What I Want to Hear From McCain
By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in 2008 Election, Debates, Economy, Health Care, McCainIn a few hours, John McCain will have his last, best hope to win a high number of undecideds all at once. After this, he’ll have to pick them off one-by-one, and the numbers don’t suggest he has the time left to make that a successful strategy. As someone who is frustratingly undecided, here’s what I need and don’t need to hear form McCain (and I’m focusing on McCain because he’s the one that needs to make up ground not just in the general electorate, but with me in specific):
I want the details of McCain’s economic plan, not rambling generalities, but the specifics of how it will work and why it is superior to Barack Obama’s plan. I don’t want McCain to assume I’m ignorant of economics. I want the gritty bits.
I want more than just an outlandish pledge to balance the budget in four years. I want to know how we can balance a budget, particularly during a recession. If McCain won’t raise taxes (which is fine by me), then where can we cut expenditures? What programs can handle a trim?
I want him to explain his healthcare plan again. I’ve dismissed his plan many times, but I’ve really considered Obama’s plan and I’m highly concerned that Obama is setting us up for the slow-road to nationalized healthcare or, at the very least, a system where the government defacto sets healthcare prices and payments simply by being the biggest player in the market. But if McCain’s alternative is really nothing more than a tax credit and a few regulation changes, I don’t really see how that helps us in the long run.
I want a better sense of what kind of people McCain would bring into his administration. I understand naming names is not always feasible, but I want a better idea of what philosophies McCain plans to embrace. Will he reach to academia or the corporate world? Will he look for old, steady hands or bright wunderkinds? Will he place a priority on competent management or bold new ideas? Picking Sarah Palin was putting the priority on the “wow” factor and that doesn’t fill me with confidence.
I don’t want to hear any attacks that aren’t policy oriented. I don’t have the time for it. I’m perfectly ok with listening to McCain point out the fallacies in Obama’s plans but I don’t want to hear about the fallacies in Obama’s character.
I will use this criteria to rate McCain after the debate, so stay tuned.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Debates, Economy, Health Care, McCain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 15th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
[...] this evening, I posted what I wanted to hear John McCain discuss tonight. Now that the debate is over, I wanted to comment on how well he addressed my concerns. For those [...]