Garcia Media Life

This cannot be just another mud-slinging Presidential contest.  Our economy- the world economy- is looking at a steep drop off a tall cliff if leaders do not step forward and if we keep on with politics-as-usual.

The Washington Post’s Dan Balz has a terrific analysis piece that makes all the right points.  He juxtaposes the horrible jobless numbers released Friday with what was a week of campaign hijinks from both sides.  The American electorate needs and deserves this election to be a battle of ideas about how to keep the economy from falling into a second recession.  Both the President and his Republican opponent need to give us details on their vision for the next four years instead of relying on attack strategies that usually work well in typical election years.

There is nothing typical about where we are today.  The continuing debt meltdown in Europe coupled with suddenly slowing economies in China and Brazil have combined to paint a dire situation for the world economy.  The challenges are as formidable as anything we’ve seen since the Great Depression of the 1930’s.

This has to be about more than “we’re not doing as badly as everyone else.” Nor do we have the luxury of wasting our precious time discussing television celebrities and birth certificates.

This desperately needs to be a referendum in November on ideas and policy.  If the campaign devolves into the usual non-stop partisan warfare that has helped get us into this mess to begin with and skirts around the hard truths we need to address in terms of both economic growth and debt reduction- then our elected President will have neither a philosophical mandate or the public support for the actions he needs to take to protect us from economic calamity.

This is a time for adults not adolescent spit-ball battles and clever pot-shots.