something I said

From the San Francisco Chronicle

“People don’t understand that there has always been a small but very significant element of conservatives who have been against the war from day one and who, like me, also hate George Bush and think he’s the most incompetent president in American history,” said Bruce Bartlett, a supply-side economist who coined the term Obamacons. “The few people who are slavishly pro-Republican, live or die, slavishly pro-Bush like the Weekly Standard crowd, have gotten lot more publicity than they deserve.”

and from David Friedman:

“Bush was elected on a pro-market, small government platform and proceeded to greatly expand the size of government - and not only in the form of military spending. His view of the legitimate power of the executive branch, including the authority to deliberately violate federal law, I find frightening. Perhaps, if we are lucky, Obama will turn out to be the anti-Bush.”

A couple of apparently small-c conservatives weighing in against the criminal-in-chief while expressing a cautious support for Obama as his replacement. These guys reperesent the kind of conservatism that neocons have happily dismembered in favour of bringing religion into government, the litmus test into the judiciary, turning the VP’s office into a corporate favours lobby, pandering to bellicose nitwits like Limbaugh and Coulter, and worst of all, subverting ideals of comon sense, individual freedom and responsibility. So it’s good to see that the old man is not dead yet.

However, there are two things to be concerned about.

One is that McCain is the natural candidate for this strain of Republicanism: most of his career has shown him to be a maverick, a stubborn and independent thinker, more like a Goldwater Republican than a Gingrich Republican: wrong on a variety of issues, but less wrong than the rabid reactionary wing. Over the last year he has tried to repaint his profile rather than stand up for his long-term values. By doing this he has effectively rejected his natural constituency, who now find themselves labelled as libertarians in the Chronicle article. One could hope that if he wins, his real temperament will make a reappearance in a way that leaves neocons with nothing to howl at but the moon.

The other is that Obama has shown no inclination toward smaller government and canot yet be trusted to do anything other than propose easy solutions. A big government tendency is revealed partly through his support for things like the fence along the southern border and the intrusive PATRIOT Act, and through apparently unilateral guarantees for social programs without being credible about where the money will come from. Corporations and the rich? I’ll believe it when I see it.

So neither of the two front runners are particularly clear on small-c conservative issues of shrinking government and restoring credibility, even though each of them have pretty clear values in line with ideals of self-determination and responsibility. (Far more so than the current president.)

This lack of clarity about both McCain and Obama is of concern because I would like to see some leadership in undoing the paranoia that’s infected American life since 2002, a paranoia of everyday affairs as with travel arrangements, of psychological affairs regarding each other, and the federal sillness of that border fence and the Homeland (in)Security apparatus. Other concerns include undoing the political corruption of the Bush years (vote-rigging, no-bid contracts, circumventing federal law, Guantanamo) and making some effort to restore credibility and goodwill around the world. It’s obvious that Obama is better than McCain on most of those concerns, but I’m not confident that he’ll address all of them. I think things can still get worse. So in some respects I have common cause with the Obamacons: I’m tentatively willing to wait and see, as Wendell Gunn said about making a campaign donation ’based on hope and change: My hope that you will change your mind’ on issues that matter to me. 

Although it’s not like I have much choice in the matter.