President Sarah-Joe McBamacain

I have not yet made a final decision as to my vote in November. I am leaning towards McCain, mainly because charisma turns me off. Charismatic leaders make me nervous for the same reasons crowd dynamics make me nervous. Beautiful oratory and a strong personal aura operate to leapfrog the listener's analytical firewalls. What is being said becomes less important than how it is being said. The political system on a national level pre-selects for candidates who are skilled in marketing themselves as a product to the greatest number of people. It is the Microsoft Windows phenomenon. Windows is not the best operating system and it never was. It is, however, the o/s that gives the greatest number of people the greatest number of features they want at a price they are willing to pay. Same for presidential candidates. This election is unique in recent memory because the next president will be put in charge of this Titanic of an economy, handed a plastic spoon and be told to bail us out. Options will be limited; a tax cut here means a cancelled program there. A new program here means a revenue requirement there. Any extra cash we had behind the sofa cushions and the car seats is being employed in Iraq and the financial system bailout. Servicing the national debt will require significant belt-tightening, or increasing the money supply (i.e. printing more of the stuff). Our foreign policy is going to be reactive to Russia and China and must be devised to prevent the perception of American weakness. What I am saying here is that the next President has a very limited financial and diplomatic arsenal with which to address huge problems of domestic and foreign policy. The next President is going to have to be the best crisis manager since WWII. Rhetoric is irrelevant, debates are irrelevant. This is why I am disappointed in Obama this morning. When you are bailing the Titanic with a plastic spoon, you better get to work quickly.