by Katie Fretland
A new USA Today/Gallup poll reports two out of three Americans are concerned that McCain would pursue policies that are too similar to what Bush has pursued. Forty-nine percent reported they are "very concerned."
As the presumptive Republican nominee, McCain faces Bush's legacy and his low approval ratings. Bush's approval rating is 28 percent among Americans. However, 60 percent of Republicans report approval of Bush, as well as 55 percent of McCain supporters. Among Democrats, his approval rating is at 6 percent.
As for Obama, he is "running as the 'change candidate,' and while that would seem to be the advantageous positioning in an election to replace an unpopular incumbent, there is risk in advocating more change than perhaps Americans would be comfortable with," Gallup's Jeffrey M. Jones reports. "To the extent that McCain and the Republican Party can paint Obama as looking to make too great a departure from the status quo, they can make McCain seem like a safe alternative."
About half of Americans polled reported that they are concerned that Obama would change Bush's policies too much, including 30 percent who are "very concerned."
Jones offers this analysis of the data:
"At this point, Americans seem more concerned about not getting enough change than about getting too much with the next president, which works to Obama's benefit. But the campaign has barely begun and Republicans will do their best to make the case that Obama is too inexperienced and too liberal to be trusted (Obama had the highest liberal voting score of any senator in 2007, according to the National Journal's annual report)."
"McCain does have enough disagreements with Bush to perhaps make the argument that he will not represent a third Bush term seem credible. At the same time, on the major issues such as the economy and Iraq, McCain's and Bush's positions are essentially the same."
To see the full Gallup report, click here.
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Comments
I don't trust Obama. Not that he flip-flops, but that he said he never would and then his camp makes excuses when he does flip. No one has to paint him in a box, he does that very nicely all on his won. Guy can't take a stand on anything!
Posted by: Cheryll | July 4, 2008 11:13 AM
Voters insist their leaders must stick to principles and take immutable stands regardless of the circumstances.
This sound nice and appealing but it is actually disastrous. History is full of examples:
Hitler took a stand and stood by it until his nation was almost obliterated into the stone age.
Bush took a stand and look where the country is today.
The Chinese leaders, on the other hand, adopted a flexible stand and now preside over the most vigorous economy on Earth.
Calling Obama's ability to adapt "flip-flopping" reveals lack of critical thinking. Those who don't approve of Obama's flexibility can elect McCain's utterly simplistic rigidity instead and witness the country continue to go down into decline.
As was the case under Bush, under McCain there will be a very "principled" and "honorable" decline, but decline nevertheless.
Posted by: Domingo Tavella | July 6, 2008 8:05 PM
Senator John McCain, Phil Gramm, and Enron...
Sen. John McCain opposes a farm bill. Phil Gramm, his economic chief, wants it stopped because it would regulate energy futures trading, a market famously abused when Enron Corp. manipulated California’s electricity prices in 2001, thereby effectively closing the “Enron Loophole.”
Clearing the way for that California price gouging, Phil Gramm, as a powerful Texas senator in 2000, slipped an Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted from regulation energy trading on electronic platforms.
Then, over the next year, Enron – with Gramm’s wife Wendy serving on its board of directors – worked to create false electricity shortages in California, bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.
Gramm left the Senate in 2002 but now has emerged as what Fortune magazine calls “McCain’s econ brain,” not only filling the Arizona senator’s acknowledged void on economic expertise (“I don’t know as much about the economy as I should”) but recognized as one of McCain’s closest friends in politics. The two men talk daily.
Democrats have dubbed that gap in energy futures regulation the “Enron loophole,” but it played a part, too, in the more recent attempt by the Amaranth Advisers hedge fund to corner the national gas market by shifting trades to the unregulated “dark markets” of the Intercontinental Exchange.
The “Enron loophole” also has become part of the debate over the soaring price of oil. Last month, a study sponsored by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, concluded that speculative futures markets were partly to blame for the surge in oil prices that have pushed gas at the pump toward $4 a gallon.
At a May 15 news conference, Levin said the skyrocketing price of oil is “not the result of supply and demand. Speculators have taken over most of the futures market."
The battle over the “Enron loophole” also could draw attention to McCain’s dependence on Gramm as his chief economic adviser and Gramm’s key role in passing legislation that let Enron trade commodities on electronic platforms without federal oversight.
In 2000, with the Republicans in charge of Congress and Gramm chairing the Senate Banking Committee, the exemption on electronic trading was approved without a Senate hearing.
Internal Enron documents, which were released in 2002, revealed that the Houston-based company helped write the legislation.
Freed from regulatory interference, Enron then used manipulative trading practices to game the California electricity market and drive up electricity prices across the state.
While California consumers were getting fleeced, the new Bush administration shielded Enron from early accusations of market manipulation. President Bush personally joined the fight against imposing caps on the soaring price of electricity, buying additional time for Enron although the company’s house of cards collapsed anyway in fall 2001.
Yet Gramm’s influence over McCain’s economic agenda – and the checkered political-business history of Gramm and his wife Wendy – have largely escaped media scrutiny.
Gramm received more than $34,000 in campaign contributions from Enron and served as one of the company’s key legislative allies in Washington, including his help in 2000 removing federal oversight from energy trades on electronic platforms.
Posted by: Mary Schmidt | July 6, 2008 8:57 PM