The Age of Modesty

The good part for John McCain is that the debates are over. He has a clear 20 day path to cultivate and drive home the message he started to deliver tonight, uninterrupted by four show-stopping spectacles that don't easily allow for campaigns to find their groove, especially not those that need furiously to change the dynamic of the race.

Over the next 20 days, McCain must bring conservative independents home. These voters are skeptical of big institutions -- big government, big business, and big labor. Tonight, John McCain set up an important argument about taxes and spending that has the potential to bring this back to within the margin of error, and crucially, save a few House and Senate seats in the process.

The thing that's struck me about this year is that though Obama harps on "change", his message is decidedly unlike that of the last "change" candidate -- Bill Clinton.

That year, Ross Perot defined the tone of the economic debate, making it all about the deficit. 1992 was all about sacrifice and tightening our belts. Bill Clinton followed this in powerful ways by bashing Bush 41's head in on the deficit and promising to be a different kind of Democrat who would reinvent government.

This time, no one really talks about the deficit. (McCain is anti-pork, but doesn't connect it to the current economy.) And Obama is brazenly proposing a massive expansion of government in the wake of the biggest such expansion in our lifetimes. Though the public wants "change," the irony is that Obama would be an echo of Bush-Paulson big government, while McCain's pork busting and spending freeze would "change" an era of big government conservatism. 

In proposing tax increases and a massive health care plan, Obama is working against people's basic instincts about what needs to be done in a climate like this in a way that was not true 30 days ago. McCain needs to seize upon this.

In 1992, we understood that in a recession, we had to tighten our belts. In 2000, in a booming economy, both candidates proposed massive new programs like prescription drugs. Today, we're back to 1992, but Obama doesn't seem to have gotten the memo.

The basic message is this. Obama wants to raise taxes when people are losing their shirts in 401(k)s. Is he nuts? He wants radical "spread the wealth" changes to tax policy in an already unsettled economy when people don't know what's next. That's reckless. And he's proposing a radical health care plan we can't afford... in the middle of a financial crisis. WTF?

The country seems to have entered an age of modesty with this financial crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble. Family budgets are tightening. There is a hunger to conserve energy -- the CNN dials practically broke whenever a candidate mentioned that.

If families are being forced to stretch a dollar, and if we like the idea of our cars going longer distances on less gas, what's wrong with government making do with less? That message should resonate more than at any point since '92.

McCain should say this: Obama's tax and health care policies are the equivalent of speeding down the highway in a Hummer with a tankful of $4 gas. That's an analogy people understand. Stop trying to argue the merits of this or that plan and start arguing against there being a plan! Give us some "straight talk" that any massive plan right now that doesn't have to do with the immediate stabilization of our financial markets is an unaffordable luxury. Undermine the very premise of Obamaism.

We are still fighting an uphill battle. Despite setting the stage for the limited government more effectively tonight, it's clear that McCain lacks the communications skills to carry the message forward in a 90 minute forum like these. But in the frenetic back and forth of the next three weeks, when core themes permeate more than staged remarks, McCain has a chance to win back anti-government independents by embracing their skepticism of big tax and health care boondoggles unrelated to the immediate crisis at hand.

This also contrasts with Bush. The theme of his Administration has been Texas-sized ambition, be it on the war, tax cuts, and transforming the domestic GOP into the party of Medicare Part D and No Child Left Behind. Though I think Americans in normal times are naturally drawn to ambition, these are not normal times. Americans are ready for some humility from their president. They want someone who can straighten out the mess, not give us ego-driven "audacity."

Parting thought: I don't know if this wins the election, but it does set up a powerful line of inquiry that will dog a President-elect Obama (Mr. President, can you really afford A, B, and C in light of X, Y, and Z?) and force him to break some promises. And it allows the post-election GOP to return to its limited government roots -- finally.