McCain: The American Dream is Good! The American Dream is Bad!

I was listening to some of McCain's campaign speech in Florida this morning and it struck me that either McCain is doing some typical (cynical) political manipulation, or he really just doesn't get it.

For the first time in this whole campaign, McCain seems to have hit on a clear, simple message.  Unfortunately, it's the same old Grover Norquist taxes-are-bad message that's been used by Republicans since Reagan.  It is impossible to tell any difference between what McCain says today and what George Bush has been saying for 8 years.

I find it truly amazing that McCain can get crowds of middle-class white voters, the vast majority of whom no doubt make less than Obama's $250,000 minimum, to rage over Obama's supposed redistribution of wealth.  At one point in the speech, McCain said "that's not fairness, that's taking money from one group of people and giving it to another", and the crowd cheered like crazy.  I wonder if they would have cheered as loudly if he'd said the more complete truth:  "that's not fairness, that's taking money from the top 5% of rich people and giving it to all of you".

But that's not what really bothered me about the speech.  What really bothered me is the hypocrisy of what he says.  In one moment, McCain was discussing Joe The Plumber (and about 20 other names and professions).  He went on and on about how Joe just wants to build a business, make more money, get ahead, etc.  Live the American Dream.  Which, he said, Obama wanted to quash by "spreading the wealth".  But then, in the next moment, McCain inveighed about an old quote of Obama's in which he said the Civil Rights movement didn't succeed completely because it didn't bring "redistributive change".  Here is where I ask whether McCain is being a hypocritical politician or just clouded by selfish anti-tax sentiment.  What it seems to me Obama clearly meant by "redistributive change" was bringing exactly the American Dream to African-Americans that McCain was just talking about with Joe The Plumber.  How can it be good for Joe The Plumber, but terrible and socialistic for African-Americans?!?  (I give McCain the benefit of the doubt that it isn't just simple racism.)  Instead, McCain interprets "redistributive change" as simply taking money from rich white people and redistributing it to poor black people -- either ugly political calculation or ugly class-ism for the rich.

But either way, it's ugly.  Vote Obama!