Standing before a nearly shuttered factory pocked with broken windows, John McCain on Tuesday urged Americans to reject the “siren song of protectionism” and embrace a future of free trade.<\/p>\n
He used his own recent political fortunes — a dramatic fade followed by an unexpected comeback to secure the Republican presidential nomination — to illustrate that depressed Rust Belt cities such as Youngstown can have bright futures.<\/p>\n
“A person learns along the way that if you hold on — if you don’t quit no matter what the odds — sometimes life will surprise you,” McCain said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Did the campaign not appreciate how jarring the juxtaposition would be? He’s talking about the benefits of existing trade policy in front of a factory that’s closing after the implementation of existing trade policy. He’s a multi-millionaire telling factory workers to “hold on” and wait for “surprises,” apparently not aware of the fact that those are the last five employees of a factory that had more than 100 employees a few years ago.
\n<\/p>\n
Still, to preach the virtues of free trade in front of a failing plant is a bold move even for a candidate who prides himself on “straight talk,” and who lost the Michigan Republican primary in part because he promised workers there that their “jobs aren’t coming back.”<\/p>\n
Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have railed against free trade in their primary, and have promised to re-examine the wisdom of the North American Free Trade Agreement.<\/p>\n
“Protectionism is a disaster for the economy,” said Steve Schmidt, a McCain adviser. “McCain’s here to talk about hope for the future, not to bring false hope.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
“Hope for the future”? In front of a “nearly shuttered factory pocked with broken windows”? McCain sees a comparison between Youngstown’s plight and that of his own presidential campaign?<\/p>\n
I’ve heard rumors that McCain’s a great campaigner. The evidence of this remains thin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John McCain visited Gee’s Bend, Alabama, yesterday, in order to take a ferry ride across the Alabama river. It was a nice, little photo-op on a key piece of local infrastructure. As a Republican National Committee spokesperson said, “The ferry he will be riding is very important to that community. It’s both a good and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}