The McCain Trap and Obama’s Debate Challenge (Lakoff/Fromkin)

[DemoTex]

The McCain Trap and Obama’s Debate Challenge
By George Lakoff and Kathleen Frumkin

John McCain knew that there would be no bailout agreement before he announced that he would go to Washington, supposedly to help promote such an agreement in the spirit of bipartisanship. We smell a trap. Bush, Paulson, and the Congressional Republicans lure the Democrats (and Obama) into supporting a proposal based on a taxpayer bailout of Wall Street.

The Congressional Republicans then come out as apparent populists riding the wave of a taxpayer revolt against Wall Street and they identify the Democrats and Obama as supporters of Wall Street. McCain can then come to the debate and say:

1. that he is a maverick for not supporting the Bush proposal,
2. that he is a populist for being against a bailout by taxpayers,
3. that real populism is cutting taxes and getting rid of regulation, which is the Republican proposal, and
4. that this is "real reform"

If Obama just says the Republican proposal won’t work (following Paulson and Bernanke), he will still be tagged as an elitist friend of Wall Street. The debate will not have time to go into the details of why economists say it won’t work, and McCain can emerge smelling like a populist rose.

Of course, Obama is the real populist here, insisting on conditions to help homeowners and to return the money to taxpayers by giving the government equity in the corporations. McCain can simply call this socialism and more big government. (More at BuzzFlash ..)

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1785

Verb-fucking-sap!