McCain Makes Free Trade an Issue

John McCain attacked both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton over their protectionist stances on NAFTA and other free trade agreements.

Sen. John McCain said Tuesday that proposals by Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton to use pressure tactics to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement could undermine U.S. trade relationships with other nations.

"We've got to stop this protectionist, NAFTA-bashing," the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting told a town hall meeting at Savvis Inc., an information technology company.

McCain said his potential Democratic opponents were wrong to threaten pulling out of NAFTA to force Canada and Mexico to negotiate more protections for workers and the environment in the agreement.

Those that have read my previous work already know that I full support McCain challenging this protectionist stance directly. I believe that McCain needs to decide to win or lose challenging the Dems on the issues directly. Free trade is one of several areas where McCain differs greatly from them. I believe that the Dems have taken a primary election strategy on free trade. While this may appeal to their base, being a protectionist is not the sort of strategy that will work during the general election. That is where McCain comes in. This is a good start, however he needs to continue to hammer both on this issue and make them explain how protectionist policies make sense if our economy is about to head into a recession.

Issues like taxes, the size of government, health care, and most importantly the direction in Iraq and the GWOT are all issues on which he can draw considerable distinctions with the other side. I think that McCain should welcome a debate with the Dems on taxes. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both want to raise taxes on the highest tax bracked, raise the capital gains tax and bring back the inheritance tax. He has an opportunity to paint each is prototypical tax and spend liberals. Along with a plethora of tax increases both have already pledged a plethora of new government spending.

I believe the best way for McCain to win is challenge each on issues where there is clear distinction and go at them hard on each of these. This attack with regards to NAFTA is a good start and I hope to see him bring more issues to the forefront.