Leave it to Mr. “Straight Talk” to level with the American people. Facing a major hurricane strike along the Louisiana coast, John McCain had this to say regarding the Republican National Convention, which is scheduled to start tomorrow:
“I pledge that tomorrow night and if necessary throughout our convention, we will act as Americans and not as Republicans because America needs us now,” McCain said Sunday.
That sounds to me like John McCain is admitting Republicans don’t act in American’s best interest on a day-to-day basis. Only when catastrophe strikes do they change their tune. America doesn’t need a President that will act like the rest of us only when a major city is threatened by a potentially devastating storm. We need a President that has our interests in mind 24 hours a day, throughout their entire term.
And it is extremely telling that Mississippi Governor Barbour invited John McCain and his neophyte VP pick Sarah Palin to briefings on how to handle things post-storm. Why weren’t Barack Obama and the immensely VP-qualified Joe Biden invited? Look again at the quote above: Republicans can’t act like Americans. Everything boils down to appearances leading up to elections. They can’t govern effectively precisely because they don’t have average Americans’ best interest in mind.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, understands that he and Biden should lay low for the next couple of days, including staying out of the area. If they were to interject themselves before, during, or immediately after the event, the media surrounding such a visit would detract from the attention necessary to deal with a natural disaster. That’s only one, important difference among many between the two parties’ nominees for president.
August 31, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Sorry to inform you… neither major party acts like Americans. At least McCain seems to know understand this.
August 31, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Perfect post.
Like you said, it’s only one of many differences between the two camps; but this, like most of the others, are stark differences indeed.