Not Quite

Democrats were united on one issue in the 2008 presidential election: the absolute disaster that a John McCain victory would have produced. And they were right.

McCain as president would clearly have produced a long string of catastrophes: He would probably have approved a failed troop surge in Afghanistan, engaged in worldwide extrajudicial assassination and kidnapping, destabilized nuclear-armed Pakistan, failed to bring Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to the negotiating table, expanded prosecution of whistle-blowers, sought to expand executive branch power, failed to close Guantanamo, failed to act on climate change, pushed both nuclear energy and a “nuclear weapons renaissance,” opened new areas to domestic oil drilling, failed to reform the financial sector enough to prevent another financial catastrophe, supported an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the rich, ignored the poor, and failed to lower the jobless rate.

Nothing reveals the true state of American politics today more, however, than the fact that Democratic President Barack Obama has undertaken all of these actions and, even more significantly, left the Democratic Party far weaker than it would have been had McCain been elected. Few issues are more important than seeing behind the screen of a myth-making mass media, and understanding what this demonstrates about how power in America really works — and what needs to be done to change it.
~ from If McCain Had Won by Fred Branfman ~

I agree with Branfman that this country may have been far better off with McCain as President, but my reasoning differs from his.

For Branfman, a McCain presidency would have strengthened the Democratic Party. For some unknown reason, he thinks Democrats would have developed a populist backbone. Since they seemed unable or unwilling to develop one during Dubya's administration, it's difficult for me to imagine they would have done so under McCain-Palin.

While I don't think the Democrats would have proven to be any more effective than before, I do think it would have energized progressives and the Left. As I have pointed out in this space previously, Obama's election has emasculated and co-opted most people who are left-of-center. Far too many of them are scared to criticize Obama for anything -- no matter how grotesque his policies are -- for fear of losing a make-believe influence they don't have in the first place!

With most liberals and progressives biting their tongues, there is nothing to pull the president towards the center, let alone the left. So, he can advocate right-wing policy after right-wing policy and know that the majority of his supporters in 2008 will be there again in 2012.

In many ways, I hope the GOP can gets its act together to nominate a candidate who can defeat Obama. I realize that will sound like political blasphemy to many of you, but I'd rather have a Republican president who will engender vocal progressive opposition than a Democratic president who basically keeps all the players on the sidelines staring at their navels and cursing ever so quietly under their breath!