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Saturday, November 1, 2008
The Jib Factor
Posted by on 11.1.08 @ 9:26PM
Remember when I said I didn't find that Buckley endorsement of Obama to be all that thoughtful? Probably because it read this way to me:
I mean, my God, this woman is simply awful; the elided vowels, the beauty pageantry, the guns, the crude non-Episcopal protestantism, the embarrassing porchload of children with horrifying hillbilly names, the white after Labor Day. As fellow conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan quipped to me the other day outside a Martha's Vineyard antique shop, it's gratifying to know the Gipper isn't alive to see what has become of his party.
Read the whole wonderfully hilarious thing at a blog named Iowahawk.
Palin Barnstorms Ohio
Posted by on 11.1.08 @ 7:24PM
After doing three rallies in Florida and one in North Carolina on Saturday, here is Sarah Palin's Sunday schedule:
- 9 a.m. -- Canton, Ohio
- 11:30 a.m. -- Marietta, Ohio
- 2 p.m. -- Columbus, Ohio
- 5 p.m. -- Owensville, Ohio
Google Map directions for any hard-core Sarah fans who want to try to cover the whole trip -- 334 miles by car. Good luck.
BTW, those times are for door-openings, and I'd advise anyone planning to attend a Palin rally to get there at least a couple hours before those times. The lady really draws a crowd:
Maverick and Anna Nicole
Posted by on 11.1.08 @ 6:35PM
Ben Smith suggests they're "cleaning out the oppo drawer" at Hope HQ, but I don't see how this hurts the 72-year-old senator:
Aunt Zeituni, Where ya been so long?
Posted by on 11.1.08 @ 4:58PM
The Obama campaign says it is highly suspicious that news of the candidate's aunt living illegally in Boston public housing broke just days before the election. Even more suspicious is Obama's denials that his beloved aunt, who contributed to his campaign, and who some democratic policitians apparently knew lived in Boston, was here unbeknownst to him. Of coure he would deny knowing she was here. What could be more embarrassing to Obama than to see his aunt deported the week of the election? Meanwhile the New York Times reports: "It is uncertain how she would have qualified for such housing with a standing deportation order."
This is probably not the November surprise some were hoping for, but McCain's got to be loving it. "If he doesn't know this, what else doesn't he know?"
"Fight to the End"
Posted by on 11.1.08 @ 4:47PM
SPRINGFIELD, Va. -- I attended a John McCain rally here earlier in the day, and must say that McCain himself was as focused, energetic and on message as I've seen him throughout the campaign.
McCain's "Straight Talk Express" was a bit delayed, and a wide array of speakers warmed up the crowd, including George Allen, John Warner, and Jim Gilmore. Lindsey Graham and Cindy McCain were traveling along with the Republican presidential nominee.
The speakers emphasized the importance of the state and tried to encourage attendees to make calls and knock on doors in the closing 72 hours of the campaign. The chant "Keep Virginia Red" reverberated through the crowd and the sign "Fight to the End" captured the spirit of the event, reinforced when McCain entered the stage to the "Rocky" theme.
In the closing days, the rise of "Joe the Plumber" has enabled McCain to talk about the economy in a way that's comfortable to him, and he seized on Joe Biden's comments that the world would test Barack Obama with a "generated crisis," which has given McCain the ability to hammer home the experience issue. He joked that Biden was "the gift that keeps on gving."
"I have been been tested, Sen. Obama has not," McCain declared.
McCain also said that both he and Obama want to change Bush's
economic policies, but the difference is, "Sen. Obama
thinks taxes are too low, and I think spending is too high."
He highlighted the fact that Obama's definition of rich kept getting lower and lower.
McCain closed by referencing the fact that "pundits have written us off," before delivering his standard call to "stand up and fight."
Sarah Palin is also campaigning in Virginia today, so it's pretty clear that they view the state as a must win that is in serious danger of flipping into the Democratic column.
Obama by 10?
Posted by on 11.1.08 @ 2:54PM
Barack Obama leads John McCain in Gallup Poll Daily tracking interviewing conducted Wednesday through Friday by an identical 52% to 42% margin among both traditional likely voters and expanded likely voters. Obama leads by a similar 52% to 41% margin among all registered voters.
This is the first time since Gallup began estimating likely voters in early October that there is no difference between Gallup's two likely voter models. Obama's lead of 52% to 42% using Gallup's traditional estimate of likely voting criteria takes into account past voting as well as current intentions. Obama's identical lead using the expanded model takes into account only current voting intentions.
I'm having a hard time thinking of any particular reason why what was a 2-point race on Monday should have swung so strongly in Obama's favor in the span of five days. If this Gallup swing is real -- if a tsunami of late-deciding voters pushes Obama to a double-digit win -- the likely explanation will be bandwagon psychology. The marginal undecided voter wants to vote for the winner.
Me on Fox News
Posted by on 11.1.08 @ 1:56PM
For those who are too bored stiff to do anything else with your Saturday, I'll be on Fox News Channel this afternoon between 3:30 and 4 eastern time -- probably right at 3:40. Feedback welcome at qhillyer@gmail.com.
McCain Looks Good
Posted by on 11.1.08 @ 1:14PM
I just watched live footage of John McCain speaking in Virginia. He had the best "energy" I have seen from him since, well, since New Hampshire in 2000. I don't know exactly what it was, but his tone, his body language, whatever it was, was terrific. He even seemed likable -- and not just a little likable, but a lot likable. That's tough for me to say, since I have been so angry at him ever since he attacked Chris Cox that I have barely been able to bear the sight of him. But this was the John McCain today who was a fun, almost irresistable candidate in New Hampshire in 2000 -- or, even better, like the McCain who traveled all over the country in 1996 working his heart out for Bob Dole against Bill Clinton, charming people everywhere he went. This was a man who deserves to win the presidency. Oh, and his message was pretty darn good, too. :)
Expert Reaction
Posted by on 11.1.08 @ 12:37AM
Second Amendment historian Clayton Cramer (author of Armed America, the definitive refutation of academic fraud Michael Bellesiles), examines the attacks on Sarah Palin and suggests that liberal attacks stem mainly from two causes:
1. She's a pro-life, evangelical Christian.
2. She's a woman.
To the left, it is axiomatic that every woman has to be pro-choice and hostile to the patriarchial system of oppression that is Christianity.
Reacting to my criticism of the anti-Palin "experts" among the pre-war Iraq hawks, Cramer says:
I do think Stacy is on to something here: when the people that played a major part in the Iraq strategy suggest that Palin was an incredibly bad choice -- consider the source.
My point was not to say that all hawks are disqualified from criticizing Palin. What I objected to was the "expert" assertion that Palin is (a) the basic cause of Republican electoral difficulties and/or (b) somehow symptomatic of a fundamental problem with the conservative movement.
This is scapegoating pure and simple, and its sources are among those who far more deserve to be thus blamed than the governor of Alaska. Her son is fighting the war the "experts" demanded, and the lady's reward is to be vilely insulted by them? Just to think of this injustice makes my blood boil. If this were 1850, they would be invited to meet me in Bladensburg, the miserable curs!
(Cross-posted at The Other McCain.)
Friday, October 31, 2008
The Conservative Case for Breyer, Souter, and Sunstein
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 5:09PM
Doug Kmiec continues to bolster his conservative credentials.
Excellent Take on Obama's Associations
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 4:13PM
In response to my earlier comments on how a conservative with the kind of dodgy associations Obama has would be treated, TAS reader Craig Smith submitted the following useful analysis:
CNN reported in late Feb 2000 that, “The members of Bush's senior team in Austin, Texas, were only vaguely aware of Bob Jones University's policies and past. "Reagan spoke there…” Aides said.
Bush had given a speech. Just one speech at the controversial university, but that was enough for the press to join him at Jones’ hip. Thus, the press piled on:
Feb 27, 2000 – Los Angeles Times - “Bush is wishing he'd never set foot on the Bob Jones campus”
Feb 28, 2000 – BusinessWeek - “Bush received an enthusiastic response at Bob Jones U.”
Feb 28, 2000 – Washington Post - “Bush Caters to the Bigotry of Bob Jones”
Feb 29, 2000 – International Herald Tribune - “criticized Mr. Bush for speaking at Bob Jones University,”
Mar 4, 2000 – Seattle Post-Intelligencer - “do we want the ideals of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Bob Jones?”
Mar 4, 2000 – Dallas Morning News - “a letter of regret for visiting Bob Jones University”
Mar 4, 2000 – Dayton Daily News - “Gerald Ford says he would not have spoken at Bob Jones”
Mar 5, 2000 - Contra Costa - "The definition of George Bush's compassionate conservative is Bob Jones III ...
Mar 5, 2000 – Los Angeles Times - “aggrieved over Bush's visit to Bob Jones University”
Mar 5, 2000 – Miami Herald - “Bush was insensitive to Catholics by visiting Bob Jones University.”
Mar 5, 2000 – Chicago Sun-Times - “criticism of Bush for his visit to anti-Catholic Bob Jones University”
Mar 5, 2000 – Maureen Dowd- “In South Carolina, former Gov. David Beasley … gave a bear hug to Bob Jones Bush.”
Mar 6, 2000 – Guardian Unlimited - “Mr Bush had to repair the damage done by his appearance at the Bob Jones university”
Mar 6, 2000 – Philadelphia Daily News - “the Bob Jones affair”(Craig goes on at some length in this vein and then adds . . .)
Now imagine if Bush hadn’t just given a speech, but also…
• Was an active member of the church for 20-years
• Was married by Bob Jones
• Had his children baptized by Bob Jones
• Gave tens-of-thousands to the church
• Titled a book after one of Jones’ sermons
• Had regularly listened to Jones’ sermons on tape while at grad school
• Had appointed Jones to his campaign
• Funded his radical education activities thru foundation funds
• Claimed Jones as his spiritual mentor…and then claimed he was “only vaguely aware of Bob Jones University's policies and past”? The MSM hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Craig
They're Coming To Get You, Barbara...To The Polls
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 4:01PM
And you thought Obamacons were strange? Try this: John Russo and Russell Streiner, screenwriter and producer, respectively, of the original 1968 Night of the Living Dead, have just called the zombie vote in favor of Barack Obama. “This certainly proves that their dead, rotting hearts are in the right place!” they gleefully announced, awarding Obama the same constituency that helped put JFK over the top, and the one constituency with presumably mushier, more malleable brains than toddlers:
Tired of being mocked, tired of seeing the country go to hell in a hand-basket because of the brain-dead policies of the George W. Bush presidency, the zombies are going after the fat-cats who aided and abetted his colossal blunders. From now on, until Obama is righteously elected, they have vowed to dine only on the flesh of these greedy, self-serving, hypocritical lobbyists and legislators.
