Old politics

By Libby

Following up on yesterday's post, just to clarify on what bothers me about Hillary's statement on ignoring the experts regarding the silly gas tax holiday, it's not that I don't expect politicians to pander with silly stuff like this. All politicians do what it takes to win and the bar has been significantly lowered in the last eight years. It's not incumbent on Hillary to raise it necessarily, but it is just politics as usual and I'm sick of that.

Bob Reich puts it better than I can in the few minutes I have this morning to post.

Even though the summer gas tax holiday is pure hokum, it polls well, which is why HRC and John McCain are pushing it. That Barack Obama is not in favor of it despite its positive polling numbers speaks volumes about the kind of president he’ll be – and the kind of president we’d otherwise get from McCain and HRC.

Haven’t we had enough of politicians who reject facts in favor of short-term poll-driven politics?

All politicians will do what it takes to win, but as I see it, and granted it's subjective and influenced by what I read and where I read it, Obama has at least more often, and to my mind more courageously, stepped outside the GOP style framing and has rejected the poll driven politicking to a greater extent. That's why I think he deserved my vote and yours.