Category Archives: Republican Party

Now Running in Michigan

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More like this, please.

McCain also has a new ad out, which you can view here. I did watch it this morning. It mostly consists of photos of Obama with the word “TAXES” across his face and a long, dark shadow of something that might be the Capitol Building. The voiceover is something like “Taxes. More taxes. Evil Taxes. Evil flesh-eating taxes. Evil flesh-eating taxes that are hiding under your bed with the bogyman and gonna GETCHA.”

That’s how I remember it, anyway.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden made the reasonable observation that for upper-income people, paying taxes is patriotic. I have to link to the AP again, sorry —

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden said Thursday that paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans. In a new TV ad that repeats widely debunked claims about the Democratic tax plan, the Republican campaign calls Obama’s tax increases “painful.”

Under the economic plan proposed by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, people earning more than $250,000 a year would pay more in taxes while those earning less — the vast majority of American taxpayers — would receive a tax cut.

Although Republican John McCain claims that Obama would raise taxes, the independent Tax Policy Center and other groups conclude that four out of five U.S. households would receive tax cuts under Obama’s proposals.

Again, we see the startling new movement among journalists to do, um, journalism, and provide actual information. It’s been a while.

Anyway, Biden’s connection of taxes with patriotism has inspired many snorts and hoots of derision from the Right. Give money to the government? Puh-leeze.

Let’s see — They want a strong military and they want to run the military into the ground in the Middle East, but they won’t volunteer to fight — better things to do, you know — and they don’t want to pay for the war but instead want to continue to borrow money from China and cripple their children with debt.

Sing along —

Wing-nuts, yeah
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh
Wing-nuts, yeah
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y’all

Wing-nuts, good God
What are they good for
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me

Etc. They’re parasites, I say.

McCain Can’t See Spain From His House

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Somebody pass this on to John McCain —

McCain confuses Spain with Mexico and seems to think the prime minister of Spain is a Latin American guerrilla. Early stage Alzheimer’s, I’m sayin’.

Or, McCain in Spain has fuzzies in the brain.

Update: Several hours behind the blogs, the professional press catches up.

Time, “The Pain in Spain Falls Mainly on McCain”

Washington Post, The Trail, “McCain Slights Spanish Prime Minister” Boring head.

The Guardian, Thursday memo: Barack’s back (Subhead: McCain’s Spain brain-pain)

Is the Campaign Turning a Corner?

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There are little indications here and there that the Obama campaign is regaining momentum while the Palin bubble is losing air.

There’s a tiny uptick for Obama in the Gallup daily tracking poll. Some other polls show that Sarah Palin’s popularity is fading fast.

The Obama campaign has released a two-minute ad explaining Obama’s economic plan. I understand this is already beginning to run in battleground states.

If you can stomach it, you can watch McCain’s new ad about the economy here. It amounts to blah blah blah American workers blah blah reform blah.

There’s a discussion at Washington Monthly about whether a two-minute ad is a good idea. Personally, I like it, and I think it is a good idea. The American people on the whole aren’t as stupid as some make them out to be. We have more than our share of idiots, yes, and the idiots make a lot of noise. But, particularly regarding domestic issues, most Americans really can come to sensible conclusions and sort shit from shinola if they are given accurate information. That last part is nearly always the catch. But not always.

For example, remember when President Bush was going all out to sell his social security privatization scheme to the public (and ain’t it good that didn’t happen)? A majority of Americans pretty much figured out by themselves — because news media weren’t helping much — that Bush’s plan was dangerous. The more they heard about it, the less they liked it.

One commenter at Washington Monthly remembered Ross Perot’s infomercials, which went on for a whole lot longer than two minutes. Think what you want of Perot (and you’re probably right), those infomercials helped a lot of Americans understand for the first time why a big federal budget deficit is bad.

This sort of calm, straightforward explanation of complex issues was a hallmark of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, and people loved FDR for it. Are Americans appreciably dumber now than they were then? We’ll see.

Meanwhile, news media are actually pointing out the McCain campaign’s, um, lies. See CNN:

Here’s the Associated Press — Yeah, I know, it’s the Associated Press, but I’m going to link to it anyway — “McCain has 2 faces: Washington in- and outsider.” So much for Mr. Straight Talker.

See also: Elitism for Elites.

Palin Could Run America, but Not Hewlett Packard?

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Former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, now an adviser to John McCain, says Sarah Palin lacks the experience to run Hewlett Packard. Michael D. Shear writes for The Trail:

Fiorina made the comments on the McGraw-Hill Show on St. Louis KTRS Radio, a statement that was first reported by Huffington Post.

During the final minute of the interview, the host asked: “Do you think she has the experience to run a major company, like Hewlett Packard?”