And if it helps sell a few “Zombies Rule! Fat Cats Suck!” T-shirts and posters…well, for a lot of people making a little ancillary cash money on the revolution would be change they can believe in.
This isn’t anything new, really. There isn’t space in a blog post to recite the increasingly hectoring politics of George Romero’s subsequent zombie movies, but only a few years back Joe Dante’s Homecoming envisioned dead Iraq war vets coming back to life to kill an Ann Coulter stand-in and vote out a war-mongering Republican president. To Russo and Steiner, such politicking makes the case that today’s zombies are “not really stupid, they're not really brain dead, in fact they're a lot smarter than many living people who put zombies down and consider themselves superior” and, granting that superiority, the pair also believe the undead present a challenge to the living:
The zombies can't get to their voting places as fast as you can. Yet, in their stiff, slow-moving, rigor mortis kind of way, they're going to the polls in record numbers to vote for Barack Obama! Are they smarter than you? Are you dumb enough to vote for someone else? Are zombies more dedicated, more inspired, more sincere and more motivated than you are when it comes to doing something righteous and noble for America?
They very well might be, I suppose. In retort, I can only say: At least I never stabbed my mother to death with a garden trowel or celebrated my reanimation with a feast of human flesh. I guess it takes motivation to run down people and force them to (re)live exactly like you. And it's better to be lectured on hope and carted off to the polls to do the smart thing than be lunch for a rotting corpse. I grant this. Yet, even if hanging with Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers is off limits, you would think the McCain campaign might get some traction out of Obama consorting with undead cannibals.
Then again, like everyone keeps saying, it's been a pretty outlandish campaign.
State of the Senate-- a Coleman surge?
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 3:43PM
A new NBC/Mason Dixon poll has Norm Coleman beating Al Franken by 6 points while Rasmussen shows him up by 4, on the heels of an apparently strong debate performance last Thursday. Another poll by Minnesota Public Radio has Franken up by 4, but polling for that started on October 24, and thus any surge by Coleman this week would be diluted. Of course, you can't dismiss the potential strength of Obama's coattails in Minnesota.
In other good news for Republicans, after looking competitive for awhile, it seems like Republicans Mitch McConnell and Saxby Chambliss are pulling away in Kentucky and Georgia, respectively.
But the public polls are still looking grim for John Sununu in New Hampshire, and Kay Hagan seems to be building a lead over Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina.
Dispatches from Edwardsland
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 2:38PM
Fred Baron spent tens of thousands of dollars covering up John Edwards's daliances with Rielle Hunter. When I was knee-deep in the Edwards story a couple months ago, I heard a rumor that Baron was dying, which turns out to have been true. RIP. I can't help but wonder where this leaves Hunter, financially speaking.
Speaking of rumors, Elizabeth Edwards was recently spotted without her wedding ring, and Page Six has a source claiming that the couple are separated.
Thwarting Energy Exploration in Colorado
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 1:51PM
Over at my Web site I've posted a long, blow-by-blow account of how Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and his administration repeatedly enlisted the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to pay for his global warming alarmist agenda (a "new energy economy") and for his efforts to keep the federal Bureau of Land Management from leasing for oil and gas exploration on the Roan Plateau. It's sometimes a dry recitation but there are a ton of documents linked that I obtained from the governor's office and from the Colorado Department of Natural Resources.
The quick-'n-dirty summary: Almost immediately after he took office Ritter had a "Climate Action Plan" he wanted to pursue, which included two new positions in his administration: a cabinet-level climate policy adviser to create "a bold and visionary climate action policy," and a liaison to the Public Utilities Commission to "develop a climate-wise utility policy." He asked for, and got, two annual grants from Hewlett for $200,000 ($400,000 total) to fund the positions. Ritter worked through Hewlett's environmental program director Hal Harvey -- a far-left, Obama-supporting (and -contributing) environmental extremist who founded the Energy Foundation and is president of the crackpot enviro/population control-advocating New-Land Foundation -- to pay for his climate people. I guess the state budget process would not come up with the money fast enough for Ritter.
Within a few months Ritter had another
environmental cause to fight: obstructing and delaying the Bureau
of Land Management from leasing the rights to oil and natural gas
exploration on the rich Roan Plateau. It had been ten years
already since BLM was given the mandate to lease the Naval Oil
and Shale Reserves, and it was finally ready to start doing so
after years of environmental study and review. But that still
wasn't long enough for Ritter, his eco-cronies, Reps. Mark Udall
and John Salazar, and Sen. Ken Salazar (pictured). All got
involved in trying to further delay BLM.
Part of the strategy was for Ritter's administration to make the case for much slower "phased leasing" of acreage on the Roan, as opposed to the BLM's somewhat quicker but still limited and methodical approach. The governor's Department of Natural Resources sought out (and found) a cheap economist who would be willing to put together a vague case that showed phased leasing was a better idea that would reap better revenues for the state. And can you guess who they asked to pay for said cheap economist? Yep -- the Hewlett Foundation, with Hal Harvey more than happy to help out. In fact, Harvey wanted to help so much that he gave campaign contributions to both Salazars and Udall as well.
The congressmen worked at the federal level to implement Ritter's phased leasing goals, with Sen. Salazar's legal counsel begging for the suspect economic analysis to buttress his case. But the congressmen's and Ritter's efforts fell short of their goals, as BLM moved forward with the leasing, which netted nearly $114 million for both the federal and state governments -- "the highest grossing onshore oil and natural gas lease sale in BLM history in the lower 48 states."
Nevertheless, it's a sorry tale of how environmental extremists will fight together to the death for measures that would cripple access to our own sources of affordable energy.
Cross-posted at Cooler Heads.
You Want To See Something Really Scary?
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 1:24PM
The latest New Yorker just arrived in my mailbox and, predictably, the cover, with its witches and demons cowering as John McCain and Sarah Palin approach, suggests there is nothing scarier than a surprise Republican victory next Tuesday. Well, that's one way to look at it, and perhaps this will make up for the apparently too-subtle-for-New-Yorker-readers cartoon-Barack-and-Michelle-terrorist-fist-bumping debacle, but I myself choose instead to cast my vote for this bit from John Heilemann's latest New York magazine piece:
Obama had been toying with vague FDR allusions for the past three days, but now he’s decided to lay his cards on the table and seize the mantle explicitly. With the specter of a full-blown depression looming, the Age of Roosevelt—the campaign he ran in 1932, the challenges he faced upon assuming office, the “bold, persistent experimentation” he called for and the New Deal edifice he erected in response—is much on the minds of the nominee and his inner circle. “A lot of people around Barack are reading books about FDR’s first hundred days,” says a member of Obama’s kitchen cabinet. “It’s a sign of the shift that’s going on emotionally: from being on this improbable mission to believing, Hey, we’re going to win.”
Two thoughts: One, okay, now I'm getting worried. Two, I wonder if while reporting this triumphant scene Heilemann has had any second thoughts about the endemic racism he declared was previously holding back this New New Deal? Or was one quarter of negative growth enough to cure the nation of this bane?
Our own Phil Klein sounded a lengthy and prescient alarm on the potential for this FDR-mania with his piece in the October print edition of TAS, "Obama's New Deal." See also, Michael Barone. And, considering all this, if you want to read something really scary this Halloween, scrap the Bram Stroker and Clive Barker. Pick up Amity Shlaes' The Forgotten Man instead.
Post title sourcing here.
Obama Outspent McCain on TV By 3-1 In Closing Week
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 12:40PM
The University of Wisconsin advertising project finds that "From October 21st to October 28th, spending on television advertising in the presidential campaign has totaled nearly $38 million. Over this time period, the Obama campaign spent nearly $21.5 million while the McCain campaign spent nearly $7.5 million. Another $6.7 million was spent by the Republican Party and $2.2 million was spent by interest groups."
So, if you throw in all spending, it's a 3-2 Obama advantage.
Here's a table showing a state-by-state breakdown. Once again, for some reason, McCain is outspending Obama in Iowa (Obama has an 11-point lead in the state in the RCP average):
Advertising Spending by State (Candidate & Coordinated)
| McCain | Obama | |
| Colorado | $237,000 | $858,000 |
| Florida | $1,441,000 | $4,615,000 |
| Indiana | $336,000 | $1,248,000 |
| Iowa | $429,000 | $298,000 |
| Minnesota | $176,000 | $499,000 |
| Missouri | $437,000 | $1,105,000 |
| Montana | <$1,000 | $175,000 |
| North Carolina | $537,000 | $1,094,000 |
| New Hampshire | $60,000 | $643,000 |
| New Mexico | $223,000 | $309,000 |
| Nevada | $357,000 | $850,000 |
| Ohio | $753,000 | $1,984,000 |
| Pennsylvania | $1,388,000 | $2,742,000 |
| Virginia | $637,000 | $2,450,000 |
| Wisconsin | $202,000 | $1,084,000 |
(Source:TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG with analysis by the Wisconsin Advertising Project)
Caracas on the Potomac
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 12:17PM
Examiner editorial page editor Mark Tapscott is right on target in his latest at Tapscott's Copy Desk. The Obama people do not put up with dissent. It's an Alinskyite -- indeed, a borderline Trotskyite -- outlook. Also consider how they use law enforcement in Missouri to warn against "false" advertising. And how the Obama lawyers have literally written to the Justice Department to recommend that McCain and Palin personally be investigated for supposed criminal violations because they warned against vote fraud. This is scary stuff. It's what I call "the Totalitarian Impulse." And it's coming to the Oval Office unless Americans finally get wise and rise up against it.
Matthew Vadum...
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 12:09PM
...was pretty funny zinging community organizers last night on The Daily Show, but do you think anyone will get he was actually making fun of the un-compassionate conservative caricature, rather than being the caricature? In a time when "socialism" has become a racist code word, I have my doubts! Or am I failing to discern the caricature of the average dissent squashing Obama-ite?
The Least Compellingly Personal Event of the Year
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 11:45AM
The Freakonomics guys try to keep their blog politics-free, so Justin Wolfers is forced to make his case against California's Prop. 8 subversively.
He masquerades his argument as a reflection on the wonder that his two gay friends' (partners of 18 years) wedding in California just prior to the election wound up a political event:
And so circumstances dictated that their love and their wedding, while being intensely personal, was also somehow public and political.
This reminds me of Bart Simpson walking towards Lisa saying, "on my way, I'm going to be doing this: [windmilling his arms]. If you get hit, it's your own fault."
And so circumstances dictated that Bart's walking and windmilling, while being intensely personal, was also somehow belligerent and aggressive.
A couple without political motivation, having truly committed to each other somewhere during the course of 18 years, would have found a way to express that commitment without involving the government or the political system.
For example, if for some reason the government forbid me from marrying a girl with whom I wanted to spend my life, at some point (very early on) I would go with her to my church and we'd get hitched. We would then be a married couple.
