There are Democrats, Independents, and even some Republicans out there who perceive and regret that John McCain is no longer the John McCain they once loved. I’ve seen this contention supported and debunked by various pundits over the past month or so. I mostly agree with the “support” viewpoint. Back before the 2004 election, McCain really was his own man, ready to sass the GOP leadership at will when it seemed right for the nation. Even in early 2006, McCain was able to make a keynote address at an ACORN conference on immigration reform. But he decided he wanted to run for President in 2008, and increasingly made his amends with the Republican Party, including the religious conservative faction (which he previously had little use for).

And so, in the current presidential campaign, we’ve pretty much received standard GOP policy from McCain, with an occasional touch of light criticism in an attempt to maintain his previous “maverick” reputation. These criticisms have been rather lame. McCain has bought into tax cuts that he once criticized, into free market health policies that he knows won’t be enough, into energy policies that he once dismissed as retrogressive, etc. He’s talked a lot about bravery and patriotism, but has once more witnessed that you need to sell your soul to the big money interests in order to run for President. And as to Sarah Palin – that was an extreme sell-out by McCain to the GOP conservatives in an attempt to disguise himself a change agent.

There are those who say that Barack Obama is innocent of this, that his reliance on internet-based fundraising freed him from selling out to the unions, trial lawyers and other traditional Democratic sources of funding. I disagree; I think that Obama is just as bad as McCain, if not worse, so far as integrity goes. But that’s not the point I want to make here. Instead, I want to ponder a future scenario for the selection of a President, one suggested by both Senator Obama’s internet-based campaign and Senator McCain’s “true-maverick” days.

I myself think it would be a good thing for America to elect a third-party President, someone independent of the GOP and the Democratic Parties. That would be the only way to achieve true bi-partisan government, as both Obama and McCain once promised (and both have long since abandoned in the heat of the political fight). Unfortunately, third party candidates have never gotten much traction. Ross Perot got some people interested in 1996, but he isn’t a politician at heart. We still need a skilled politician to be President; but a skilled politician not wedded to GOP or Democratic interests.

I could see someone like McCain – the old McCain – announcing his intent to run, but at the same time breaking from the party that got him or her as far as they came. Next, they set up an Internet fundraising and organizing base just like Obama did in 2006 and 2007. I believe that Obama’s highly successful use of the Internet in casting himself as a serious Presidential candidate could be adopted outside of a political party context. With enough money, I could see a third-party candidate setting up a strong “ground organization” throughout the nation, even without the usual support of local mayors and aldermen and party bosses.

But certain things would have to come together; this hypothetical candidate would need to have Obama’s level of charisma, McCain’s reputation as an independent (the old McCain, that is), McCain’s experience in the political arena, and Obama’s sophistication in fundraising and organizing. And one more thing, perhaps the key thing: the campaign would need a sugar-daddy, someone (or some group) who would put some real money up front to get the whole thing rolling. Once they got an organization going with a strong web site, the campaign could probably sustain itself on small donations, as per the Obama scenario. But to get off the ground and be taken seriously by the public, it would take a lot of up-front money that only someone like Perot or Bloomberg could provide.

Well, I hope that someday the stars will all be in the right place for something like this. If nothing else, the narratives of the 2008 presidential campaign provide strong suggestions on how it could happen. I hope that I live to see it!

In one month’s time, America is most likely going to elect a liberal Democrat from a northern state as President; it will be the first time that’s been done in nearly half a century. The economic prosperity that made GOP conservatives so popular over this era is finally slipping away, and the swing voters who really don’t like liberal Democrats are finally ready to swallow some bitter medicine. They’re probably correct in their hunch that it’s time to bring big government back for a while, as to slow down and hopefully stabilize an overheated economy that lost control (self-disorganized, went over the boundary between sustainable equilibrium and chaos). We’re definitely at a point that will stand out in the history books.

