All throughout the Campaign I vigorously supported John McCain until the day he selected Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential pick for me that pick was indefensible and in fact put the US at risk should anything happen to McCain. It also was clear that the selection that McCain would have preferred, aside from Joe Lieberman, was Tom Ridge, but solely because some political commentators like Hannity and Limbough decried that selection for the reason that Ridge was pro choice, meant that the Republican Party was not a big tent after all. It was the party of the religious right. The biggest contradiction for those advocating the selection of Palin was that they seemed not very concerned about her becoming President if McCain were to die.

Their position was that although she may not be versed in foreign policy and domestic issues she could “learn” That meant that they knew they could control her should that eventuality come about. At the same time they were very concerned about the same scenario happening if Ridge were Vice President even though in every way he was more than capable of being President. This self serving contradiction was a conservative play to maintain conservative pro life values on the Supreme Court at any cost including the safety and security of the United States. after the Palin Pick I decided to examine the real issues confronting America not the litmus test issues imposed by the right. taxes for example, McCain wanted to continue the Bush tax policy.
But that policy had failed.

That policy was predicated on the Laffer Curve which predicted increased government revenues as the result of lower tax rates at the margins. The problem is that the AMT pretty much insures that those tax cuts only benefit the very rich at the very top end of the income ladder and that is not what was necessary to stimulate consumer spending after the meltdown in the financial markets. Then there was McCain’s transparent attempt to abandon the campaign trial in order to lead the house republicans to bailout the financials. He couldn’t and they didn’t. Limping back to the campaign after threatening not to attend the last debate was, for me, and indication that McCain would not be a thoughtful President but rather an emotional one and after 8 years of Bush my judgment was that at least in terms of temperament we needed to switch gears. and then there was McCain’s insistence that the surge worked and that it was largely his efforts that resulted in the surge.

That position did not address the fact that the Iraq invasion was probably the worst foreign policy call in history. That we underestimated the reaction of the different groups in the region. That it was not the traditional Republican way of approaching world affairs, and that as long as McCain had the same advisors as Bush on foreign policy the neocons who developed the strategy of regime change, would still be in control. In addition you already had the President abdicating his role to the Treasury secretary who advocated nationalizing the banks, and in effect did. This meant that any charge that Obama might be too liberal was demagogic at best. You can’t get more liberal than making the banks a function of the government. Clearly the economic climate might in fact justify a President willing to build infrastructure to create jobs, and spend whatever was necessary to revive an economy headed toward a depression and deflation.

That made the choice less ideological than usual and made a more compelling argument for a Rooseveltian approach put this together with his age, his demeanor, his failure to be able to understand the economic complexities of the day and with the great achievement that we as a nation would be making by electing the first African American President, the writing was on the wall that McCain’s time had passed and so must the baton be passed as well.