If, then, 18 years down the road, the government decided we could be married after all, and that, oh by the way, that marriage will convey with it certain substantial financial advantages, we might saunter down to the town hall and pick up a registration. This event would have no impact on the status of our marriage or commitment to each other.
The fact that Jed and Eric couldn't or didn't find a church -- or organization, or whatever -- that would recognize and authenticate their commitment in their 18 years together makes me wonder what they think of the tradition of marriage being an establishment of communities and not of states, and also whether their decision to "marry" at this particular time wasn't just a little bit... political.
More Khalidi
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 11:31AM
Jenifer Rubin has the video of a Khalidi lecture, while a Hannity and Colmes camera tries to ask Khalidi questions, to no avail.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 10:15AM
- Government's ad hoc response to financial crises doesn't cut it (WSJ)
- Bush's massive increase in regulations wasn't enough for Barack Obama (WSJ)
- Rea Hederman actually hates Obama's tax plan, despite Obama's ads falsely claiming otherwise (NRO)
- Which Obama would the country get? Centrist or radical Marxist liberal? (National Journal)
- Can the EU think one move ahead against Russia? Doesn't look like it (Economist)
- Best and worst lines from the campaigns (Politico)
- ...although this was by far the biggest blunder (The Onion)
Rethinking Associations
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 10:15AM
It has been interesting to observe the public debate over Barack Obama's associations with individuals whose personal histories can only be categorized as radical. Bill Ayers is a former terrorist. Jeremiah Wright preaches race adversarialism. For the most part, Obama's friendships with these men has been water off a duck's back for the electorate.
Imagine a different scenario. There is an evangelical candidate. He is the best evangelical candidate ever. A Rhodes Scholar, a distinguished lawyer who has argued before the Supreme Court, astoundingly eloquent, you get the idea. This candidate is a conservative, but answers all questions in such a way as to avoid making anyone uncomfortable. He hits all the right chords.
Further imagine that the record shows this man was once heavily involved with Christian reconstructionists who believe stoning should be re-instituted for adultery. He went to a church for two decades where a Christian reconstructionist preached each Sunday. One of his mentors was part of a group that bombed abortion clinics.
Where would that candidate be right now? And how different would that candidate be in terms of associations from one Barack Obama?
Re: The Cut of His Jib
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 9:52AM
Stacy, you are wrong as wrong can be. That is NOT the gist of the skeptical-of-Palin argument. Yes, it might be the gist of the David Brooks argument, but there is plenty of middle ground between Palin lovers and, on the other hand, those who despise Palin just because they are cultural snobs. Indeed, there is JUST AS MUCH cultural snobbery -- of a reverse kind -- among those who assume the ONLY reason to oppose Palin is snobbery as there is among the elitists like Brooks. And the reverse snobbery is just as ugly, sir, as the Brooks variety. Indeed, it is despicable. The conservative movement will never recover if it can't allow honest disagreements about qualifications, political tactics, and the like. To assume that everybody who disagrees with you is not just mistaken in judgment but actually ill-motivated is the attitude of a permanent political minority. And to go looking for cultural victimhood (oh, those terrible elites are so mean to us!) is just as wrong as any other sort of faux-victimhood grievance. My friend, it's time to stop the culture wars, on both sides, within the conservative movement. Those wars are self-destructive. Yes, if somebody throws a deliberate haymaker, like Brooks did, then fight back -- AT BROOKS. But don't overgeneralize by acting as if Brooks and his ilk are the only sorts of people who can possibly disagree with you.
Here's what is dangerous: Groupthink. And no-shades-of-gray-think. In early 2006 (and before), when I wrote critically of PResident Bush, I was subjected to incredibly angry mail from those on the right. By 2007, when I wrote in defense of other aspects of the Bush record, the same people who were angry at me for criticizing him were now castigating me for defending him. It's as if people can't make a distinction between their current feelings about a person and the actual issue being discussed. There's a "team" mentality, as in being a fan of a team, that seems to kick in. The attitude seems to be that unless you support the team unquestioningly, you should be an outcast. But this isn't sports. This is our country. And nobody is all good or all bad. And not everybody who disagrees does so for bad motives, just as not all who agree are ones who do so for good motives.
We have a movement to rebuild. Unless deliberate insult has been offered, it should not be assumed. Because with the people who may win election next Tuesday being the sorts who literally want to change the rules of the game to ensure that conservatives no longer have a level playing field any more, it may be true soon more than it has been true since 1776 that we will all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.
Calling All Politics-and-History Buffs
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 9:40AM
To all of you interested in politics/and or American history:
I guarantee you have never seen a collection like this. The Potomack Company auction gallery in Alexandria Virginia is holding an auction Nov. 1 (tomorrow; Saturday) that features the most amazing collection of political and historical memorabilia I have ever seen:
It includes a chillingly prescient JFK letter featured in the attachment, a letter from before he even ran for president in which he discusses the weird history of no president elected in a year ending in '0' surviving the presidency. But that is just a small part of this treasure trove -- on which bids can be placed in person, by phone, or on Ebay. Among the items that particularly grabbed my attention:
* Presidential documents (originals) signed by James Madison (my favorite), James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, and a number of other presidents.
* A phenomenal collection of Herbert Hoover memorabilia that includes a handsome hardcover 1929 official inaugural program book.
* Phonograph records radio addresses by Franklin Roosevelt.
* A photograph of one of the most distinguished Supreme Courts of all time, the 1930-'32 court that included Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Chief Justice (and former GOP presidential nominee) Charles Evans Hughes, Lewis Brandeis, Harlan Fiske Stone, Willam Van Devanter, and Owen "Switch in Time" Roberts.
* A collection of memorabilia of failed presidential candidates Al Smith, Alf Landon, Tom Dewey, Barry Goldwate, Hubert Humphrey, George Wallace, Nelson Rockefeller, and George McGovern
* A Truman piece that blows my mind. It is a hardcover book, FIRST EDITION, one of only 250 published, specially bound number 193, signed by Truman to his valet, along with a proclamation by Truman, also a signed original, proclaiming victory in Europe on May 8, 1945.
* An invitation to Reagan's first inaugural personally signed by George and Barbara Bush.
* A photo, with personal signature cards (hand-signed) from each of the principals, of the first time ever that five living presidents (and, obviously, ex-presidents: Bush 41, Reagan, Nixon, Carter, and Ford) ever gathered.
* An official voting machine from the Florida 2000 election, along with some infamous "chads."
* And, particularly for my New Orleans friends and WWII buffs, two pastel-on-paper drawings of practice D-Day landings that took place on Martha's Vineyard in 1944 using the famous Higgins boats. The drawings are by Victor De Pauw, a witness to the practice exercise, whose drawings regularly graced the New Yorker covers and other publications during the era. Frankly, I think this framed duo of drawings should hang in the D-Day Museum in New Orleans; it is REALLY good looking.
Again, you can bid by phone or on Ebay. Go to the site to see how to do it.
(Full disclosure: My wife works at the Potowmack Company - but neither she nor anybody else asked me to post this note. I went to a preview of the auction, and was just blown away by it. I figured readers of TAS would feel deprived NOT to know about this opportunity.)
Obama, Khalidi, and the PLO
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 7:19AM
I have an article up on the main site about Rashid Khalidi's relationship with the PLO and why his friendship with Barack Obama matters. The key question is: which Obama will guide U.S. policy toward Israel if he is elected president – the Obama who toasted Khalidi at his farewell party, or the Obama who spoke to AIPAC this year? Like on every other issue with Obama, we won't know until he's in office whether he'll reassert his radical roots, or make pragmatic compromises as he has done as a general election candidate.
McCain's Chances
Posted by on 10.31.08 @ 7:01AM
There seems to be a false debate among those who think McCain can still win and those who think he doesn't have a shot. Of course, as in any election, we'll never know until the votes are counted, as I learned in New Hampshire this January. But, without gaming out all of the possibilities, let me put it this way. If you look at the electoral map, it's pretty clear that Obama has multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes (there are even scenarios under which he can get there without Ohio, Florida, or Pennsylvania), while McCain has to sweep about 10 states that are either close or in which Obama leads. So, while Obama can have a bunch of things not go his way and still win, McCain needs just about everything to break his way. Sure, Hillary's upset in New Hampshire rocked the political world, but to win next Tuesday, McCain will need several New Hampshires.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
'The Cut of His Jib'
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 10:10PM
Parodies of elite "conservative" pundit endorsements of Obama are the flavor du jour, and Iowahawk lays it on just a bit thick, but very juicy:
I mean, my God, this woman is simply awful; the elided vowels, the beauty pageantry, the guns, the crude non-Episcopal protestantism, the embarrassing porchload of children with horrifying hillbilly names, the white after Labor Day. As fellow conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan quipped to me the other day outside a Martha's Vineyard antique shop, it's gratifying to know the Gipper isn't alive to see what has become of his party. . . .
The idea of this dreadful woman in Washington is almost too much to contemplate. Not only would it be a fashion disaster, one can scarcely imagine the White House social calendar -- mooseburger fetes to that ghastly Joe the Plumber, perhaps followed by snow machine derbies through the Rose Garden?
This is essentially the anti-Palin argument, n'est-ce pas?
Barone Says No Filibuster-Proof Senate
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 6:45PM
At least not technically. Michael Barone predicts that the Democrats will end up with 58 Senate seats after next Tuesday's elections, though even that will probably be enough to stop most filibusters. (Remember that the safest Republican with a serious Democratic opponent is Susan Collins, who will be helpful on some filibusters but not many.) The only race where I disagree with him is Norm Coleman in Minnesota. I wouldn't guarantee a Coleman loss, but I think his chances are weaker than Gordon Smith's in Oregon. So if I'm right and John Sununu doesn't pull off an upset, that would leave the Democrats at 59 seats and the Republicans in pretty much the same situation of occasional filibustering.
Democrats vs. Investors
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 5:20PM
James Pethokoukis lays out how Democrats might pursue policies to shrink the investor class. It's a frighteningly plausible agenda, though most of it would require a filibuster-proof Senate supermajority to pass.
Hand Over That Peanut Butter Sandwich
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 3:39PM
Sarah Moore has some timely thoughts on Obama's Inaccurate Peanut Butter Analogy:
Senator Barack Obama recently told an adorable story about how he shared his peanut butter sandwich with a friend when he was in fourth grade. His adoring fans then laughed on cue when he said, "I guess that's why they call me a re-distributionist!"
The problem with his amusing childhood tale is that it is not at all an accurate analogy for what he wants to impose on our country. Let's try this instead:
When I was in fourth grade, I walked up to a kid at the next lunch table and demanded his peanut butter sandwich. He agreed, because I threatened him, and then I gave that sandwich to my friend.
I think it's wonderful to share your own peanut butter sandwich with a friend ... or even a stranger! I am teaching my daughter to share every day. However, I am not teaching her to reach into a friend's toy box and take a truck home in order to give it to another friend who she thinks needs it more.
