The Speculator

John McCain is known for his black and white simplistic stance towards many issues, and Sarah Palin cloned him perfectly in the vice-presidential debates by saying if she had to carry on as president in the event of McCain’s demise she would continue to “get rid of the greed and the corruption on Wall Street and in Washington.”

Comments such as these which invoke holy war imagery in response to recent social and economic trends have endeared Sarah Palin to angry Americans, and especially to conservatives associated with the Republican right wing. They forget that self-interest is at the heart of capitalism and that “greed” in the housing market on which our economy is so heavily based is spread throughout all levels, including the consumer level.

Conservative commentator David Brooks follows the Republican Party and is perplexed that they selected Palin knowing she only appeals to a relatively small percentage of the population. Republicans are engaging in planned obsolescence.

…the Republican Party has become a small-town party, running against — as Sarah Palin did last night — against big cities, against the East Coast, to some extent, against newspaper readers.

I understand why they’re doing it, running against Washington. This is the way Republicans do populism. But in the long run, it’s poisonous and self-destructive. You cannot be a majority party in this country if the coasts don’t like you and people who read newspapers don’t like you.

And they have narrowed themselves. … And with Sarah Palin, short-term gain last night, but long-term turning people off. (David Brooks, Online News Hour,10/3/08)

It seems to me Joe Biden gave what could be considered pastoral advice to the Republican Party – actually it was grandfatherly advice to any listener — a few minutes after Sarah Palin’s holy war comments cited above, in his response to the last question about how to lead in Washington, about how to bring about a spirit of bipartisan cooperation.

Joe Biden shared what he had learned in the Senate, a principle he learned the hard way because he violated it first and then was taught by Mike Mansfield to see why the principle is important. Listen to this segment of the debate to hear Biden’s account. We only have space for the principle here.

This is the principle: Don’t question other people’s motives. Question their judgment.

Underlying this principle is the fact that each representative is sent to Congress because other people see something they like in those representatives. Biden left it up to us to meditate on the implications of this fact; but it does not take much time to realize that in a democracy each person must allow their opinion to be one among many. Our leaders should not see themselves as being at war with each other, but rather as representing people who elected them to work for the common good. They must then work with other community and business leaders on the same respectful basis to have any hope of enlisting their support and accomplishing anything worthwhile.

Without making any accusations, and in a gracious manner that admitted he was a sinner as much as any one else, Joe Biden shared this principle as he had received it.

By closing the vice-presidential debate on this note, I think Joe Biden achieved an intellectual triumph that no one has yet acknowledged.

In this one principle he undermined most of Sarah Palin’s appeal as John McCain’s running mate.

Most people recognize she is not yet ready for presidential level office. Her role is simply to draw right-wing voters to John McCain. She is a gamble for the Republican Party. And she is a gamble for the USA.

Joe Biden held up a mirror for the Republican Party to examine its own soul. The problem with all principles, however, is that it is much easier to hear them than to put them into practice.