“No, I don’t,” responded Fiorina. “But you know what? That’s not what she’s running for.”

There’s also a “McCain invented the Blackberry” story going around. This clearly is an attempt to get even for the phony “Al Gore invented the Internet” story the Right pushed awhile back.

Greg Sargent has the text of a speech Obama gave today. Really good. The economic crisis has suppressed the stupid “lipstick on a pig” distractions, for a time, anyway.

Update: McCain, Obama or Biden couldn’t run Hewlett Packard, either, Fiorina says. And Fiorina’s bio says she couldn’t run it, either. Must be a tough job.

Bogeyman Regulations

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John McCain is calling for a “9/11 Commission”-style probe of the financial crisis to find out what caused it, although he has already decided the blame resides with “the old-boy network and the corruption in Washington.” Meanwhile, his running mate Sarah Palin said “We are going to reform the way Wall Street does business and stop multi-million dollar payouts and golden parachutes to CEOs who break the public trust.”

Although the commission idea has a certain amount of retro charm, I don’t believe the causes of the financial crisis are any big mystery. And the “multi-million dollar payouts and golden parachutes to CEOs who break the public trust” are just a symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.

One factor the wingnuts cannot truthfully blame on the financial mess — which of course doesn’t mean they won’t do it — is excessive government regulation. The nondepository institutions like Lehman Brothers that are collapsing right now got government off their backs several years ago. In fact, that’s when the trouble started.

There’s a good background article by David Lightman at McClatchy Newspapers that explains what happened, and I urge you to read it all. In a nutshell, what happened was the Reagan Revolution and the fantasy that markets and securities can regulate themselves without government oversight.

This isn’t just a problem with “Wall Street.” The entire financial system is breaking down. Further, the rolling disaster we’re seeing now could not have happened had some critical New Deal regulatory programs been left in place. For example, Lightman explains how dismantling the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act led directly to what’s happening on Wall Street.

Lightman also says that President Clinton signed the Glass-Steagall “reform” into law, which is true. But the driving force behind getting rid of Glass-Steagall was then-Senator Phil Gramm, who is now Senator John McCain’s economic adviser and a co-chair of his presidential campaign.

The talk is that if McCain is elected, Gramm would be first in line to be treasury secretary.

The free market true believers remain in denial of what’s actually happening, which tells me they will not learn from experience, and there’s no point pretending they will. Our only recourse is to be sure they aren’t the ones making real policy.

Good Reads:

Sasha Abramsky on McCain’s pathetic attempt to capture the Reagan magic.

“In Candidates, 2 Approaches to Wall Street” reveals McCain’s bottomless hypocrisy.

“On Wall St. as on Main St., a Problem of Denial.” Or, why smart executives make stupid choices.

Teh Stupid, It Runs Our Country

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In “Making America Stupid,” Tom Friedman writes of the GOP’s “Drill Baby Drill” mantra:

Why would Republicans, the party of business, want to focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology — fossil fuels — rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology — renewable energy? As I have argued before, it reminds me of someone who, on the eve of the I.T. revolution — on the eve of PCs and the Internet — is pounding the table for America to make more I.B.M. typewriters and carbon paper. “Typewriters, baby, typewriters.”

He goes on to say that McCain is running on nothing but cultural wedge issues to hide the fact that he has no more clue what to do about the economy than George W. Bush did.

Steve Benen says Friedman’s new membership in the “enough” club is significant, because Friedman is a major conventional-wisdom shaper.

And if you want to read a defense of McCain that’s bleeping hilarious, go here. Begin with the sentence. “Let us look at what oil is. It replaced whaling in provided fuel for lamps. This saved the whale,” and keep reading. If this guy were a satirist he’d be brilliant. Unfortunately, he isn’t.

Kevin Drum asks why McCain is running such a sleazy campaign.

So why is McCain doing this? Obvious answer #1: he’s just running a standard Republican campaign. Nobody should really be surprised by this. Obvious answer #2: This is hardly the first time McCain has sold his soul. He’ll regret it later, of course, but this is just who he is, despite the layers of maverickiness he’s managed to cover himself in over the years.

Kevin also suggests McCain genuinely believes Obama would be a bad president, and thus McCain feels morally justified in doing whatever it takes to stop him. I can think of one other possibility, which is that McCain is too mentally impaired to make his own decisions, and Karl Rove or a clone therof is actually running the campaign behind the scenes.

I don’t know what went down on the Sunday bobblehead shows, but some parts of America’s news media seem to be doing some real journalism for a change. This is the kind of reporting they should have done when Bush was running in 2000, and didn’t.