If Obama Wins North Carolina . . .
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 1:43PM
. . . blame Bob Barr?
"Of course I'm voting for Bob Barr," said Greg Robertson, blinking at the absurdity of any other option. "It's the only logical choice."
BTW, "Blinking At The Absurdity" would be a great name for a rock-and-roll band.
Pick Your Poison?
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 12:15PM
By now most of us are probably familiar with the classic over-the-top snark Christopher Hitchens used to close out his recent Palin-bashing column:
This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just “people of faith” but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.
Over at Contentions Abe Greenwald gives a good retort:
You’ve been given your mandate, intellectual America! Fight clerical ignorance by electing a president whose spiritual mentor preaches that H.I.V. was invented by the U.S. government. Stand up to bullying stupidity and toxic envy by casting your vote for the two-decade-long member of Jeremiah Wright’s “God damn America” Trinity United Church — an institution that readily supported Louis Farrakhan and that furnished Hamas-supporters with a forum to spew anti-Israel fantasies. And don’t forget to demonstrate your love for the Constitution by putting in the White House a man who laments the “essential constraints” the document places on the judiciary’s ability to spread wealth around. Good night, God bless, yes we can, and Amen.
Best Obama Endorsement Ever
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 11:53AM
Perhaps not as laugh-out-loud funny as Ken Adelman's or Frank Fukuyama's, but Jules Crittenden's humor at least seems to be intentional.
I May Look Goofy Here, But...
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 11:35AM
My friend Chuck Conconi at Qorvis Communications has a new weekly web show called Focus Washington. Yesterday, I was the guest. Ignore the fact that I look a little goofy. Watch here to get my take on the current scene.
Keystone Miracle?
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 10:44AM
It's either a miracle or a statistical glitch, but the latest NBC poll has McCain within the margin of error in Pennsylvania. Of course, I wrote off Crazy Cousin John as a lost cause weeks ago, but I wouldn't mind being proven wrong, if only for the pleasure of seeing George Will cast into outer darkness along with Frank Fukuyama, Ken Adelman, Colin Powell, Christopher Buckley and everyone inside the McCain campaign who's trying to scapegoat Sarah Palin.
Infomercial Bombs
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 10:38AM
At the risk of offending Chris Matthews, whose leg was clearly feeling warmth again last night after Obama's 30-minute ad, I thought the ad stunk. It looked too staged. It felt and sounded too staged. It sounded like a cheap salesman hawking vegomatics on the Shopping Network. Promises upon promises, tear-jerking stories upon tear-jerking stories: It felt so overtly manipulative that I think it may have backfired with a lot of people. Even if it was a small net plus for Obama -- and I doubt even that -- I think the McCain campaign was probably expecting something a lot more effective than that. One other thing wrong with it was that it played into the whole Obama "cult of personality" thing that was hurting THE ONE in mid-to-late August. Look for the race to continue to tighten.
A Walk In The Snark
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 10:36AM
Our man J.Peter Freire gives the Obama infomercial a well-deserved spanking over at Culture 11. Predictably, critics in the comments section call our Managing Editor an angry idiot while simultaneously lamenting the loss of thoughtful discourse--you know, the kind where you shellack the entire conservative movement outside of yourself and your holier-than-thou blogging buddies as a bunch of knuckle-dragging ninnies so that you might get an electronic pat on the head from Andrew Sullivan and a perfumed invitation to the pseudo-intellectual circle jerk that has suddenly become the hottest ticket in town for pretty young right-wing things in D.C.--not to mention for some not-so-pretty-or-young right-wing things.
Admission is cheap enough: Mostly a willingness to hate on the squares you frequently agree with to curry favor with those cool cats who would fit you with fangs & horns if your ideas ever approached anything resembling politically feasibility. At first the approach is kind of a turn-off, but, then...Oh, the way you cut your condescending pretentiousness with knowing pop culture references! And who wouldn't want to become smarter than everyone else just by saying it is so?
Um, actually, thanks anyway. I'll stick with someone like J.P. who does the hard work of elevating and furthering principle rather than simply award himself hipster chits for shouting "Idiot!" in a crowded blogosphere.
Mark Steyn On The Presidential RaceFunn
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 9:41AM
This is an amazing race. The incumbent president has approval ratings somewhere between Robert Mugabe and the ebola virus. The economy is supposedly on the brink of global Armageddon. McCain has only $80 million to spend, while Obama's burning through $600 mil as fast as he can, and he doesn't really need to spend a dime given the wall-to-wall media adoration. And tonight Chris Matthews' doctors announced that his leg tingle has metastasized leaving his entire body like a vibrating cellphone whose ringtone is locked on "I'm In Love, I'm In Love, I'm In Love, I'm In Love, I'm In Love With A Wonderful Guy." And yet an old cranky broke loser is within two or three points of the King of the World. Strange.
It's Official: The Economy Is Shrinking
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 9:22AM
U.S. gross domestic product shrank by 0.3 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department announced this morning, the first time it contracted since the quarter that included the Sept. 11 attacks seven years ago. It was a lower than expected decline, but I found this particularly troubling, from the Reuters account:
Consumer spending, which fuels two-thirds of U.S. economic growth, fell at a 3.1 percent rate in the third quarter -- the first cut in quarterly spending since the closing quarter of 1991 and the biggest since the second quarter of 1980. Spending on nondurable goods -- items like food and paper products -- dropped at the sharpest rate since late 1950.
The economic boom that we enjoyed for most of the Bush years was fueled in large part by the housing market, both because those who saw their houses rise in value felt richer and were more willing to spend money and because low interest rates allowed many Americans to refinance their mortgages and spend the money they saved paying off their mortgages. Now the reverse is taking place, and I think we're in the early stages of the economic decline, with the rest of the economy not yet having absorbed all of the tumult on Wall Street. At this point, we're still a long way to go from a depression, during which you're looking at double digit contraction of the GDP.
As for the presidential race, I noted at the beginning of the month that we should all beware of the GDP bomb set to go off less than a week before the election. That is why, for all my criticism of McCain in the past few months, I'm willing to acknowledge that the campaign was largely taken over by events that were beyond his control. There's not much precedent for the incumbent party winning a third straight presidential term in the early stages of an economic contraction.
Daily Must-Reads
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 8:43AM
- Voters are behaving too erratically to rule anything out (NY Times)
- The "America is on the way down" rhetoric has got to go (Washington Post)
- The change we need: using tax money to fund abortions (NRO)
- Zagat makes its pitch (WSJ)
- Reactions to ObamaTV (Culture11)
- Obama's socialism-lite (Christian Science Monitor)
- The next prez might have a Cuban missile crisis of his own (Pajamas Media)
- Rove warns of the media affecting turnout (WSJ)
Shocking Sign Stealing
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 8:42AM
A resident of liberal enclave Chapel Hill (John-Boy Edwards's home) found a way to keep his McCain/Palin signs from being stolen out of his yard -- at least temporarily. Not a bad idea if you've got that problem.
ACORN's Unownership Society
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 6:00AM
Matthew Vadum is up on the main site with the second in his three-part series on ACORN, this time looking at the group's support for the Community Reinvestment Act and home ownership as a civil right.
AP Probes 'Joe the Plumber' Leaks
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 5:36AM
An aide to Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland sent out the following message to state employees Wednesday:
We have a request from the AP for "all information requests that have been made to or within state government on Samual Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber." If you have had received such a request, could you please send me the basic information associated with the request (who, when, what information was being requested, what was the response)? We'll compile the information into one format and provide it to the AP.
As if the culprits are going to 'fess up.
Blitzer Twists Palin's Words
Posted by on 10.30.08 @ 12:46AM
Elizabeth Vargas of ABC asked Sarah Palin is she was so discouraged by the attacks on her that, if not elected vice president, that she'd just go back to Alaska. Palin answered:
I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken, that would bring this whole … I'm not doing this for naught.
Palin went on to say she was "thinking that it's going to go our way on Tuesday, Nov. 4. I truly believe that the wisdom of the people will be revealed on that day."
From this -- an honest, feisty, optimistic answer to a sandbagging question by Vargas -- the dunderheaded Wolf Blitzer tries to spin a "rogue" moment and imply that somehow Palin was undermining McCain:
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Sagerism, Cont'd
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 8:31PM
Ryan Sager's analysis of the Libertarian West is similarly unpersuasive. First, this region of the country is hardly immune to the appeals of unlibertarian economic populism and even social conservatism. Second, if the Interior West's Democratic shift is attributable to disaffected libertarians rather than demographic changes favorable to liberalism, why are the same trends evident in non-libertarian Virginia? Thirdly, why did Bob Barr see his strongest poll numbers before John McCain picked icky religious conservative Sarah Palin rather than after disaffected libertarians had no one to vote for?
Without saying so, Sager breaks a lot of American politics down between sophisticated secular individualists and boorish, Bible-thumping rednecks. Not only is this a cartoonish oversimplification, but it also defines libertarianism down quite a bit. Why is a Democrat who supports gay marriage along with higher marginal tax rates, taxpayer funding of abortion, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and some form of national health insurance but opposes Social Security privatization more libertarian than a Republican who opposes gay marriage but favors lower taxes, reduced spending, and free-market Social Security reform?
Certainly, there are Michael Gerson-style social conservatives who embrace big government on steroids. There are also big-government liberals who advocate an interventionist foreign policy and are useless on civil liberties. The latter usually end up being Democratic presidential candidates, hardly preferable to the first.
Re: Godlessness in North Carolina
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 6:21PM
Phil, there is indeed such a thing as the Godless Americans PAC, and if radical atheists supported Kay Hagan, it is not a "religious test" for the Dole campaign to point that out.
Of course, if there were some unsavory (or, at least, unpopular) association on Elizabeth Dole's part, the Hagan campaign wouldn't have to run an ad to point that out -- the Charlotte Observer would make it front-page news and treat it like a legitimate issue that "raises questions" about the Republican.
One reason Republicans are always blamed for negative politics is that the news media serves the negative-attack function for the Democratic Party (think of all the national reporters who flew to Anchorage to dig up dirt on Sarah Palin) whereas Republicans have to do it themselves.
Sagerism
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 5:44PM
Ryan Sager belatedly jumps aboard the elite pundit bandwagon:
The real McCain, whoever that is or was, may still believe that major swathes of the Religious Right represent "agents of intolerance" in our politics. But he has decided to stake both his election and the Republican Party's future upon them-from the barely coded racial refrain of "Who is Barack Obama?," to the rallies with shouts of "terrorist" and "kill him," to the corrosive choice of pipeline-prayer Sarah Palin as his running mate and heir apparent.
