THE PLANK FEBRUARY 13, 2008
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I see John McCain is attacking Barack Obama for lacking specifics, the same theme Hillary Clinton has been pounding. Well, it's certainly true that Obama can't match Hillary Clinton's grasp of policy detail. Clinton is a true policy wonk. I also happen to think this doesn't matter -- as president, you need to be intelligent and know a lot about policy, but there's a point above which the principle of diminishing returns applies. Obama has a perfectly well detailed platform. He knows enough about policy to have intelligent debates with his advisors. Clinton knows enough about policy to be a policy advisor, but I don't think that level of detailed knowledge is necessary.
But to hear this attack coming from John McCain is just galling. McCain takes a strong interest in foreign policy, to be sure, but his main public appeal has been to endless remind voters of his history as a POW. On economics, he's repeatedly admitted that he knows very little. And on social issues, he doesn't even know what his own positions are. (See this hilarious report from last year.)
McCain is like Obama in that he's appealed to voters largely on the basis of broad themes and his personal charisma and history. The difference is that Obama is a former law professor who's actually done his homework on the policy, and McCain is still winging it.
--Jonathan Chait
9 comments
That's a great picture. I'll add it to my collection.
nothing beats this one though:
punchup.files.wordpress.com/.../john_mccain.jpg
- virginiacentrist
February 13, 2008 at 3:46pm
McCain's strong suit is supposedly foreign policy, and he doesn't have any specifics there either. I think we're supposed to believe that since it's clear he loves America, we can trust him to defend it. Asking for detailed plans would probably embiggen the enemy.
- geoffgraham
February 13, 2008 at 3:53pm
If the only essential pre-req for being Prez is being a policy wonk, then I'd rather have Chait sitting in the Oval Office. Guess you'd have to be married to a former occupant to have a serious shot at it, though.
- ryanmacd
February 13, 2008 at 4:55pm
Vacentrist, great pic. All he needs is the eye-patch and parrot.
As for McCain on this one. Take this imagined scene from the first debate between him and Obama: "Policies? We don't need no stinkin' policies! Barack. You and me behind the woodshed with a little bare-knuckle action. We'll see who has America's best interests at hand. . .I mean fist!"
There are times when McCain reminds me of a high school wrestling coach who would say to his charge, "Well, if he gets you in that hold, bite him in the leg!"
McCain is no stooge. I think he may play dumber than he is in the same condescending way that W. did due to the fact that he thinks a large part of his coalition is comprised of "reglar Joes" who don't "cotton to book-learnin'" I think that's a bit cynical, but then again, I remember the pics of Estes Kefauver in the Davy Crockett hat, so he wasn't the first and won't be the last to use this strategy.
- Lundell
February 13, 2008 at 5:23pm
I am not so sold on Hillary's wonkishness, $9.50 for minimum wage? Freezing interest rates on mortgages? $5,000 bond for every child. You know, at some point people should question whether or not she is just a nut.
- blackton
February 13, 2008 at 6:26pm
I'm with blackton, unsurprisingly.
I think she has a demeanor and delivery [it helps to be pedestrian] that inflate her perception as a grind. If she were a true grind, she would have read the Iraq NIE. She's no Tracy Flick. I'm not saying she's a dunce, I'm saying that when she pops out with policy details, it sounds like she knows a lot, but I don't think she's very good at stitching the facts together. A lot of trees = woods only when you're able to put them together into one picture. She makes bad decisions, and she loses sight of the larger issue a lot.
This syndrome shows up in her tone-deafness - remember in one of the debates [the nasty one] where she said Obama's been saying the Republicans had all the good ideas for the last 10-15 years, and Obama then said he'd been mischaracterized - he never said they were good ideas - and said something about Reagan in his answer. She popped out with a quick, self-satisified "I never said Reagan." He clarified, and she repeated, smugly: "I never said Reagan." True, she hadn't said the word Reagan, no doubt intentionally, but so what? The "10-15 years [of ideas]" was lifted straight from his Reagan/ideas riff to the Reno editiorial board, so that's obviously what she was talking about. But it was true: she had never literally said "Reagan" onstage. POINT FOR CLINTON!! If you're a tiny-minded shortsighted ninny, that is.
So: Doesn't "wonk" carry some connotations of actual wisdom on a topic, or does it just mean "lots of facts at hand"? When I think of wonk, I think of hilzoy at Obsidian Wings. She has a convoy of floating barges full of facts, but she's able to put them together to form a conclusion that shows some understanding of their significance.
- psantillana
February 13, 2008 at 7:00pm
Poor, poor John McCain. He's gotten on Chait's bad side. Poor guy.
- emigdio
February 14, 2008 at 2:27am
Loose Change. Better to be all things to all people, for a politician. Reagan did much the same.
Hillary and Barack resemble each other also in not having much of an obvious sense of humor. And in not inconsiderable self-regard.
McCain at any rate seems he can joke. Even about himself. ... Look at that picture.
- FBC
February 14, 2008 at 4:04am
So yesterday, John McCain attacked Barack Obama for lacking specifics. Also yesterday, McCain's economic
- Anonymous
February 14, 2008 at 10:59am