This past week has seen us hitting the highway between Michigan and Ontario. As this column is being written, we're in Toronto. The past week has also been a fascinating study in political contrasts.
Last Wednesday evening in Michigan, we watched the first of three U.S. Presidential debates. An interesting night as we were in the company of hard-core Republicans. Needless to say, our hosts were delighted with Democratic President Barack Obama's less-than-stellar performance and Republican challenger Mitt Romney's take-charge style. As an Obama fan I have to say the President disappointed.
On Obama's performance, and with a quick note to Christy Clark, Obama has taken to dumbing down his speech and not coming across as strongly as he did in 2008. Four years ago, he was more presidential as a candidate than he is now as President. Most certainly, he doesn't sound like a Harvard graduate or someone who taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago. As an aside, I've noticed the same thing in Clark who's trying too hard to be too folksy cute, especially for someone running the largest business in the province.
Meanwhile, back in Michigan, the first presidential debate was not only disappointing but confusing. Accusations about spending, taxation, plus Medicare costs and outcomes came fast and furious with both candidates reeling off projections about their opponent's policy failings. Looking to the U.S. national press the next day I found I found little to quantify what either candidate had said. Number-crunching reporters attempted to make sense out each candidate's claims but offered little in hard-core analysis. By way of journalistic examination, The Washington Post does a fact-check feature and awards Pinocchios - a cute way of calling out fibs - to politicians who stray from the truth. There were a number of facts checked and both candidates got a couple of Pinocchios.
More seriously, the Romney attack was one of winging expenditure reduction promises with little mention of what would go. The only noted fatality in Romney's cuts was the Public Broadcasting Service and Sesame Street star Big Bird.
To many, yours truly included, the debate failed. Romney pushed a hard-core agenda with little evidence to substantiate his platform, while President Obama stood back and let it happen.
Susan Brooks, an American columnist and Democrat supporter, wrote a morning-after column titled "Lie to me please: Truth was the real loser of first presidential debate." Admittedly, she has a bias, but she summed it up well including tacit criticism of Obama and his non-confrontational roll-over-and-play-dead performance.
As a Canadian, I find the whole thing sad. In Canada we take real measurable issues to our federal elections. Think about it. During our national campaigns we've debated free trade, the GST, a federal carbon tax, and most recently, a continuation of Stephen Harper's conservative agenda.
From a global perspective, it's more troublesome. In 2007/2008, the United States collapsed the world economy and in four years the country has done little to correct its course.
Indeed, following the presidential debate, International Monetary Fund Deputy Director David Lipton said the U.S. has to do more to address the problems of tax cuts and deficit reductions. Speaking to the U.S. debt dilemma Lipton said, "We would like to see the U.S. lower the level of uncertainty by embracing more specifically the need to avoid the fiscal cliff and deal with the medium-term problems."
That's diplomatic code for get your act in gear.
Just to revisit our Canadian brush with the fiscal cliff, in the early 1990s Canada experienced a credit-rating slip from AAA to AA-plus and had one of the highest annual deficits of the G7 countries. A critical spending cut program was put in place and by 1998 we enjoyed our first balanced budget in 36 years. In 2002 Canada regained its international AAA rating.
And that pretty well characterizes the difference between the U.S. and Canada. We not only recognize our problems but more importantly we deal with them. As the U.S. election campaign unfolds there will be more to say. But for now, nothing has changed. There are two candidates, two political philosophies and one unfortunate common goal: Keep you head in the sand and pretend no one's noticing.
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Toronto; big and influential.
I've always liked Toronto - as a place to visit. Just to put the city in perspective the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) has 5.5 million people, B.C. has 4.4 million. The GTA currently sends 47 MPs to the House of Commons while B.C. sends 36. The city has good live theatre and lots of restaurants. Toronto is also a really good reason to continue electing a Prime Minister who represents Calgary.