Elsewhere, Sager refers to Christian conservatives as "the worst elements" of the Republican coalition. Sager has monomaniacally pushed his idea that the support of evangelicals is bad for the GOP, and that Christian conservatives and libertarians have no common interests. I vehemently disagree. (See my columns on the immorality of the welfare state and "libertarian populism.")
A limited-government outlook has a strong appeal to traditionaiists. The problem is Sager's visceral loathing of those he describes as "the rural, the southern, the Evangelical" -- i.e., Red State voters. In his quest to demonize hillbilly holy rollers, he blames them for anything he doesn't like. For instance, anyone who's ever attended the annual March for Life in Washington knows that the backbone of the pro-life movement is Catholics. And Catholics were also the most interested in the Terri Schiavo case. But because Sager conceives both pro-life politics and the Schiavo episode to be bad for the GOP, he attributes these to Protestant evangelicals.
Prejudice against stereotypical "dumb hicks" in flyover country is at the core of Sager's argument, and it leads to a profound misreading of the Republican Party's problems.
Godlessness in North Carolina
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 5:27PM
Elizabeth Dole, fighting for her political life, is out with a new TV ad highlighting that her Democratic challenger for the North Carolina Senate seat, Kay Hagan, attended a fundraiser co-hosted by a board member of the Godless Americans political action committee. Personally, I'm not a fan of the ad, because I don't like the idea of religious tests for office, and at the end an unidentified woman's voice can be heard declaring, "there is no God" -- almost suggesting that Hagan herself is an atheist, which shouldn't matter even if she were.
Of course, it doesn't matter what I think, but how the voters of North Carolina react. Beyond the God issue, it reinforces the fact that while Hagan is running for office in a conservative Southern state, she's raising money in Boston with Massachusetts liberals. In this sense, Hagan's defense that, "the fundraiser in question had more than 40 hosts, including Sen. John Kerry," doesn't seem particularly helpful. (Kerry lost NC by 12 points.) On the other hand, the ad could backfire on Dole by coming across as a desperate negative attack, like when George Allen released salacious excerpts from Jim Webb's novels as part of a last ditch effort to save his Senate seat.
In any event, the ad certainly gets its point across.
A Challenge To TNR's Christopher Orr
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 5:25PM
Lefty Racial Obsessions
Enough is enough is enough is way too much. I don't know Christoper Orr of The New Republic, and he may be a perfectly nice guy, but to me he has just entered the realm of the smearmongering loonies a-feared of the boogeyman -- in this case, the boogeyman of the secret racist who supposedly lives inside every white conservative. I swear, what is WRONG with these lefties who see EVERYTHING through the prism of race?!?
For the record, and especially for people like Orr who seem too dim to get it unless it is repeated multiple times: Culture and race are not one and the same. Culture and race are not one and the same. Criticisms of a black man for being radical have nothing to do with him being black. Criticisms of a black man for being radical have nothing to do with him being black. Conservatives do not dislike candidates just because they are "dark-skinned [men] with a foreign-sounding name." Conservatives do not dislike candidates just because they are "dark-skinned [men] with a foreign-sounding name."
Okay, enough with the repetition. If, pray tell, conservatives don't like dark-skinned men, how in the Lord's name did we elect Jindal in the first place? And why is Jindal one of the most popular people in all of conservative politics?
For the record, Jindal would have been elected governor in 2003, not 2007, if it weren't for a huge swing of white Democrats in NE LA away from him in the final days of that first campaign, as the result of a racially based whisper campaign. But even the racist white Democrats came around in 2007.
For the record, it was a white conservative, Bob Livingston, who provided the crucial support for Jindal in 2003 in a field full of other Republicans. It was a white conservative, Jim McCrery, who first recognized Jindal's talent and pushed him for state-level Cabinet office in 1995, with Livingston immediately joining in support.
What people like Orr can't seem to get through their thick heads is that most conservatives, and certainly the overwhelmingly vast majority of conservative activists, don't care one bit about race. It is not an added benefit when assessing somebody, nor is it a detractor. It just doesn't matter. We're colorblind.
And I have good ground to stand on when I write this. I was a founding board member of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, the group quite literally internationally acclaimed for its essential work against the political rise of David Duke. I also was an advocate -- in a column at The New Republic Online itself -- for the election of the first black mayor (a Democrat) in the history of white-majority Mobile, AL, running against a white Republican. I know more about southern conservative politics and about southern racial views than Orr could ever dream about, and I recognize and fight real racists whenever they raise their ugly heads; and I can assure Orr that Jindal would have no problem, repeat zero problem, based on the hue of his skin, with gaining support for the presidency.
It is the left, not the right, that is obsessed with race. And it's high time the left stop smearing us with the accusation otherwise. There's an expression for such an accusation: Them's fighting words.
Murtha on the Run
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 4:54PM
Michelle Malkin has been doing a wonderful job keeping tabs on John Murtha's race. Definitely worth a read.
Obama Will Make You Rich
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 3:00PM
At least when it comes time to pay your taxes. The Wall Street Journal has a decent editorial about Obama's disappearing tax cuts. It's inevitable that someone will have to pay for these, as Obama's tax plan doesn't add up.
So Much for the 'Secret' Part
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 2:50PM
When you read about it in the Politico, it's not "secret":
Two days after next week's election, top conservatives will gather at the Virginia weekend home of one of the movement's most prominent members to begin a conversation about their role in the GOP and how best to revive a party that may be out of power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue next year.
The meeting will include a "who's who of conservative leaders -- economic, national security and social," said one attendee, who shared initial word of the secret session only on the basis of anonymity and with some details about the host and location redacted.
The planned "secret" session is also mentioned in this New York Times article -- naming the names of the Media Research Center's Brent Bozell and the Leadership Institute's Morton Blackwell among those who see Sarah Palin as a focal point of conservative revival. (Clever idea.) Of course, the "secret" session is only for "top conservatives," so the rest of us poor slobs will just have to await orders from on high, I suppose. A grassroots movement organized on a top-down basis -- this should be fun to watch.
Sununu Life
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 2:46PM
A Republican poll finds John Sununu gaining ground as well, though there does seem to be some generosity to Republicans in general. I've heard anecdotally that Sununu's attacks linking Shaheen to her party's leadership and even to Bush have had some impact.
UPDATE: This poll shows less tightening and lousy numbers for McCain and the GOP in general, but has Sununu competitive.
Internal Poll Shows Smith With 4-Point Lead in Oregon Senate Race
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 2:18PM
I've just obtained a fresh internal poll conducted by Moore Information, showing Republican Gordon Smith with a 45-41 lead over Democratic challenger Jeff Merkley, with Constitution Party spoiler David Brownlow at 5 percent. The poll was taken this Monday and Tuesday and has a margin of error of 5 points. I should note that it also shows Obama with a 51-37 lead in the state, so it can't be dismissed out of hand as being overly generous to Republicans.
Pundit Fallacies
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 1:21PM
Let's get the two defensible things Walter Shapiro says in his latest Salon column out of the way. Yes, there is a contradiction between trying to replicate George W. Bush's campaigns and the John McCain 2000 campaign, and it's one McCain has even at this late date failed to resolve. Yes, there is a strong conservative case to be made against many of the Bush administration's policies, including some that are popular among self-described conservatives. The rest of Shapiro's piece is utter nonsense.
Shapiro recycles the conventional wisdom that McCain "decided from the outset that he would get right -- very right-wing -- with the Republican base." Let's unpack this extreme swing to the right. McCain gave the commencement address at Liberty University, making nice with "agent of intolerance" Jerry Falwell -- but also gave the exact same speech at the far-left New School for Social Research. It's true that McCain didn't want the religious right's active opposition in the primaries. Neither did Rudy "Meet My New Friend Pat Robertson" Giuliani. But there was no major shift in either his policies or his rhetoric that accompanied his trip to Liberty. This is akin to saying that Barack Obama turned into a right-wing Christianist by virtue of appearing at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, an argument no one this side of Andrew Sullivan would take seriously.
Then there is the problem of the tax cuts. It's true that it is difficult to campaign on making tax cuts permanent when you voted against them in the first place, but this is hardly the stuff of right-wing extremism. The 2001 Bush tax cuts were supported by no fewer than 12 Democratic senators as well as liberal Republican-turned-independent Jim Jeffords. Only McCain, then functionally a hawkish moderate Democrat, and Lincoln Chafee, the most liberal Republican in the Senate, joined a majority of Democrats in voting no. If McCain had supported these tax cuts, along with the much more pro-growth 2003 tax cuts, he would have had an easier time distinguishing himself from Obama on the tax issue. But if he was openly calling for the tax cuts to expire, as Shapiro implies he should be doing, McCain's task would have been even harder.
Shapiro similarly misreads McCain's path to the nomination. It's true that McCain held on to anti-Bush Republicans -- including, implausibly, Republicans and independents who oppose the Iraq war -- and that he benefited from the Bush coalition being split three ways by Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, and Mike Huckabee. But McCain got just enough of the voters who opposed him in 2000 to make a difference. He improved among conservative Christians, won self-described Republicans in Florida, and was able to knock out enough of his stronger opponents before he could be clobbered in the closed primaries. He was able to avoid antagonizing economic/social conservatives while holding onto his coalition of hawks and moderates at the same time.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, that McCain could have won the nomination by running the anti-Republican campaign that Shapiro recommends. Who would be voting for McCain now? The fact is, the strongest McCain has ever been in the national polls was when he picked Sarah Palin and united the base around him. Some of this was convention bounce. The base isn't sufficient to win an election. But neither can you count on swing voters to deliver victory if you don't first secure the base. Instead Shapiro says that McCain should have turned his convention into a debacle by picking Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge and forcing a conservative walkout. That might have won the crucial Walter Shapiro vote, but it would have lost McCain the election just as surely as talking about nothing other than Bill Ayers for three months would have.
Lieberman is a pro-choice liberal hawk. Ridge isn't even much of a hawk -- in Congress in the 1980s, he supported nulcear freeze, opposed aid to the Contras, opposed the MX missile, and opposed much of the Reagan defense buildup. Either choice would have made Bob Barr a factor in this race. In 1948, Harry Truman was staring down a minority regional faction of his party over civil rights. Sixty years later, McCain would have been picking a fight with a majority of his party.
Finally, the notion McCain would be better off as a deficit hawk is absurd. Obama only mentions the deficit to criticize the Bush tax cuts and is not running on a deficit-reduction platform. McCain, by contrast, talks about earmarks and excessive spending where ever he goes. Should he have doubled down on this message? A serious deficit hawk would reduce entitlement spending. Shapiro presumably also wants McCain to talk about higher taxes. What is Obama hitting McCain for in his ads right now? Supposedly cutting Medicare and taxing health care benefits.
But if McCain had run the kind of campaign Shapiro suggests, I suppose Salon could have run some nice pieces on what a good loser he is.
Video: McCain's Peroration
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 1:08PM
As referenced in today's article, here's video of John McCain's speech in Hershey, Pa.
