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Obama: No Time for Fear or Panic. Time for Resolve and Leadership |
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Ed Sills, director of communications for the Texas AFL-CIO, follows up on Tuesday’s presidential debate and highlights Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign speech in Indiana, which demonstrated his statesman-like approach to our economic crisis.
Sen. Barack Obama did just fine in Tuesday night’s debate with Sen. John McCain, and he scored—or benefited from—the points that will stick in people’s minds.
Most anyone in the union movement would have just about jumped out of his or her chair when McCain called health care a “responsibility” and Obama joined the AFL-CIO in proclaiming health care a “right.” Couple this with McCain’s plans to tax health care benefits and to cut (or “reduce the cost” of) Social Security and Medicare, and the contrast was made nicely. It didn’t hurt, either, that commentators seized on McCain’s finger-pointing use of the phrase, “That One” to describe Obama.
The best thing about Obama’s day, however, has been his follow-up. He’s still pouncing on McCain’s missteps in discussing health care, but he also is channeling Franklin D. Roosevelt in beginning to talk the nation through hard economic times.
From an Associated Press story:
Speaking to several thousand people in Indianapolis on Wednesday, Obama acknowledged public anxiety over the financial crisis.
“This isn’t a time for fear or panic,’ he said. ‘This is a time for resolve and leadership.”
Obama criticized Republican rival John McCain’s economic and health care plans, saying they will continue the failed policies of President Bush. He said his ideas are better.
“I know that we can steer ourselves out of this crisis. Because that’s who we are,” Obama said. “This is a nation that has faced down war and depression, great challenges and great threats.”
This is the voice of someone who is starting to plot out a presidency even as he tries to win votes, the voice of someone who is actively avoiding a low road that might make voters even angrier at “the rascals” but also harm the economy.
When debate moderator Tom Brokaw asked Obama if he thought the economy would get worse before it got better, it was a test of sorts. Any number of dispassionate analysts would answer that question “Probably.” But a presidential candidate needs to bring optimism to the table when it’s needed, as well as a dose of reality when it’s called for. Obama instead said, “No,” and talked about how to avoid a worsening of the situation.
The frame, the subtext and the message continue to revolve around “Yes, we can,” and it has never varied. That says a lot.
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Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
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So he said it, “Healthcare is a RIGHT”. now, is he going to be prepared to do what is necessary to ensure everyone’s “right”? His plan still calls for private insurers to be in the game, and that will undoubtedly make our “right” to healthcare unobtainable for many. I understand that some people think incrementalism is the way to get universal health care, but incremental changes run a dual, almost catch-22, risk. If his plan works, and the number of uninsured falls, it could very well act like a safety valve that lets off pressure for universal healthcare. But this plan is unlikely to insure everyone and we will still have millions without access to healthcare. That doesn’t sound like a “right” to me.
The other, and I think more likely, risk is that Obama’s plan fails to really do much about soaring costs and the number of uninsured falls only mildly. combine that with the already extreme pressure on the federal budget and his program will be labeled as another “wasteful” “big government” program that doesn’t work. This will set the movement for universal health care back years.
Since neither one of these outcomes is desirable the only logical position is to support single-payer Universal Healthcare for all, and continue to push it and push it and explain it to people until the support is there for it. we KNOW it can work. It works in every other industrial (and a lot of pre-industrial) country in the world. Its time for the AFL-CIO to stop playing conservative and start organizing for our RIGHT to healthcare.
Here’s what I would do. If I were running for president, believing as I do, that all Americans should have universal health care, I would not go into any detail about it. This item is way too controversial to even be addressed in a presidential election. Besides, guaranteeing something like that without careful, detailed planning to show how it can be done would be reckless and irresponsible. Suppose it cannot be done right away, or there are economic setbacks. This would make the candidate a liar. There are many supporters out there in favor of privatized health care, with a lot of money being poured into the campaigns of those candidates who support it. Obama could lose the election if he comes right out and says we should have universal health care. Americans will get talked out of believing this is good for them by the opponent saying they’ll have to raise your taxes (a lot) to pay for it; you know this would happen. We all know where McCain stands on this. So Obama circumvents the issue, strategically stating his plan for an obvious resolution, which in and of itself is a move in the right direction, while assuring the voter that he believes health care is a “right”. Anyone who believes that it is a ‘right’ and is bold enough to make that statement clearly understands what is at stake here. I think he will do right by the American people. I would like to see him get that chance.
To All Dreamers with ‘lots of good ideas’:
Not only will John McCain not deliver for American workers, but Barak Obama will also not deliver.
The difference is that while McCain will cut social programs our of a philosophical commitment, Obama will do it because of the fix he willing inherits from Bush. Then, through no fault of his own, but nevertheless failing to move us much left of Bush, he will lose the next election, and the new, (Republican) president, say, a Giulliani, finding that Barak had not taken us much left of Bush, will be in a position to move us even further right and more nasty than Bush. All this because neither candidate, nor the American people, care to deal with the truth of what we have all allowed.
Let’s have a parade–at a GM plant!