Rival Brain Trusts

29 October 2008 |permalink | email article

THE economic policies of the McCain and Obama campaigns have been shaped by a starkly different set of advisers relative to the current fiscal crisis.

McCain’s “economic roundtable” in Cleveland this week was made up mostly of business or political leaders rather than economists. That weakness alone is telling in his self-admitted ignorance on the subject.

The advisers include Meg Whitman, the former chief executive of eBay who is reported to have retained Steve Schmidt, McCain’s chief strategist, for her 2010 gubernatorial run in California.

Others are Mitt Romney, the former Massauchetts governor who ran against McCain and touts his business experience, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Jack Kemp, Dole’s 1996 vice presidential running mate.

Notably absent were two close advisers earlier in the campaign: former Sen. Phil Gramm, now at banker, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. Each committed major gaffes which reflected badly on McCain.

Obama’s brain trust is far more impressive. But a battle for his economic soul became clear at a meeting of his advisers September 10 in Coral Gables, Fla., Truthdig editor in chief Robert Scheer reported.

The two visionary stars are former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who consistently challenged the radical anti-regulatory crusade of Alan Greenspan, his immediate predecessor at the Fed, and the legendary investor Warren Buffet, another fierce critic of Clinton-era deregulation.

Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, both Clinton-era secretaries of the treasury, are impressive but have been linked to the de-regulatory philosophy of the now disgraced Greenspan.

Rubin, who advised Hillary Clinton’s campaign, saw no serious crisis forming in a Fortune article Jan. 31 headlined “Robert Rubin: What meltdown?”

At the time Obama was being advised by Volcker who two months later warned that the United States was experiencing the greatest crisis since the Great Depression.

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