As I say, the crowd was cheering so loudly that most people heard nothing but "Fight! ... Fight! ... Fight!" at the end. Also notice the rock-music soundtrack ("Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones) that starts as soon as McCain finishes. If you've attended any election rallies this year, you know that the high-decibel sonic assault starts as soon as the doors open and continues for a half-hour afterwards. All the campaigns do this now.
The State of the Senate
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 12:49PM
There are currently 11 seats that the Democrats could conceivably win next Tuesday. Looking at the races, at least four of the Republican seats are definite goners -- New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, and Alaska -- with New Hampshire probably gone as well. That leaves six races on the bubble, with Democrats and Republicans each having the edge in three.
In Oregon and Minnesota, Democrats have to be favorites right now, especially given Obama's likely victory margins in the two states. I'd give Norm Coleman a better shot than Gordon Smith just because there's always the possibility that Minnesotans won't want to put comedian Al Franken in the Senate (though this is the state that gave us Gov. Jesse Ventura). Trends have been going against Elizabeth Dole and she isn't a great campaigner, so Democrats have the edge in the North Carolina race as well, but given that McCain will be more competitive in the state, let's say she has a fighting chance.
That leaves us with three Republican seats -- Kentucky, Mississippi, and Georgia -- that are more competitive than they should be, but are likely to stay in GOP hands. McCain is expected to win all three states comfortably, and I think that the argument against unified Obama-Reid-Pelosi control of government will have special resonance there. The most recent polls show Roger Wicker taking a commanding double-digit lead in Mississippi, while Mitch McConnell continues to lead in Kentucky polls, albiet by a narrower margin. In Georgia, though Democratic challenger Jim Martin has made Saxby Chambliss sweat, Martin hasn't lead in a public poll all year. A strong showing by Libertarian Allen Buckley could keep Chambliss under 50 percent, thus triggering the state's run-off rule. However, with the outcome of the Senate already known by the time any run-off takes place, Chambliss can explicitly make the "don't give Obama a blank check" argument in a solid Republican state, and thus would likely prevail. (It's true that some recent polls have shown the presidential race getting close in the state, but Obama just released his public schedule through Election Day and Georgia isn't on it, suggesting to me that the campaign doesn't see a realistic possibility of flipping it, and making it less likely that Martin will gain the 50 percent needed to avert a run-off).
So, to sum up, the most likely outcome right now is that Democrats gain eight seats, leaving Republicans with just 41 senators, which should be enough for an effectively filibuster-proof majority given wobbly Republicans, but fall short of an outright Democratic supermajority. The best hope for Republicans right now -- barring a major upset -- is that they hang on to at least two of the following three seats -- Oregon, Minnesota, and/or North Carolina.
Re: Dead Certain
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 12:46PM
Speaking of polls, the Real Clear Politics average that so many of us watch is really off today, because it still includes an outdated (by today's polling standards) and out-of-whack Pew Research poll that shows Obama up by 15 percent. That's eight percentage points greater than the next-largest margins of any of the other polls. RCP currently shows an average of 5.9 percent in favor of Obama; removing the Pew poll lowers the RCP average to 4.7 percent.
Dead Certain
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 11:22AM
HELLOOOOO! Everyone, Drudge included, is missing the key stat in today's Rasmussen daily tracking poll:
Among voters who have not yet voted and are "certain" to vote,
the race is a TIE at 48. Isn't that news??!!
Scheduling That Dark Night of the Soul
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 10:15AM
Well, Christopher Buckley had suggested conservatives needed one of those dark nights of the soul, and now, here we are. From Jonathan Martin's blog:
Two days after next week's election, top conservatives will gather at the Virginia weekend home of one of the movement's most prominent members to begin a conversation about their role in the GOP and how best to revive a party that may be out of power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue next year.
The meeting will include a "who's who of conservative leaders -- economic, national security and social," said one attendee, who shared initial word of the secret session only on the basis of anonymity and with some details about the host and location redacted.
Dear readers, do not confuse this with The American Spectator's annual pigroast. Though shooting at things certainly helped made us feel better.
Bad Analogy Watch
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 10:06AM
From the Boston Globe:
CHESTER, Pa. - This is football country, so let's use a football analogy: In the closing days of the presidential campaign, Senator Barack Obama has the ball and he's driving deep into opposing territory. But John McCain is looking for a sack.
Obama has made big gains in his attempts to flip Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, and Colorado into the Democratic column. His advisers express delight that polls have tightened in Georgia, and that the GOP is now on the defensive even in Montana, where the Republican National Committee is reportedly beginning TV advertising this week.
But for all of the offense Obama is now playing, he and his campaign are having to mount a forceful defense of a big, vote-rich, traditionally Democratic prize: Pennsylvania.
Get that? In the analogy, Obama is driving down field and McCain needs a sack, yet in reality, Obama is the one who is on defense. Shouldn't he need a sack to prevent a late McCain comeback? Also, if you're going to make an analogy, just make it, don't telegraph it by writing, "let's use a football analogy" -- you're bound to fumble.
That LA Times Tape
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 9:56AM
Binyamin Jolkovsky at Jewish World Review is offering $5,000 (with the potential for more) to anyone who can get him a legit copy of the videotape the Times has of Obama at the going away party for former PLO supporter Rashid Khalidi.
Will Obama's Tax Cuts Go the Way of Clinton's?
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 9:46AM
The former Clinton chief of staff who will be helping Obama with the transition should he win, had this to say to the New York Times:
Leon E. Panetta, who was Mr. Clinton’s first budget director, said he had warned Mr. Obama of the realities ahead, should he win. “I’ve told him, Bill Clinton found this out. He walked into the Oval Office, and suddenly he found he had a bigger deficit than he even thought he had.” Mr. Clinton’s reaction, he said, was, “I’m not going to be able to do whatI want to do!”
As you'll probably recall, one of the first things that Clinton did once in office was to abandon his middle class tax cut, which was central to his campagn. Reading between the lines of Panetta, I wonder how long it will take before Obama tosses aside his "tax cut" for 95 percent of Americans. You can already see the seeds of the justification: "When I checked under the rug, I found that eight years of George Bush has created more of a mess than I ever anticipated, and so..."
Go, Jennifer, Go!
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 9:41AM
Our friend Jennifer Rubin has been a one-woman wrecking crew against the notion that all is sweetness and light in Obamaland. Again and again she has drawn attention to the thuggish tactics that the Obama camp has used. Here's her latest. It's good.
Re: The Sarah Party
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 9:35AM
Stacy, you couldnt' be more right about Palin becoming the frontrunner in 2012, as I noted back in early September:
But more importantly, it could restore to the GOP the principled and inspired conservatism that has been absent from the two top spots since Ronald Reagan left office in 1989. Recall the last 20 years and sigh: Bush/Quayle, Dole/Kemp, and Bush/Cheney. President George H.W. Bush squandered his inheritance and was never in the Reagan mold. Sen. Robert Dole was the "it's his turn" establishment candidate that did not enthuse. And our current president was not the conservative that his early anointers pretended he was.
So the McCain/Palin ticket -- dead even with Obama/Biden, who enjoyed no Democratic convention bump -- holds the most promise in years for delivering the Right from the wilderness. It may not pay immediate dividends in a McCain presidency, but Palin could represent the beginning of a conservative restoration for a long time.
Finally, Here Come Da Judges
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 9:30AM
I have argued all year that McCain should make a bigger issue of judges. Today, in a superb essay at NRO, Ed Whelan does it for himn.
Mickey Mouse As Nickname
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 7:55AM
Matthew Vadum's piece on ACORN's tax troubles today is great, but also good is his Labor Watch article in which he provides a succinct Q&A on ACORN's history. One argument circulated is that the voter fraud claim is overblown since it's not like people could show up at the polling station and claim to be Mickey Mouse.
Granted, poll precinct officials aren’t likely to be fooled by “Mickey Mouse,” but what if an impostor shows up at a polling place with a more credible-sounding name? Doesn’t that fall on the wrong side of the law?
Yes, said FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patterson, who recently left no room to doubt her law enforcement agency’s position on ACORN-style registration tactics. She told reporters, “It is against the law to register someone to vote who does not fall within the parameters to vote, or to put someone on there falsely.” And that law is likely, finally, to bare some teeth.
Read the rest here.
Nurses Dressing
Posted by on 10.29.08 @ 6:13AM
Just kidding. I got a press release from the California Nurses Association, hitting Palin on her clothes:
"Spending $150,000 for a one month wardrobe while painting yourself as a 'hockey mom' or the voice of 'Joe Six Pack' is an insult," said CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro. "There's been a lot of talk about Marxists in this campaign, but the real Marxist is in the McCain camp – she's just a Neiman Marxist," said DeMoro.
I don't quite get the logic of the joke, but "Neiman Marxist" is an important contribution to the American political lexicon. The release encourages you to visit this site where you play a game of dress up using Sarah Palin and a variety of expensive clothes.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The Sarah Party
Posted by on 10.28.08 @ 8:20PM
SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. -- I've got news for the Christopher Buckleys of the world -- if Sarah Palin is enough to make you decide you're not a Republican, you're not a Republican.
I saw the Republican Party today, standing in line to see Palin at Shippensburg University. The line stretched for more than half a mile -- people waiting outside for hours on a windy 40-degree day -- and though the doors opened more than two hours before the event, security still wasn't able to get everyone through the metal detectors by the time the rally began. Let's see Buckley or Kathleen Parker or Ken Adelman draw a crowd like that.
If somehow John McCain pulls off a miracle Nov. 4, it will be in no small measure due to the excitement that Palin has brought to the ticket. Let the cynics attend a Palin event and try to imagine those crowds turning out for, inter alia, Tim Pawlenty.
And if Obama wins on Nov. 4, Palin immediately becomes the GOP front-runner for 2012. She'll be the No. 1 Republican fundraiser no matter what happens, and she'll be the star attraction at state-party events.
John McCain might have made dozens of mistakes in this campaign, but picking Sarah Palin was not one of them. If you don't like it, just go to a Palin rally and tell that to the people -- they'll tell you where to go from there.
Obstruction of Justice
Posted by on 10.28.08 @ 7:24PM
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers may be concerned about the FBI and Department of Justice's seeming lack of zealous investigation into the home mortgage industry, but Conyers has steadfastly refused to do his own part. Conyers has thus far blocked committee investigators from seeking information about the activities of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae executives in the run up to the home mortgage industry's shakeout, and has refused to hold hearings that would expose longtime Democrats in the House or Senate, or their friends at Fred and Fan, to embarrassment.
"He wouldn't do it before the election. He says he won't do it after the election. He just won't do it," says a current Republican Judiciary Committee aide.
