Two clear facts: McCain is moderate, Obama is waaaay left
In this season of political uncertainty, at least two facts are clear to me: Sen. McCain is at heart a moderate, and Sen. Obama is the farthest to the left Presidential candidate we have seen since McGovern. I support McCain because he is on balance where I believe most Americans are, whether they know it or not. Obama, as is abundantly clear from his short political career, is not.
It is easy for Sen. Obama to promise glowing generalities, such as Universal Healthcare, which almost everyone finds attractive. But next cold January or February, President Obama will find the devil is in the details. Universal, comprehensive healthcare sounds great until a bureaucrat tells you that you must go to a doctor who is not the one you want, or that you can’t have the medicine or procedure you think you need, or that healthcare must be rationed.
It is my understanding that under the Canadian system, a woman with breast cancer may have to have chemo while on a six-month waiting list for surgery. Will that affect her outcome? Perhaps statistically not, but try convincing an American woman of that. In Germany, medical doctors don’t make any more than nurses, a German-educated MD told me. So the doctors under their healthcare system sometimes begin to just put their hours in and leave at 5:00. Try telling most Americans who have waited 2 or 3 hours that the doctor went home for supper and please come back tomorrow—-or a week or two from now.
These issues all came up when Sen. Hillary Clinton pushed her proposals in the 1990’s, and most Americans balked, on reflection As I recall someone saying, “If you like public housing, you’ll love public healthcare.” Something needs to be reformed, but Sen. and likely-President-to-be Obama owes us more than platitudes.
Soaking the “rich” has been a popular Democratic catch-phrase for decades. But who is rich depends to some extent on who is concerned. To the taxpayer, it is usually anyone making more than they do. To the Democratic Party, it seems to depend on whether the election is still pending or has already been decided. And to Sen. Obama, it is apparently all over the map, beginning at $200,000/year and descending to$100,000/year, then to $75,000/year—-and falling fast. In fact, it will fall as low as it needs to go to raise enough money to pay for new entitlements. Not that the Republicans have done any better in the fiscal binge; the Party of Economic Responsibility has been about as responsible as the proverbial intoxicated mariner.
Where does this leave us? Over my 45 years of political awareness, I have watched with dismay as both party’s activists marched to the Left and Right, respectively. But I believe the “center of gravity” of most Americans’ beliefs and values is overwhelmingly in the center of the political spectrum. And that’s why I trust and will vote for the moderate instead of the charismatic, articulate speaker of ultraliberal but ill-defined promises.
Gary J. Ehrhardt
Columbia, Mo.
(6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
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How much healthcare can $2 billion a week for 100 years provide?
If that’s the political center, count me out.