An Outside View Calling It as It Is

Max Hastings is a British writer of military history, no soft tree-hugger. I like the way here that he describes how McCain would be the extension if the dunderheaded ways of the Bushies. The Republican Party is stuck in an incompetent, simple-minded "brutishness" that will lead to nothing but further disaster.

So badly have the Republicans handled this campaign and, indeed, their recent governance of America that they have herded themselves into a corner. In their intolerance and aggressive religious fervour, they have pushed out of their own ranks most voters with minds, or with a shred of liberal social conscience, or who realise that however little they like government and taxes, they need these things, especially in a global financial crisis....

To put it bluntly, the Republicans have become the party of America's stupid people. That is not abusive, but a statement of fact. Most of the whites who will vote for McCain next week are demographically among the nation's least-educated: rednecks; drivers of big, tough pick-up trucks with flags on the hoods; Johnny Cash fans; and deer hunters.

Sure, in upmarket city suburbs there are still some McCain/Palin boards up, among people who simply vote with their wallets. In the Bush years, the Republicans have justified their reputation as the party which looks after rich people.

But a shrewd political reporter said to me: 'The real fault line in America is no longer geographical, between north and south, the middle and the coasts; it's educational.'

Lawyers now back the Democrats by 4 to 1; with doctors, it is 2-1; investment bankers, 2-1; executives in hightech businesses, 5-1.

The blunt, happy truth is that today there are not enough dumb people in the United States to elect John McCain and his hockey mom Veep.

A formidable majority of Americans perceive that George W. Bush's pretty brutish presidency has been a disaster. They are painfully conscious that he has made America more widely disliked in the world than at any time since Vietnam....

The choice before Americans on Tuesday next week is more stark than most of us would have imagined possible a few months ago.

If, by some implausible twist of fate, Americans turn back to McCain, they would vote for more of the same - bungled economics, breaks for the rich, blundering foreign policy, perverted religion and foolish folksy values, a moral arrogance which has led America in to military quagmires abroad.

If instead - and thankfully most likely - they choose Obama, they will take a soaring leap into the unknown. Electing him will be the bravest thing the American people have done for many a long day.

The world is holding its breath, full of fervent hopes that they will not lose their nerve.

Powell's Endorsement

Juan Cole has a thoughtful post up about Colin Powell's thoughtful endorsement of Obama. Both are unusual in their careful reasoning, expansiveness, and rationality -- qualities too rarely found in our political discourse. The two made me realize that one of hte things about Obama that I am sure he will do is take the long view and try to do the right things for the right reasons. In the heat of battle in a dirty campaign, finally something positive.

Powell then signals his discomfort not only with what the Palin pick says about McCain's lack of judgment but also how it positions the future of the Republican Party. That is, he reads Obama and Palin as harbingers of the future of their respective parties, since they stand for youth in each one.

Palin's Republican Party is "becoming narrower." He does not initially spell out what he means by this charge, but it can be inferred by his later comments and by reverse-engineering what he says about Obama. Palin's Republican Party is rural or rurban, small-town, and ethnically homogeneous (i.e. "white")--also, it might be said, largely Protestant. She does not bring along with her many of the youth, or ethnic America (which is heading for 51% of the population in a couple of decades), or urban populations. Rural conservative white Protestantism may be a backbone of the Republican Party, but it is not a sufficient basis for ruling a dynamic, diverse country such as the U.S.

In contrast, he says, "Mr. Obama . . . has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He's crossing lines--ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He's thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values. "

Clarity on Republican Debt in a Great Chart

This chart is another way of looking at what I have noted before about the performance of the economy under Republican vs Democrats. Recall that the line has been, "cut taxes to choke the government beast." In practice, not so much -- more a disaster of debt leading to the choking of the national economy, not the government.