The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

Free market capitalism is not dead. The conservative movement is not dead, but the Republican Party is on its knees, or will be shortly.

It is has become so excruciatingly embarrassing to be a Republican. David Brookes of the NYTs described Sarah Palin as a “cancer” on the Party. Christopher Buckley has abandoned the Party for which his father provided the intellectual foundation stone. Republican is now synonymous with ignorance, bigotry and incompetence.

There is no other conservative party in a modern democracy that would put up Sarah Palin as a VP candidate. Culturally conservative countries like Catholic Spain allow gay marriage. Until the Republicans grow up, they deserve to be kept out of power.

The inmates have taken over the asylum and ugliness is rampant in contemporary Republicanism. It may take at least two election defeats, as it did with the British Conservative Party, before conservative leaders come to their senses—there is no future in the 17th century.

The Good
Obama has a first rate, centrist economic team. If this team (and a desire to win a second term, unlike Carter) can keep the loony left in Congress at bay, there is hope that we can pull out of the current recession riding a wave of hope and public infrastructure spending. If, and it is a big if, Obama sticks to his tax program, he will do no harm to the economy, provided that in revising corporate tax policy, he doesn’t close too many of those loop holes, remembering that if he closes them all, the US would have the highest business taxes of all the advanced democracies. We have to hope that he is smart enough not to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

We do need (private) affordable universal healthcare. It should be a right in a modern democracy. It is the morally appropriate thing to do and a well thought out move towards this goal should mitigate some of the fear of job loss and change, ultimately lessening fear of the global free market.

Obama’s Nixon goes to China moment may be in tackling the issue of performance pay in education. Although sadly opposed to parent choice and charter schools, he has made positive sounding noises on performance pay. The teaching profession needs to be radically reformed and Obama would have the political amity to make these changes, if he is brave enough to seize the moment.

Above all, Obama will transform the world’s perception of the US and if he exploits overflowing goodwill in the early years of his administration, who knows what he will accomplish in the Mid-East, with Russia and against international terrorism. The international euphoria (and it will be euphoria) may even partly help drag us out of a global recession—there is that level of irrational exuberance around his upcoming presidency.

The Bad
Of course, it could all go horribly wrong. Obama won’t be the first left leaning politician in history to realize (if he doesn’t already) that one thousand promises made on the campaign trail will cost one thousand times more to implement than is raised through tax increases on “the wealthiest Americans”. Add to that the existing deficit and the final cost of the bailout and technically, Obama will have no room for maneuver whatsoever.

The bad scenario sees Obama moving too quickly on too many fronts, spending too much money and crippling the economy with a wider range of tax increases than he will currently admit to. That is what has happened under Labour Party leadership in the UK, and that is why Prime Minister Brown, having taxed the life out of the economy, is destined to lose the next election in a landslide.

The Ugly
Two names that should strike fear into the hearts of any independent—Pelosi and Reed. Two of the most monumentally incompetent politicians to have ever been elected in the history of democracy. With approval ratings substantially below those even of Bush, these two are determined to salvage their reputations and left wing bona fides, having completely failed to close down the Iraq war as promised.

At least 80% of the risk associated with an Obama presidency is the certain pressure he is likely to come under from these two clowns and their fellow travelers on the Democratic wing of the Democratic party. There will be huge pressure on Obama to redress the income inequality gap that has grown in the Bush years. Additional income redistribution(the top 1% of earners already pay more than 33% of all taxes, where the bottom 50% of earners pays just 3.6%) , strengthened unions, trade barriers and protectionism are all strong possibilities.

This is an intoxicating cocktail for the left and a surefire way to bring a recession burdened economy to its depressive knees. As the commentariat gleefully surveys what they hope are the death throes of global capitalism, many believe that this is their best chance of implementing Euro-style social welfarism since the great depression.

The ugly scenario is ten years of economic stagnation as radical liberals, unchecked by an adoring media, regulate everything that moves, tax everything that’s earnt, and pour our dollars into anything that bleats, with no regard to outcome.

And In The Final Reckoning
To a certain degree, an Obama win is a good thing on two fronts for centrist Republicans. The natural centre right leaning of the American electorate and the constant pressure from conservative think tanks, cable news and talk radio has steered team Obama to articulate a reasonably centrist approach. So the question becomes, once in power, does Obama stick to his word and keep the American people with him, or does he do a Clinton and govern from the left in year one and two, conceding the House of Representatives back to the Republicans in the first mid-term of his presidency?

If Obama sticks to the centre, we are happy. If Obama capitulates to the radical left in his own party, the Republicans will be back on the Hill within two years, hopefully chastened somewhat, and we will have what seems to have worked best for America in the past—a centre left President, held in check by a Republican party better at managing the opposition then managing themselves.