No, it's not another housing scandal. It's an analogy. Let's hit John McCain where it hurts--on infrastructure. Infrastructure should be our word of the day, and we should plan a viral attack during the Repugs convention--in St. Paul--on Infrastructure.
To attack him, let's use an evangelical code-word: Stewardship. Is John McCain going to be a good steward of America?
John McCain has no a terrible domestic policy. As incompetently executed as Bush's was, at least he had a domestic policy. You could sum up Bush's domestic policy with a handy phrase: "The Ownership Society." HUD laudably tried to encourage a pony for everyone first-time home ownership. And millions of Americans, their wages shrinking and cost of living rising, are indeed owners--of ballooning mortgages.Privatize social security? Check. Privatize "failing" schools (and enrich a sketchy, temp-filled "educational service" sector centered around Pearson, a company that measures the failingness of schools and provides government solutions)? Check. Privatize the military? Check.
What's McCain's policy? [Crickets]. Think: would you want McCain as your landlord? God knows he has some extra houses.
My friends, George Bush ran on the platform that you (or, rather, a private government contractor who is unaccountable to you) should take back our government, and take over those pesky tasks that government is bungling like, you know, uh, governing. John McCain is running on a different rickety plank platform: that PORK is EVERYWHERE! DAMN THAT PORK! LOOK AT THE MILLIONS WE'RE SPENDING ON COW MATING HABITS, OMG OMG OMG!!!
Bush's "Ownership Society" is fundamentally crooked and has as its goal the creation of a permanent underclass comprised of a temporary, non-union, (immigrant?) workforce and a prosperous, thriving "ownership" entrepreneurial class. It's not a very thrilling vision, but you have to admit, it is a fairly cohesive way of looking at the world. What does McCain offer? NOTHING!
No really--NOTHING!
As a graduate student in a college town, I deal with many landlords. The landlord-tenant relationship is not unlike a presidential choice. You're choosing to have much of your well-being depend on a person for a given amount of time. The landlord is auditioning you, but you are also auditioning the landlord.
Is the paint peeling on the walls? If you say something, watch how the landlord reacts, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what you're getting yourself into.
"I noticed that lead paint is bubbling up all over the walls," could elicit one of several responses:
-We'll get that repainted before you move in. The last tenants never let us in, because they were home all the time.
or
-Yeah, the last people complained about that. I don't know, you can paint it yourself.
or
-What do you expect? You're only paying 300 per month.
This last one is John McCain's response: Want a bridge repaired? A levee rebuilt? A road resurfaced, or a wetland restored? Your National Parks well-maintained? Well, too bad! What do you expect, with your income taxes kept this low--Sweden or something? If you have a problem with where you live, move somewhere else. That leveedoesn't seem to be working? Well, can't you just spend your summer in Aspen?
John McCain is looking to treat America like one of his houses, an "investment property" that he has a staff member take care of when he's in town. John McCain is a slumlord, plain and simple. He has made it very clear that he doesn't need a domestic policy; he has a veto stamp. They can fax him the bill when he's in Saudi Arabia, perpetually begging for fly-over rights for whatever crisis we're starting mitigating over there.
And now, to a word, a theme that I think could befit the Obama campaign in both its outreach to the sensible center, union job-creation folks, and evangelicals: Stewardship.
In evangelical circles, "stewardship" is a key code word that preachers emphasize when addressing finances. One must be a good steward of home, church, land, etc. The idea, at its best, is that you are borrowing your land, your job, your family, and your life from God, and that you owe it to him to leave it better than you found it.
Green-collar job creation is the kind of idea that really resonates when presented through the lens of "stewardship." It takes a clear look at our resources--natural, fiscal, and human--and seeks a win-win-win situation across the board.
Rebuilding Amtrak, perhaps as a leaner corporation but certainly giving taxpayers an incentive of some sort to ride it, is another way we can manage another type of resource: the millions of miles of rail-track laid with the support of the U.S. Government over a century ago.
I've been reading a great book lately, Nick Taylor's book, published last spring, "American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA, When FDR Put the Nation to Work." I'd encourage you to, with your children if you have them, visit a WPA/Civilian Conservation Corps site sometime and talk with them about this era of our country's history. All across America, from Santa Barbara, California, to Dubuque, Iowa, high schools and middle schools rise as beautiful Georgian (although that's a loaded term, now) facades in crumbling neighborhoods. Go inside, if you can, and look at the cornerstone that is laid: 1934. That building is still standing, albeit sometimes barely. What kind of stewards have we been, as a nation, when our infrastructure is crumbling, our energy future cries out for a new, better, and more just industrial sector, and our bridges teeter in wait for the next great democratic lion to stand up and say,
You know what? You're going to have to pay 600 a month, sorry. But we'll paint the walls, and even check on the foundation every once in awhile.
America is rife and ready for urban and rural renewal, and a president who looks America squarely in the eye and says, "You need work? We will pay you a union wage to build the finest buildings that will stand for as long as we care for it. In turn, you'll have to pay your fair share, but nothing more" will prove him or herself to be a much finer steward than John McCain.
George Bush did everything he could to unbuild the permanent bureaucracy in Washington, and with it, the services that government rightly provides--not services that replace capitalist development, but that guarantees the "trickle-down" of capital outside of the office parks staffed by temp-clones.
As a senator, McCain prides himself more on having visited Iraq than he has for beautifying Arizona.
And, my friends, that's not change you can believe in.