Of Fruit-Flies and Earmarks
Posted by on 10.28.08 @ 6:04PM
Scott Jaschik at InsideHigherEd calls up Congress for an explanation as to why Palin's musings about the silliness of fruit-fly research are unjustified:
A spokeswoman for Representative Thompson said that the earmark wasn’t some junket or silly project. Olive trees represent a growing agricultural enterprise in California, she said, and the olive fruit fly is the greatest danger posed to them. The problem has been widespread in Europe for years, but is just starting to appear in the United States.
Call me naive, but I think the point is that if an American industry is threatened by something, they probably have the resources (and the incentive!) to find out more about it. With all the money given to agriculture, I would assume they could probably afford pooling some money to hire a guy with a jar and a microscope.
Securing the Willy Wonka Vote
Posted by on 10.28.08 @ 5:26PM
Obama's Department of Early Indoctrination wins a tasty victory seven days before the election. Here's the National Constitution Center press release:
Philadelphia, PA (October 28, 2008) -– One week before Election Day, the National Constitution Center announces the results of its gumball election. Today's tally shows that Obama has won 61% of the vote with a total of 16,784 gumballs. In conjunction with the Headed to the White House exhibition and the Center's Election '08: The Power of We initiative, visitors of all ages have had the opportunity to cast a vote for president in the Center's Grand Hall Lobby and see the most up-to-date results with a running tally of colored gumballs. Each gumball signified a vote for either John McCain (red), Barack Obama (blue), or a third party candidate (white). John McCain received 33% of the vote with a total of 9,175 gumballs, and third party candidates received 6% of the vote with a total of 1,772 gumballs.
Obama took an early lead at the Center, receiving 58% of the vote during the first week of gumball voting in September. His lead remained steady throughout the following months, but took a substantial jump following the final presidential debate on October 15, bringing him to 64% of the vote.
Yes, but were the votes in question Everlasting Gobstoppers? Or even...ACORNs masquerading as gumballs?!
Obama's Media Attack Dogs
Posted by on 10.28.08 @ 4:56PM
Over at ABC, Michael Malone's piece on biased election coverage is worth a read, and I especially found this part worth commenting on:
I'm not one of those people who think the media has been too hard on, say, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin, by rushing reportorial SWAT teams to her home state of Alaska to rifle through her garbage. This is the big leagues, and if she wants to suit up and take the field, then Gov. Palin better be ready to play....
No, what I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del.
If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography.
That isn't Sen. Obama's fault: His job is to put his best face forward. No, it is the traditional media's fault, for it alone (unlike the alternative media) has had the resources to cover this story properly, and has systematically refused to do so.
Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?
The media has tried to create the narrative that John McCain has been running a more negative, nasty, campaign than Obama. But the important thing to remember is that campaigns go negative when they want to draw attention to something that isn't being covered. In Obama's case, the media has gone after McCain and Palin so aggressively, that there isn't any reason for him to get his own hands dirty. In McCain's case, however, he's been forced to take matters into his own hands -- just as Hillary did -- because the media refuses to seriously scrutinize Obama. It really struck me being in the spin room of the final debate at Hofstra earlier this month, how the media was overtly confrontational with the McCain surrogates, but when it came time to engage the Obama folks, the questions would be along the lines of, "Do you think that John McCain was too nasty tonight?" So really, it's a vicious circle. The media goes soft on Obama, so McCain sharpens his attacks, and then they criticize McCain for running a more negative campaign.
Too Little, Too Late?
Posted by on 10.28.08 @ 3:42PM
First John McCain and now Sarah Palin have called on Ted Stevens to step down.
Taxes for Thee But Not for Me
Posted by on 10.28.08 @ 2:00PM
Matthew Vadum has a special report up on the main site about ACORN's tax troubles. The liberal outfit famous for its big-government advocacy and voter registration drives apparently does a Mickey Mouse job paying its taxes as well.
Obama Campaign to Youth: Extort Your Grandma.
Posted by on 10.28.08 @ 1:37PM
If you're still hoping for the swing for McCain in the polls, there is a possibility: If all of America's youth starts harassing parents the way the Obama campaign is asking them to, you can bet parents are going to turn out in droves to vote for the big Mac. Just look at this nugget:
Ideas to Get the Conversation Started Approaching your parents about who they are voting for can be intimidating if you’ve never talked about politics with them before. But this campaign has been built by supporters sharing their stories about what inspires them and why they want to see change in this country. Here are some ideas for ways you can talk to your parents about why you support Barack: Call or ask in person if they saw the debate and what they thought about it. Tell them why you are voting for Obama and why it’s important to you.
- Print out for them information on some issues you know are important.
- Share Barack's speech from the Democratic National Convention or Meet Barack, a video about who Barack Obama is, where he comes from, and what his values are.
- Email them and tell them why it's important to you that they vote for Obama.
- Think about their perspective. If they are Republican, or are concerned about Barack’s policies, think about where they are coming from and what makes them think the way that they do.
If that's not condescending enough, here's a do's and don'ts list:
Do’s & Don’ts
- Do share your personal reasons for voting for Barack Obama;
- Do have confidence -- your opinion matters to people who care about you;
- Do read up on Barack’s positions on the issues you know matter to them;
- Do find a good time when both you and they will be open to a conversation;
- Do talk to them in person if you live nearby, or on the phone if you don’t;
- Do ask your friends to talk to their parents and grandparents as well;
- Don’t worry about knowing everything about policy positions before you have this conversation;
- Don’t feel defensive. Stay calm, cool and collected;
- Don’t wait until the last minute -- it might take a few conversations for you to convince them, so start as early as possible;
- Don’t catch them at a bad time -- make sure you have their attention and enough time to have a conversation.
Some other don'ts: "Don't accuse them of apathy about a downward-spiralling nation; Don't accuse them of racism; Don't bribe them by exchanging your christmas present for their vote." Oh wait! Some of these are actually violated already in the video provided:
"[I tell my grandmother that] if you votes for Senator Obama, then maybe you won't have to buy me that sweater, y'know come the fall... I also told them that maybe I won't help them with text messaging, or TIVO."
"They were responsible for letting this country go down in its downward spiral!"
Parents, you have four years of this to look forward to. Universal healthcare: "Dad! You just don't care about me and my friends's need for inefficient healthcare." Higher taxes: "You're being selfish and uncaring about the middle class!" ("Honey, we *are* the middle class")
Go here for the official Obama campaign's quicktips on how to harass mom and dad.
Biden on Obama's Tax Plan
Posted by on 10.28.08 @ 12:45PM
Jonathan Martin writes:
Gloomy Republicans are happy to get whatever slice of good news they can, and once again Joe Biden is the bearer of gifts.
"It should go to middle class people," Biden said yesterday in Pennsylvania of Obama's tax cut plan "People making under 150,000 dollars a year."
Oops.
Obama has repeatedly said it would be those making under $250,000 who would get relief.
Actually, Biden was being consistent. If you listen carefully, what Obama has said is that those making under $150,000 would get a tax credit and nobody making under $250,000 would see their taxes go up. Both claims can be true if those making between $150,000 and $250,000 see no change in their taxes. With that said, do I believe that, if elected, Obama will keep his word on taxes? Heh. About as much as I believe in the existence of three-legged ballerinas.
Daily Must Reads
Posted by on 10.28.08 @ 10:06AM
- Trig Palin: an opportunity for Obama to transcend the culture wars, should he want to (WSJ)What an Obama presidency would mean for free speech beyond the Fairness Doctrine (Reason)
- The most powerful man in America: Ben Bernanke (American Prospect)
- Welcome to Obamaland! Hope you enjoy the first 100 days of your stay (Real Clear Politics)
- Clearing the clutter: pro-life politicians have helped the pro-life cause (Public Discourse)
- Change is coming, and it just might be terrible activist judges (NRO)
Obama and the Stock Market
Posted by on 10.28.08 @ 9:57AM
In IBD, Jack Kemp and Peter Ferarra write, "Are Barack Obama's proposed tax increases adversely affecting our financial markets? We say yes, unambiguously." What follows is a very strong case for why investors should be concerned with Obama's tax plans and why they will be bad for investors, but there is nothing else to support their unambiguous claim that the tax plans currently are affecting the markets. I write this because I've seen a number of conservative authors try to argue that the market downturn is somewhat attributable to investor fears about an incoming Obama administration, yet nobody offers any evidence to support that claim. Back when I was a financial reporter, we couldn't assert that something was hurting the market unless we had actual traders, stock analysts, or investors on record saying that it was, no matter what the correlatory evidence. And I think that's a good rule of thumb to follow. For what it's worth, my sense is that there probably is investor trepidation about Obama, which is part of a broader concern about the dirth of competent national leadership on the economy, but given the complexity of the markets and the magnitude of the credit crisis, I'm not sure how much of an affect the presidential race is having. But that's just my best guess, I wouldn't say it's "unambiguously" true without doing reporting.
Dean Barnett, RIP
Posted by on 10.28.08 @ 2:21AM
Hugh Hewitt has a nice tribute to Dean Barnett up at Townhall. Barnett's untimely death has left the fraternity of Boston-area conservatives smaller.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Obama's Redistributive History
Posted by on 10.27.08 @ 7:00PM
Chicago Public Radio seeking to clarify the comments Obama's made in the Youtube clip linked by Paul Chesser has posted the audio so they can be heard in context. You can click to their site here, or just click here for the relevant interview.
Having noticed that the sound seemed spliced in the Youtube clip, I listened to the whole interview. I wasn't surprised to see that Chicago Public Radio's Ben Calhoun had done a report on the clip:
The 4 minute spliced collection of clips portrays Obama as advocate a redistribution of wealth through the power of the Supreme Court. That folds in with some allegations by the McCain Palin campaign.
The twist here is that, when heard in the context of the whole show, Obama’s position is distinctly misrepresented by the You Tube posting. Taken in context, Obama is evaluating the historical successes and failures of the Civil Rights movement—and, ironically, he says the Supreme Court was a failure in cases that it took on a role of redistributing resources.
This is itself a misrepresentation, and a severe one. Obama does indeed thoughtfully describe the historical success and failures of the Civil Rights movement, but he most certainly does NOT repudiate redistribution. He only notes that redistribution was unwieldy to achieve in the courts and is a bad idea there because of structural problems (47:00). Aside from that he feels redistribution is fine.
He refers to the failure to achieve redistribution as a tragedy starting at 39:48 in this audio clip, and the relevant quote is at exactly 41:00:
... One of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused i think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and the community-organizing the activities on the ground that were able to put together the coalitions of power through which you could actually achieve redistributive change, and I think in some ways we still suffer from that.
You can make the argument that the redistributive change he was addressing was for redistribution in the sense of redistributing money in schools for the purpose of equal education. But there's no doubt that Obama's not being entirely objective about this as Calhoun's report would suggest.
