The Dow and the Election

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that McCain's standing in the polls rises and falls with the changes in the Dow? Today's 800 point increase is likely therefore to help McCain and hurt the candidate of "spreading the wealth"/"redistributive change"/Marxism. What it also tells me is that there are a lot of people who tell pollsters they are leaning toward Obama who aren't so much "for" Obama as they are "against" the current state of our country's economy and overall health and associate McCain with the failures of the Bush Administration.

But McCain, for good and ill, is not Bush. Perhaps voters will see that, perhaps not. An Obama victory will be transformative for our country in ways a McCain victory will not be, many of which will be good (e.g., a compelling refutation to the idea prevalent on the Left that a person's success or failure in America is largely determined by his or her race), but many of which will fundamentally alter the character of our nation for the worse (e.g., putting in a new class of eternal entitlements that will bankrupt us, our children, and our grandchildren). A McCain victory, by contrast, will position him as the last check and balance on a Congress likely to be overwhelmingly Democratic, and with which he shares many policy goals (global warming cap-and-trade, immigration amnesty, etc.). For me, it's hard not to be depressed by the state of the country either way. Our spending and debt are out-of-control, our military is fighting large-scale conflicts against small-scale enemies, our educational institutions are turning out expensive graduates that know little, and no politicians out there seem to believe in America as it stands and has stood for 200+ years--the beacon of freedom and the source of much that is good in the world.

I'm too old to be idealistic anymore, but too young to be this cynical. Where is the leader who will unite the country behind her ideals? Where is the man who believes more in making America great (morally, economically, and geopolitically) than in assuaging the pressure groups of his party? I know one thing-he isn't running this year. Sigh......