As the anti-Obama hysteria reaches its fever pitch, I started thinking about what it would be like if he'd lost, and John McCain were president. How would the economy be doing? Would President McCain have done anything differently, or more of something, or less of something? Would US troops be on the ground in other countries? Would Congress be any less gridlocked? Would there be any attempt at reforming health care? Would he have run for a second term? Interesting things to think about.
There'd be no way of even knowing, because the left-wing half of our infotainment media would be shooting blood out of their eyes at Palin, and the right-wing half would be licking whipped cream off her labia and whimpering. With 24/7 coverage of that mess, it would crush out everything else.
You know, I'd totally forgotten about Palin when I posted that. Yeah, that would be a sideshow, and probably drown out anything McCain would be trying to do. I shudder at four years of conservative pundits doing everything possible to be her rebound fuck.
Palin would have mostly disappeared into the "Vice-President Limbo" that claims them all and been pretty much off the public radar (except on Fox News, of course) unless/until she made a gaffe of some kind. In other words, the same thing that's happened with Biden. Policy-wise, I don't think things would be radically different under a President McCain. Other than, as mentioned above, that abortion of a health-care bill would never have happened.
McCain had his own plan to reform health care. http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/10/news/economy/tully_healthcare.fortune/
Would we be assassinating terrorist fuckwads based on one-man justice, sole arbiter, judge jury and executioner-by-proxy, or would we instead lock them up in Guantamo in that outrageous abridgement of their rights?
At least McCain knows and acknowledges what the problems are and would try to fix them. Obama, thinks the problem is a lack of government spending and lack of more taxation.
1) U.S. troops would probably be pretty much the way they are now. President Obama did little regarding Iraq and Afghanistan that was not already planned by the Bush admin. 2) Congress would be less gridlocked because the Democrats would control both houses still. They would be gridlocked with President McCain. But that's okay because the Clinton years showed that gridlock is the way to go. 3) No healthcare reform aside from a small scale pilot program of some kind. 4) Yes he would've run for a second term. No modern president has refused (except for LBJ and he had already served more than one term). 5) The economy would probably have gone down quicker and probably in a somewhat deeper recession and then climbed out faster than it is doing now. And the U.S. would have about 3 trillion dollars less debt.
As much as I didn't like him, I have to admit that Bill Clinton was our last good President. Since that time there has not been a single good candidate from either party (with the exception of Ron Paul) who wasn't a partisan hack that would drive this country into the ground. So whether it's Obama or McCain, I think the country would be just as bad off now as it currently is.
If McCain had been elected, the situation for the country would be pretty much exactly what it is now. (There is a reason I refused to vote for him.) What would be different would be that those who are now defending various points concerning our national situation would instead be criticizing them, and those who are now criticizing various points would be defending them: MDS would be rampant instead of ODS. And some of the die-hard "support McCain no matter what because he has an 'R' by his name" people would be starting threads like "Would it be any better if Obama had been elected?" As if that was some kind of defense...
I don't think Palin would have been completely sidelined. Some US vice presidents seem to be chosen as safe choices, or runners up in the primary process. Palin, for better or worse, had the image of a rising star and unless she really messed up the job I can see her being seen as the first choice for a future republican run for the presidency. It is interesting to imagine what the current democratic situation would be. Having taken a chance on Obama and lost, would the Democrats go with a predictable safe choice and pick Hillary? With McCain being in the 12th year of Republican rule and the economy shot its quite feasible that the alternate universe is now looking at an upcoming Hillary landslide.
Yeah, the main difference would have been the health reforms. There'd probably be differences in the economic approach, but not radically so.
McCain would be dead from old age/strain of the job/dealing with Palin.....and we would be in deep shit when the rest of the planet realized the beauty queen was in charge....
1) He'd do a lot more saber rattling about Iran and a whole lot less of the highly effective international consensus building which Obama has worked so hard getting countries to agree to. 2) I believe it would be some what less gridlocked. Republicans have been filibustering literally everything including numerous bills they publicly said they support. Their goal is to "not hand Obama a victory"; they just tried to block everything so they can claim he hasn't achieved anything. I just don't see the Dems doing that and instead they tend to pass at least those things they agree with and they also have a tendency to cave to demands from the other party from time to time. The Republican scorched earth policy of "damn the country and everything else" is not something they'd do. 3) Nope, not at all. 4) He'd run but I doubt he'd win as the Republicans don't have any reasonable policy for fixing the economy. Obama can at least point that he knows how to get people back to work even though Republicans are stopping him from doing so. 5) Other things: No matter who is President American citizens and corporations both will be more concerned with deleveraging than with consumption so until the private sector debts get paid down, something that may take a decade, private sector demand will not be robust.
He's a hawk, and I've no doubt if he could've got away with it that Libya would've played out differently, and there'd already be boots on Syrian soil. Syria especially fits in with his aims against Iran, it being a client state of theirs. Fuck knows what that would lead to though, as Russia has a lot of assets in Syria, and I don't see McCain/Putin being quite as reasonable a pairing as Reagan/Gorbachev. Much as I'd like to see the Middle East/North Africa adopt a better relationship with the west, and vice versa, I'm not sure if needling an ex-KGB hardman - who is such a paragon of homoeroticism his house probably resembles the Blue Oyster Bar from Police Academy - is really the right way to go about it.
I tend to agree with PhoenicianKnight. His heart would give out under this kind of stress, and President Palin would be calling ALL the shots. And quite frankly, I'm not sure "What that would look like." I'm not even sure I want to know what that would look like.
A McCain/Putin standoff would end in nuclear war. They've both made comments in the past citing their indignant contempt for each other. Just imagine the two of them sitting down to negotiate. It would be like the Capt. Jelico / Cmdr. Riker argument in the TNG episode where Picard is abducted by the Cardassians.
Doubtful. McCain has actually been to war, seen its face. I strongly doubt he'd pull the trigger on armageddon.
He's also batshit nuts, not to mention a narcissistic crybaby. He'd pull the trigger if Putin hit the right buttons. See, there's a difference between our presidential contenders and Russia's tsar. Putin is savvy, suave, and highly intelligent. Obama, McCain, Romney... "let's talk to the judges, the corporate interests who run our parties, and our campaign strategists and take four years to look like a blithering idiot to make decisions, and if we're lucky.. take four more! So far, the only thing I can give Obama is that his balls dropped for a moment to go into Pakistan and nab bin Laden. Putin wouldn't have bellyached over it at all. Hell, he authorized the gassing of a theater full of people held by terrorists to make a point, and although a few of em died, it didn't end like Ruby Ridge or Waco, or any of our American terrorist clusterfucks when they say to the president, "sir, we have a problem." 99% of the time, the president just looks back and says "exxxxcelent, how can I make it worse!?!"
Really? When was that? Complete BS. That reminds me of all the warnings about how Ronald Reagan would start a nuclear war. McCain isn't going to start a war with the Russians and the Russians are certainly not going to use nuclear (or any other) weapons just to keep Assad in power.
