really like to know how it can be that someone that is running for the highest office in the freaking world can NOT have a plan ready to go if he becomes elected.
[cheap shot] He had a plan, but he left it in his cell at the Hanoi Hilton. [/cheap shot]
I can understand how someone could be a little light on the specifics of his plan, but he needs to hit the ground running on Jan 20th, and to get to the point where it’s his plan that’s being implemented McCain has to convince voters his plan is the best. While McCain has admitted that economics is not his strong suit, the whole point of having a staff is so that you can have people who know economics inside and out and who can write down a rough plan that he can read and won’t put his listeners to sleep. Deregulation or reregulation or whatever he’s calling for today is just a sound bite. He and his have to expand on it some.
You are confusing two issues. McCain is criticizing Obama in his current role as a Senator for not doing anything in Congress right now. Basically, he’s accusing the Democratic congress and Obama of delaying action until Obama gets elected. If that happens, they’ll be able to pass legislation more in tune with what they want. If they try now, they’ll have to compromise more.
Neither candidate actually has a detailed plan about what they will do as President, and probably won’t until they actually appoint their cabinet.
McCain’s doesn’t have specific plans, but he has a Vision: same as the Bush Vision, the rich get richer and the poor (and middle class) get poorer. But in the meantime, in between time, ain’t we got fun?
His eco adviser is Gramm who helped make this mess possible. McCain has said many times he is for -de regulation. What is happening is due to policies he was for. Now he has to find a new policy. It will take awhile for him to come up with a palatable policy and to pretend it was what he wanted all along.
That’s great, and I’ll be sure to check that out, but I’d like to know why the heck he’s not talking about it on the stump. His own advisors are now on record stating that they don’t feel it’s “imperative” to have an “exact” plan until he’s already in the White House. Now, I don’t expect him to talk for hours about every single little detail of his plan at some rally in Bu Fu Egypt, but give us something. Anything. Please. Enough with the I’m the P.O.W. Maverick that’s gonna go into Washington with my reform badge blazing, ready to kick some lobbyist ass. I want to hear it from the man himself. I want some specifics on exactly how he intends to do all of these great things he says he’s going to do. Is that too much to ask?
And I’d argue that it’s more in-depth (not to mention more user-friendly) than any information I can find on McCain’s site. Obama’s, if you click on any of the “read more” links, lays out, IMO, enough specifics and then shows relavent bits of his record for each major issue.
McCain’s briefing paper is posted on his site here as 15-page PDF.
He has given the same level of detail as Obama has, each on their respective websites.
You are never going to give details on a stump speech unless you want your listeners to yawn and fall asleep. Obama, being a better orator, IMHO, actually gives less details, while implying more. Its one of his strengths.
And just to reiterate, neither campaign has a specific plan for the current crisis, and it would be stupid for either one to release a ‘plan’ for it. McCain is criticizing the Democratic leadership that currently controls Congress for delaying until it has more power. Obama is part of that Democratic leadership.
Well, here’s a nice forty minute speech Obama just gave on 9/16/08 entitled: “Confronting an Economic Crisis.” Check it out and let me know where the equivalent McCain speech can be found because my Google-fu isn’t locating it. I’m sure it’s out there, though, and I’m sure it’s chock full of even more specific plans to fix the economic crisis that the incredibly prescient McCain obviously saw coming long before the rest of the idiots in the presidential race. Ample evidence of said prescience can be seen here in all its glory–skip ahead to about the 3:00 mark if you want the most applicable portions. I bet McCain can appoint a bangup commission to figure it all out, though! Shouldn’t take more than six months or so to get preliminary results on what happened, and maybe a year or so later we’ll have a spiffing plan to get us all on track!
Funny, it seems to me there was mention in the news at one point about another, more senior member of the Senate who was running for president as well…one who claimed to be able to cross party lines and change the way Washington works and get things done. Someone who claimed to be both a leader AND a maverick at the same time…I wonder why HE isn’t there getting things fixed right now either?
Here’s a hint: He was the former chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, so he obviously knows a lot about the regulatory changes that led to this mess.
Besides, since Franklin Raines (former CEO of Freddie Mac, $100M ) surely has some insight on the company, I’d think Obama would already have the inside scoop. That’s what financial advisors are for, right?