I’ve been reading and pondering some of the punditry that’s being cranked out with such gusto this season. There’s a flood of it in the papers, on the blogs, on the radio and on TV these days; and most of it is pretty lame. But every so many days, some analyst says something cogent and useful about the American political system and its relation to our society and our economy. I think it was Peggy Noonan who observed the differences in tone between the more average and forgettable speeches at the GOP and Democratic conventions back in August and early September. The Democrats like to tell stories about struggling Americans, American families down on their luck, people who have fallen thru the cracks and need a hand to get back up. The obvious implication is that such a hand must be provided by government. The Republicans like to speak about people who have taken initiative and are living the American dream, or are darn near to it. They mostly want the government to get off their backs and leave them alone. I.e., cut out all the taxes and regulations and paperwork that takes their time away from making things and selling things and enjoying the fruits of their initiative and determination.

One of the conservative commentators noted that many Democrats aren’t far from being “poverty pimps”. They seek out examples of people in need, because such people give their own lives reason and economic usefulness. These are usually well-educated people with sensitive personalities, who just aren’t up to trading stock or inventing things or running their own businesses. They want to work for government or foundations or educational institutions; that’s pretty much the resume of Barack Obama. (And myself, actually.) So they focus upon the “glass half empty” part of America; they read books and magazines and newspapers that fulfill their hopeful contention that the country needs them to organize communities and write regulations and bring public-interest lawsuits and oversee grants that benefit “at-risk youth”.

The Republicans obviously see a different America; and in most election cycles over the past half-century, their view of America turned out to better fit the mood of the populace. Most struggling working class families don’t want government promises of protection; their plan is to get rich and buy their own protection. When the economy seems trustworthy, as it had for so many people for so many years, the average Jane and Joe accept the GOP blather about lowering taxes and shrinking government and maximizing opportunity for those with determination and entrepreneurial spirit.

But the economy is no longer trustworthy. It took more than falling home values and $4 gasoline and increasing unemployment and two wars that were dragging on too long; we had that 3 or 4 months ago, and McCain was still competitive. Only when the real scary stuff started happening, i.e. bank runs and bankruptcies and no more credit available, did America finally turn away from the Republican line. Ironically, if Obama does a good job and has the American economy stabilized and growing again by 2012, he may well set the stage for his own defeat in the next election. Of course, if we go into another Great Depression, perhaps the country will suspend the term limits and Obama will be the next FDR.

Even if Obama manages to stop the bleeding and stabilizes the economy, there’s still a much more fundamental problem, one that I doubt that the Democrats will tend to. (The Republicans haven’t tended to it either). And that’s the transition of our economy over the past three decades from a science, engineering and manufacturing base to a financial, legal and consumption base. Too many of our brightest young people today are encouraged to go to law school or study finance in an MBA curriculum, versus learning chemistry or computer science in a tech university. Everyone else now works in ‘service jobs’ assisting the consumer, instead of manufacturing jobs actually producing something. The potential rewards, both in terms of money and glory, are better for those who would run hedge funds and invent new forms of derivative debt instruments.

America still has a strong science and technology base, but that base is increasingly marginalized, shoved off into a corner to come up with better cell phone gizmos. It’s the lawyers and finance people who pull the levers in our nation, and what have they given us? A country of crumbling roadways and bridges, a country that can’t nearly produce enough energy to power itself, a country that cannot make so many of the things that it needs today, and a country that is falling behind in inventing what it will need in the future (it was Honda and Toyota, not GM and Ford, that perfected the hybrid vehicle). And recently, a country where loans can’t be had and debts can’t be paid.

Our country needs to get back to basics, to get its youth focused once again on learning how to make better things — real things — and not better ways to create financial illusions and spin nonsensical ideas (through industry lobbying, press releases, political sound bites, luring advertisements for consumer goods, etc.). Barack Obama came out of nowhere to fulfill the dream that a lot of good people have about America electing it’s first racial-minority President. Unfortunately, Senator Obama is ultimately another lawyer and spin-ster, and not a real-world techno-geek. He wouldn’t know a vanadium alloy from a voltmeter (neither would most other politicos). It’s getting late, but I still hope to live to see someone from the “techie” side find their way to the top. I.e., someone who could get elected JUST BECAUSE he or she talks like a techie, thinks like a techie, AND IS a techie. (Yea, I know that Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer and a nuclear engineer; but he sold-out his techie side during his political ascent, and never went back to it after his fall.)

Well, I can dream, can’t I ?