He even (around 49:00) makes an argument that what the court does deal with in terms of redistribution is actually important for the court to be involved in (such as medicare and abortion dollars). In other words, Obama thinks its important for the Supreme Court to take a strong role in determining the redistribution of these dollars.
I'm no legal expert, but this is all pretty clear.
Also, to relieve a pet peeve, Calhoun's report misuses the term "ironically." There's nothing ironic there.
The Obama Souffle
Posted by on 10.27.08 @ 6:18PM
Here's where I think things stand now: The Obama souffle is slowly starting to settle. I think the souffle hit its peak last Thursday or so. It hasn't been popped -- it's not going to go "Poof" all at once -- but it is settling. And it still has eight more days to settle -- plenty of time for a souffle to get stale and mushy, even if properly refrigerated.
The question: Do the voters who finally decide that an Obama presidency is unappetizing think that John McCain is a "good egg"? It's clear they think his carton of eggs, labeled "Republican," is rotten. But McCain is, well, McCain. He's different. Voters' impressions of him are still a bit scrambled. And that's one reason his chances aren't yet, uh... fried.
Extended metaphor aside, I still think he has a chance. A real chance, not just a theoretical one. Just watch the race tighten between now and the weekend.....
Redistribution of Wealth Experiment
Posted by on 10.27.08 @ 5:18PM
Robert Bluey on the practical implications of Obamanomics:
In a local restaurant my server had on a "Obama 08″ tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference-just imagine the coincidence.
When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need-the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.
Ted Stevens Guilty
Posted by on 10.27.08 @ 4:20PM
Republicans can kiss another Senate seat goodbye. Good riddance.
Deader Than Tom Bradley
Posted by on 10.27.08 @ 2:21PM
Nate Silver takes apart the argument that we saw the Bradley effect in 2006.
Pragmatic Hope
Posted by on 10.27.08 @ 2:03PM
Is Obama surrendering a sliver of his agenda to reality?
Why MSM Continues to Tank
Posted by on 10.27.08 @ 1:02PM
It's been at least a half-day already with Drudge, bloggers, and talk radio highlighting the 2001 Chicago NPR interview with then-State legislator Barack Obama clearly laying out his socialism ideology, and still the major media outlets have no stories about it -- at least none that are in a high profile position on their Web sites. Not on CNN, not on the Washington Post or New York Times, not on ABC, CBS, or NBC.
This will likely be the story up until election day. But the MSM still haven't learned: that this 6-plus hours this morning amounts to an eternity in the Web news cycle; how to identify a big news story that harms their favored candidate; or why their industry is in the toilet.
Update 1:30 p.m.: True to form, CNN is emphasizing last week's Palin wardrobe controversy and the alleged whispers from McCain advisers that she is viewed as a rogue "diva."
Next Up, Israel
Posted by on 10.27.08 @ 10:10AM
With new Kadima leader Tzipi Livni having failed to form a government, Israelis will now hold elections in several months (likely in mid-February). The polls will set up an epic confrontation between the Obama-like Livni, who wants to pursue a peace process with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas even though Hamas still controls Gaza, and a resurgent Benyamin Netenyahu, who wants to abandon the Bush administration-engineered Annapolis peace process that Livni supports. Of course, Iran looms large, and of significance from an American perspective is that Netanyahu is clearly more likely to take military action against Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons. Economic issues will also be of concern.
Right now, polls are close. While Likud has led in many polls taken over the past year, in the latest polls Kadima leading by a slight plurality of seats, but the polls are close enough to be within the margin of error:
A poll by the Dahaf Research Institute showed Kadima winning 29 of the Knesset's 120 seats and Likud taking 26.
A TNS Teleseker survey gives Kadima 31 seats to Likud's 29.
The Dahaf poll of 500 people had a margin of error of 4.5 percent. The TNS survey of more than 900 people put the maximum margin of error at two parliamentary seats.
Either way, the polls suggest a significant shift to the right as far as the overall makeup of the legislative body. Right now, Kadima has 29 seats, Edud Barak's Labor has 19, and Likud only has 12.
Polls predict Ehud Barak's Labor dropping to 11 seats.
There are 120 seats in the Knesset and 61 are necessary to form a majority, so obviously, a lot will depend on the remaining parties.
Daily Must Reads
Posted by on 10.27.08 @ 10:00AM
- McCain's misunderstood health care plan (WSJ)
- Once again, Patrick defeated by reality in Massachusetts (Boston Globe)
- Russian, feeling misunderstood (Japan Times)
- Has economics improved enough over 80 years to prevent another Great Depression? (NY Times)
- Joe the Plumber, part IV (Mere Comments)
- Dubya needs a job soon. How about... congressman? (Christian Science Monitor)
- The world is about to become a lot less flat (Asia Times)
What's Missing From This Picture?
Posted by on 10.27.08 @ 9:56AM
Foreign Policy has created a world electoral map showing the lopsided support for an Obama victory throughout the globe, based on Gallup data. Can you guess which small Middle Eastern democracy was left out? Can you guess which non-existent country was included? Hint: the country that was omited from the map favors McCain.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
No, This Won't Do.
Posted by on 10.26.08 @ 10:21PM
Christopher Buckley in his sit-down with Deborah Solomon (perhaps the most predictable interview of the year):
Solomon: In the past few weeks you've been pilloried by the right for a column you contributed to a Web site, "Sorry, Dad, I'm Voting for Obama."
Buckley: What I mounted in The Daily Beast was an argument. It was not an attitudinal riff - it was not "John McCain is an old snarly-pants." I presented a thoughtful argument, and it was viewed as apostasy.
Full stop.
I think I may have missed this thoughtful argument. It was certainly nuanced, because I don't recall the policy positions Buckley decried. Instead, it was a discussion on temperament. What is the compelling policy position of Obama? The author doesn't even get into it.
So, no, it's not a thoughtful argument, nor is it a powerful argument. As for the apostacy, it's hard to make the case that someone is an apostate when he refrains from defining himself. At least, this is what I thought when I was relieved that Buckley decided not to call himself a conservative on the Daily Show a few days ago.
Stewart: You are a famous conservative
Buckley: No, no, I'm the son of a famous conservative.
Stewart: Okay, you are the son of a famous conservative, who is in fact a famous, let's say libertarian? Is that good? You wanna go label? What label do you want?
Buckley: I'm not...
Stewart: Hip? How about hip?
Buckley: Yeah!
Then he goes and says this:
As a small-government conservative, I think it is all quite saddening. Here we are, a de facto nationalization of the banking industry. I don’t know where that fits into any conservative notion of government.
Look, I have no real beef with those who dissent from conservative orthodoxy, and I even commend them when they say that they're not conservatives. But he needs to firm up where he stands. This is all very post-modern, isn't it, to suggest that conservatism is whatever you make it out to be. But it's also tiresome.
Self-Servatism Isn't Going to Win
Posted by on 10.26.08 @ 8:01PM
I don't know why RSM is so insistant on bringing up Ross Douthat's Harvard credentials, since they don't speak to anything anymore than my lower-tier ivy credentials might. They're irrelevant to his argument, which is summarized as follows: Senator McCain's loss should not necessarily be construed as a failure of moderate Republicanism (though Rush is saying it is). Instead, it's a failure of strategy, given its substance-free approach.
Ross's assessment omits this point. The substance-free approach of McCain and Co. is absolutely tied to moderate Republicanism and the campaign's strategic failure. McCain's lackluster response to the economic crisis is a perfect example of this. His aversion to addressing issues was rooted in lacking a coherent philosophy as the thread to weave through it. What was it the press and conservatives have been howling about for months? The lack of a message. Wouldn't that message have been solidified if McCain ran on simply more than "I was for the surge before anyone else was?"
Yet that's what moderate Republicanism offers. It offers a few issues where their expertise might be attractive to independents. In this game, however, a Democrat always wins. Why? Because a Democrat can argue about the need for moderation as a way to shortcircuit concern about going too far with spending. No one in the party will call the candidate on his ambition. A moderate Republican, however, has to contend with a party base that's a little more discerning.
Rush's point was that true conservatism -- a belief in the right to life, a strong national defense, and limited government, resonates in a way that does not happen with watered-down self-servatism, because the latter is too difficult to effectively communicate in a way that resonates with independents and core conservatives. The point is that you can reach independents using a conservative message. When you try to simply cater your message to independents, though, it makes little sense -- because independents themselves have a philosophy that doesn't quite make sense (otherwise, more people would be attracted to it, right?).
Ran Hay, a commenter on Stacy's earlier post, puts it fantastically well: "Even 'moderates' and 'undecideds' pine for clear choices."
Harvard Genius vs. College Droput
Posted by on 10.26.08 @ 7:13PM
Ross Douthat (Harvard '02) vs. Rush Limbaugh, who dropped out of Southeast Missouri State in 1971:
[Limbaugh's argument] has a certain surface plausibility - just enough, I suspect, to be persuasive to the many, many conservatives eager to be convinced that the '08 outcome had everything to do with John McCain's heresies and the treason of the Beltway elites, and nothing whatsoever to do with them.
In other words, Rush's 20 million listeners are what's wrong with the Republican Party. If only they'd listen to these young Harvard graduates who know everything . . .
The Crisis Meme
Posted by on 10.26.08 @ 8:33AM
This is the kind of "GOP gotterdammerung" story you can expect more of in coming days:
Aides to George W.Bush, former Reagan White House staff and friends of John McCain have all told The Sunday Telegraph that they not only expect to lose on November 4, but also believe that Mr Obama is poised to win a crushing mandate.
They believe he will be powerful enough to remake the American political landscape with even more ease than Ronald Reagan did in 1980.
The prospect of an electoral rout has unleashed a bitter bout of recriminations both within the McCain campaign and the wider conservative movement, over who is to blame and what should be done to salvage the party's future.
The good news? The prospective "bloodbath":
Jim Nuzzo, a White House aide to the first President Bush, dismissed Mrs Palin's critics as "cocktail party conservatives" who "give aid and comfort to the enemy". He told The Sunday Telegraph: "There's going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?"
Mr. Nuzzo, if we should ever meet, I owe you a drink for that one.
Behind the Campaign
Posted by on 10.26.08 @ 7:55AM
At least two very interesting bits of information in Robert Draper's feature on the McCain campaign in the New York Times Sunday magazine:
- It was Steve Schmidt who urged John McCain to "go all in" by suspending his campaign Sept. 24 and flying to Washington to push for the $700 billion bailout, believing it would be a "defining moment" for the candidate.
- It was Sen. Lindsay Graham who kept pushing Joe Lieberman for McCain's running mate. Graham "continued to argue passionately for Lieberman."
Other interesting stuff in there, like the fact that Matthew Scully was assigned as Sarah Palin's speechwriter. Scully is an animal-rights kook (he wrote Dominion) so the notion of assigning him to write for the moosehunting Palin is rather ironic.
