I apologize to my readers for the largely negative tone this blog has taken lately. It's an intense campaign year, and the country really is about to choose a fundamentally new direction. While I believe the US is going to make the most pro-pie choice, I'd like to engage in a little alternative history of what might have been a more pleasant, interesting and competitive presidential campaign.
Our story begins around 3am, in small-town Ohio, August 29th, 2008:
A private jet lands at a small town airport. It's publicly available flight plan shows that it launched from Santa Barbara airport, with four people aboard. Two shadowy, slender adults deplane with three largish, hairy dogs and quickly climb into a waiting black Chevy Suburban. The overnight watch at the FBO calls a friend, who calls a friend, and is suddenly the most photographed fuel guy since a high school kid filled Bob Hoover's gasoline powered airplane with Jet A.
That afternoon, at a McCain rally nearby, a larger portion of the stage is covered by curtains than usual. McCain, feeling the bounce of his VP pick finally being announced, takes the stage triumphantly. After a brief stump speech about the things the Dems didn't say at their convention he says, "My friends, I've found the best running mate for these troubled times. He's a man who needs no introduction, except I think I can say for sure that neither of us will take a day off!"
The crowd gives an obligatory cheer, then falls silent. A stage worker wheels a chalkboard out from behind the curtain, and a lean man in a cheap suit walks up to it, pulls out a piece of chalk, and begins in a perfect deadpan, "In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives," while the crowd goes absolutely wild.
The deadpan, somehow given extra life by the distortions of the sound system, continues, "in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?... the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?... raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this." From there, Ben Stien goes on to describe the scary similarities between today and 1929 and 1930, then gives a cutting comparison the Obama tax and trade plan to Hoover's tax plan and the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. He goes on to describe McCain's tax plan as letting people win his money through hard work, but calls Obama's "Take Ben Stien's Money."
The campaign from there gets really interesting, because Ben's a very safe conservative, but articulate and intelligent. The chalk-board gimic, far from getting old, gets adopted by some of the Obama partisans in an effort to appear smarter and more on top of the dangerous situation than the opposing Ivy-league trained economist. Identity politics get kicked to a back burner while historical examples and economic theory fills the airwaves. The Obama campaign would even have to go on the offensive at some point, with Deadpan Ben being as much a go-to guy on economic issues as Helicopter Ben. With much cajoling, a last minute "economics debate" is arranged between Warren Buffet and Mr. Stein. After Lehman fails and the wheels really come off, Ben addresses the Republican Study Committee and sends them all to the principal's office.
I'll stop here. I doubt this scenario would have changed my vote, but it certainly would have made the decision tougher. At it is, there's two weeks to the election, and unless something rather impressive happens, the Republicans are in for an embarrassing slap in the face. So, Mr. Stein, Governor Jindal, the original John McCain, if you're reading this, please save the GOP from what it's become. I'll bake each of you a pie.
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