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This election year, the clear focal point is change. Each candidate has come to realize they need to promise change in order to distance themselves from the unquestionable failures of George W. Bush – but how much of this talk of change has any real significance in the candidates’ campaigns?
Sen. Barack Obama has been criticized harshly for preaching the concept of change without any actual policy to back it up. When Obama spoke in Bangor last winter, he encouraged anyone who did not believe that he had specific ideas on how to change Washington to look at his Web site. There, he addresses every issue by stating his stance on it and providing a plan to implement change. After visiting the Web site, I realized that not only did Obama clearly state his policy – down to specifics, including how much money middle-class families will be receiving in tax breaks and exactly what incentives there will be for companies to keep jobs in America – but he also has videos of himself going over these specifics at public speeches. This raises the question: Why do people assume that Barack Obama only preaches change without any real idea of how to bring it about?
It is a reflection of American government. There is so much cynicism that people automatically assume candidates are lying to them from the start. This critical viewpoint most Americans seem to have can be a good thing. It makes the candidates work harder to convince citizens, but it would only be fair if the same standards were applied to Obama’s opponent, Sen. John McCain.
McCain has never been accused of being one of the great orators of his time, but he does have a solid history in the Senate that seems to comfort people, especially on issues of foreign policy.
At the Republican National Convention, it was obvious there was overwhelming support behind McCain, and he made it clear where he stood on the most controversial issues. One thing viewers did not hear is how McCain will go about creating the change he promises.
One criticism McCain made of Obama is that he is wishing away the global economy and thus creating unemployment. McCain said he would help workers find new jobs that won’t go away. He fails to mention in his speech or on his Web site how he will go about doing this. Obama has made it clear he would keep an open market, while also providing tax incentives for companies that do not send jobs overseas.
McCain then went on to education. “Equal education to public schools has been gained, but what is the point of sending a child to a failed school?” he said. An excellent point by McCain, but in the Senate, he voted to institute George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act and then repeatedly voted against funding it. This left schools to deal with strict requirements without the resources to meet them. Not surprisingly, McCain failed to mention this. He went on to say that when a school fails to educate children, a parent deserves the choice in the education of their children – another point that sounds promising, until you see that McCain’s education plan actually centers around funding private schools rather than increasing the public schools, which the vast majority of students will be attending.
McCain’s speech and Web site seem to be nothing more than bullet points that are consistent with his voting record, which for the past year has been the same as Bush’s 95 percent of the time. For a candidate that preaches “straight talk,” his rhetoric does not match his record. This is not to say Obama has never equivocated on any of the issues, but thus far in the campaign, the media has portrayed Barack Obama as a candidate that favors sensationalism over policy. It is only fair to examine both sides.
Patrick Bolduc is a first-year political science and philosophy major.
