The ad speaks to McCain not telling people what they "hope" to hear, but the reality instead. (YouTube URL here)
The text of the ad shown above starts with the narrator speaking about John McCain's service, contrasting Woodstock and the Summer of Love with his love of country and continues on to speak of "hope".
Text from narrator:
"It was a time of uncertainty, hope and change, "The summer of love". Half a world away another kind of love, of country, John McCain, shot down, bayoneted, tortured, offered early release he said "no". He'd sworn and oath.
Home he turned to public service, his philosophy, 'Before party, polls and self, America'. A maverick, John McCain tackled campaign reform, military reforms, spending reforms. He took on presidents, partisans and popular opinion. He believes our world is dangerous, our economy in shambles.
John McCain doesn't always tell us what we hope to hear. Beautiful words cannot make our lives better but a man who has always put his country and her people before self, before politics, can."
Don't hope for a better life, vote for one."
Words of hope make people feel good but many of us would rather hear the truth, even if it isn't what we "hope" to hear.
A feel good message is only worth the time it takes to say it if that message and the offer of hope is realistic, not when it is empty words.
Campaign after campaign we hear promises made that have no chance of realistically being implemented, yet campaign after campaign there are those that will believe those promises for no other reason than they "want" to, not caring about realism or whether those promises can be kept, but caring about the words themselves.
For example, the LA Times has a piece out which does the math on the promises that Barack Obama is making to his supporters, the actual monetary costs.
They state straight out at the beginning:
Obama will be hard-pressed to keep his blueprint intact. A variety of budget analysts are skeptical that the Democrat's agenda could survive in the face of large federal budget deficits and the difficulty of making good on his plan to raise new revenue by closing tax loopholes, ending the Iraq war and cutting spending that is deemed low-priority.
An official in President Clinton's Office of Management and Budget, Isabel Sawhill, who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution states, "I don't think it all adds up. " She continues on to say, "There will definitely need to be a recalibration of these proposals once someone is in office. The fiscal situation just isn't going to permit doing what Sen. Obama or anyone else would like."
Among other proposals during the course of the campaign, Obama has said he would strengthen the nation's bridges and dams ($6 billion a year), help make men better fathers ($50 million a year) and aid Iraqis displaced by the war ($2 billion in one-time spending). Last week, he pledged to give religious and community groups $500 million a year to provide summer education to low-income children.
Other proposals are more costly. Obama wants to extend health insurance to more people (part of a $65-billion-a-year health plan), develop cleaner energy sources ($15 billion a year), curb home foreclosures ($10 billion in one-time spending) and add $18 billion a year to education spending.
It is a far different blueprint than McCain is offering. The senator from Arizona has proposed relatively little new spending, arguing that tax cuts and private business are more effective means of solving problems.
The article goes on to list a couple of specific proposals such as , Obama's staff insisting that ending the Iraq war would free up at least $90 billion a year, yet budget experts disagree with that.
One of which is Alice Rivlin, who directed the Office of Management and Budget for several years under President Bill Clinton, who states, "Savings from the Iraq war will not be all that great."
Another man, Stuart Butler, who studies domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, says, "You cannot justify a longer-term commitment to a program based on a one-time saving on the war in Iraq."
Then you have Barack Obama's plan to generate $180 billion from closing tax loopholes and a variety of other cuts in spending, which sounds good, but according to Len Burman, who is the Director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center and a former Treasury official in the Clinton administration, "If you look at official revenue estimates, the numbers come out to be less than half of what they say they're going to raise."
Only one of the quotes above was from a conservative source, which is the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. The other quotes were from former members of Bill Clinton's administration and can hardly be considered "conservative" criticisms.
Promises are always part of campaigning but people eventually need to ask themselves if promises are enough or if having the capability of keeping those promises should be a consideration when voting for someone that has a message of "hope".
Offering people hope can never be a bad thing but promising them false hopes based on promises that cannot mathematically be fulfilled, should have people pushing for the answer of "how" will you keep these promises.
Those are questions that should be asked before any election instead of people complaining after an election when those promises are forgotten by everyone except those that dared believe.
Each candidate in the coming months will be offering more details on their economic planning strategy and it is up to the people, the voting public, to analyze the plans offered by both and make a decision on which plan is actually viable and which is not.
Those that do not do so nor ask the question of "how" before the election, deserve exactly what they get and should not complain after the election when promises are broken.
(Note- Any mistakes in the transcribed text from the above video are mine- Susan)
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