The ghosts of Reagan and Roosevelt

last updated 8 January 2015

This muddy campaign is concluding "on a remarkably substantive argument," said E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post. Barack Obama promises to end the Republican experiment of trickle-down economics, which hinges on the idea that "the way to help struggling working people is to give more money to the wealthy." Obama's novel idea is to make "the wealthy pay more so that most Americans can pay less."

Precisely, said National Review Online in an editorial. Obama isn't just liberal—he advocates higher tax rates than any Democrat in 20 years. John McCain is a moderate who "has a solid record of opposing economically damaging tax increases." McCain would make a fine commander-in-chief, and he'd also make sure that Obama and other liberals in Congress "do not have a free hand to remake our country."

At last, something both campaigns agree on, said David Sirota in The Denver Post. In the last days before the presidential election, both camps "effectively say a vote for McCain is a vote to continue Reagan's trickle-down tax cuts and free-market fundamentalism," and a vote for Obama is a vote to resurrect Franklin D. Roosevelt's "regulations and redistributions." Since the choice is so clear, the winner will have an undeniable mandate.