New York Times: “Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes”

Washington Post: “As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood”

MSNBC: “Palin’s ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ Line Returns”

Boston Globe: “As governor and mayor, Palin hired friends for public posts”

San Francisco Chronicle: “Campaign check: Lies and half-truths outed.” This article analyzes six campaign commercials and finds them deceptive. Five of the six are McCain’s ads. It also found three statements made by McCain and Palin in speeches or interviews that were, um, wrong. One other item it found deceptive was an anti-Palin email, but there’s no evidence it originated with the Obama campaign. So — 8 McCain deceptions, 1 Obama deception, 1 source unknown deception.

Now, on to serious issues — a number of rightie bloggers are complaining that a “lib” photographer deliberately made McCain look sinister for a photo used on the cover of The Atlantic. Except I’ve got the bleeping issue of the Atlanic right in front of me, and there’s nothing the least bit sinister about the photo. If anything, McCain looks slightly noble and wise, if way wrinkled, in the photo. Apparently the photographer had some fun with “outtakes” — not the photo actually used — and bragged about it on a personal blog. Some rightie bloggers have twisted this into a claim that The Atlantic used one of the “sinister” photos on the cover, which one look at the cover reveals is not true.

This is not a press bias issue; it’s a personal expression issue. Once again, we see that righties hate freedom of expression, and if they had their way they’d ban any speech with which they don’t agree. And they’d do it in the name of “liberty.”

WTF?

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I’m seeing McCain-Palin television ads in the New York City media market. This reaches into southern New York state, maybe a piece of Connecticut, Long Island, and New Jersey, as well as NYC. Does McCain think he’s got a shot at New Jersey?

Thinking Out Loud

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I am gloomy about the election campaign, but I keep reminding myself that previous election seasons have had dramatic shifts in the polls. For example, in the Reagan-Carter contest of 1980, until a week before the election the polls were very tight, and some showed Carter slightly ahead. And, of course, Reagan won by a landslide.

The shift was caused by the candidates’ performances in their last debate, held one week before the election. Internal tracking polls showed there was almost an immediate shift after the debate, when huge numbers of Americans decided to vote for Reagan.

Debates don’t always count. I thought Kerry absolutely clobbered Bush in their 2004 debates, especially the first one, but it doesn’t seem to have made much difference. I suspect people had been too well conditioned to like Bush and dislike Kerry to trust their own eyes.

The point remains that much can happen between now and election day that could push the results decisively one way or the other.

I think Joe Biden has it in him to put away Sarah Palin in their debate, and he can do it by being courtly to her while gently and patiently pointing out what she doesn’t understand about the world. If he plays it right, she will look shrill and ditzy in comparison. I know some of you will disagree with that, but if he beats her up too much, so to speak, it could backfire and grow sympathy for Palin even if she reveals she doesn’t know China from cheese.

It’s outrageous that we have to play mind games like that, but that’s where the last several years of scorched-earth politics have brought us.

More than anything else, in their debates Obama will have to be more likable than McCain. And he can do that. But he also has to take care not to seem to be showing off his intellect, and everyone fears he will actually answer questions intelligently rather than spout the “crisp” but empty prepackaged rhetoric bits that the pundits always prefer to real answers.

In both cases I think the Dems should keep a principle of martial arts in mind — using your opponent’s momentum and force against him. Unless McCain is allowed to bring Joe Lieberman on stage with him to whisper the correct answers in his ear — or obtain the mysterious “back box” that Bush sported in a debate against Kerry — McCain will be confused about many things. Since the McCain campaign has declared war on news media, I think news media are in less of a mood to let such things slip by these days. The shills on Faux News excepted, of course. Anyway, at such times, Obama should step back and let McCain be McCain.

Now that it has become conventional wisdom that Palin didn’t exactly cover herself in glory in her first interview, the excuses are coming out. One excuse is that ABC News deliberately edited the tape to make Palin look stupid. However, I’ve looked at the transcript of the complete first interview, and the stuff edited out doesn’t seem to me to make her any less frivolous that the stuff left in. See what you think.

Another excuse is that there are many versions of the “Bush Doctrine,” and Palin couldn’t be expected to know which one Charles Gibson referred to — except that he deliberately and clearly defined the precise version he was inquiring about. And while there are many fine points, if fine is the right word, about the Bush Doctrine that can be interpreted in diverse ways, Palin clearly didn’t know any of those points, nor did she seem to know there was such a thing as a “Bush Doctrine.”

Shorter Steven Hayward: If we don’t elect idiots, we’re betraying democracy.

Maybe it’s because I live in New York and nobody’s campaigning here, but I never see the candidates. He see news about the candidates and brief clips showing some little slice of the candidates’ day, but I keep feeling that I’m not seeing the actual candidates anywhere. How is it where you live?