So, increasingly deranged (see here and then her) Sully and many of the Netroots crowd are bitterly clinging to the “when will McCain drop Palin” tagline.
Seriously – and I mean this seriously, as someone who wants Obama to win – how do we get him to drop Biden for Hillary?
Make her rich and give her a criminal record?
“how do we get him to drop Biden for Hillary?”
Sadly, Obama hasn’t learned that people don’t get do-overs in life.
How can be go back to early 2007 and change his opposition to the surge to support, so that he can appear to be on the right side of history?
While I still think Obama will win by a whisker, the fact that Democrats turned a guaranteed landslide into a scary tight finish tht they could realistically lose, is amazingly inept.
By not choosing Hillary I think Obama lost the election. Not because of the women votes because I don’t think they are going to change parties but because he seems to lack common sense and one has to wonder if he really does want to win. He seemed to sabotage his campaign by choosing Biden, another white rich old guy.
BTW, loved the whole stones/pounds/grams post or the fat kids of Britian, awesomely funny!
By not choosing Hillary I think Obama lost the election. Not because of the women votes because I don’t think they are going to change parties but because he seems to lack common sense and one has to wonder if he really does want to win. He seemed to sabotage his campaign by choosing Biden, another white rich old guy.
Geez I am so embarrassed that was not your blog I was referring to. Sorry!
Drop Biden for Hillary? Fainting half-measures, sir. What you need to do is drop Obama for Hillary.
There would be nothing unconstitutional, or even undemocratic, in this maneuver. It might bugger a few party rules, but the motto of this election season has been “Rules, schmules”.
Mr. Wishard is right.
Mr. Wishard is right.
An Obama-Clinton ticket was always a non-starter. With Clinton as the nominee – which would have happened early if the Dems held their primaries under the same rules as the GOP – the Democratic Party would be able to go after Palin on the experience front without gutting their Presidential candidate. Not that they’d be guaranteed to succeed, but the maneuver would be thinkable instead of political seppuku.
They’d also be able to address her directly as a political candidate, with her gender nullified as a factor.
Neither is possible now – and there is no do-over to fix it.
To paraphrase a famous man, you go into the election with the candidates you’ve got.
Rich white guy? Cindy McCain’s dress cost more than Biden made last year (he’s either 99th or 100th in the Senate for wealth).
McCain’s choice of Palin closed the base-enthusiasm gap. How it works out over the next few weeks is a good question. But I don’t think the Obama campaign is lacking for enthusiasm, nor that putting Hillary on the ticket would be better for Obama’s chances.
The GOP is doing pretty well with its false Palin narrative (no profitable ebay jet sale, loved Bridge to Nowhere when funded Federal, fought off Russian invaders singlehandled, etc.) but I am still very skeptical she will be ready for prime time, when it arrives.
“Cindy McCain’s dress cost more than Biden made last year ”
Cindy is not running for office.
And if Biden is such a poor manager of his own finances, how is he fit to govern? A Senator makes $180,000 a year, and he has been in the Senate for a very long time. People of Biden’s age and salary level usually have a much higher net worth. Plus, why doesn’t his wife earn anything?
Yet, to you, being such a poor manager of money is a badge of honor.
This type of weak statement is known as ‘jumping the sea-cucumber’. Particularly since you have no problem with John Edwards’ ill-gotten fortune of $50M, or John Kerry marrying an older woman with $750M (but who still didn’t dress well).
“I am still very skeptical she will be ready for prime time, when it arrives.”
Left-wing identity narrative does not equal ‘prime time’.
I donno, Andrew, I think “Biden’s doing OK”:http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080906/NEWS02/809060343/1007 .
I think he was a terrible choice – he a corrupt hack, and I wish like hell Obama had picked someone else.
A.L.
That’s funny, GK. Rich Dem senators are elitists and poor (relatively) are bad money managers. Heads you win, tails I lose.
Biden didn’t come from wealth, and I believe that, unlike many other Senators, he didn’t hit the paid lecture circuit hard. $180K isn’t that much as annual salary. Biden’s wife is a teacher. That’s not a lucrative profession. I’d say a $2MM home isn’t that much, in line with what I’d expect for their level of income. I realize that most Americans don’t live that way, but then, it’s Sen. McCain who tells us that rich starts at $5MM wealth, making Biden middle-middle-class.
Biden’s work on the bankruptcy bill was a disgrace. Other than that, he’s not so bad. McCain supported that awful bill, too, right?
I’ve seen some good blog material about the GOP following in Nixon’s ‘politics of resentment’.
BTW, Obama drew 15,000 in central PA today. No enthusiasm shortage.
A 7000 Sq. foot home? Sheesh, the guy is rich! Good for him – he isn’t as inept an money management as his supporters had hoped.
Why is leftism about a race to the bottom regarding basic self-sufficiency skills?
“How do we get him to drop Biden for Hillary?”
1. Persuade Obama to have a lobotomy, and botch the job. He would have to be mentally defective or suicidal to let the Clintons anywhere near the powers of the presidency.
2. Have Biden defect to Russia, grow an impressive beard, be consecrated as a Russian Orthodox priest, and renounce his US citizenship, thus rendering himself ineligible for office.
3. Pay him. They say that every man has his price; historical precedent suggests that Senators can be had on much more reasonable terms than most of us. After all, the biggest difference between a bribe and a campaign contribution is … what? I’m not sure, but the recipients get to define and distinguish them.
Seriously, though, I am a bit surprised he didn’t choose Al Gore. Perhaps he offered it to Gore and Gore turned it down, given the superlucrative tie-ups in the private sector he currently has? Al Gore has accumulated a net worth of $300M, and will become a billionaire once him and his Kleiner-Perkins friends complete their pump and dump of green technologies/companies.
Obama/Gore would be strong.
“How do we get him to drop Biden for Hillary?”
Have her divorce Bill Clinton.
Seriously, can you imagine trying to conduct an Administration with Bill Clinton hanging around half– but only half– off-stage?
15,000 is an Aerosmith concert. If he dropped Biden for Aerosmith, he’d have 15,000+ people everywhere he went. He’ll also need Lenny Kravitz to open.
But Obama seems to be more the Celine Dion type. An Obama-Dion ticket, however, would have to campaign five nights a week in Las Vegas.
At any rate, if he’s not short of enthusiasm in PA he is a little short on numbers, since PA is must-win and at the moment it’s dangerously close to being a toss-up state.
“BTW, Obama drew 15,000 in central PA today. No enthusiasm shortage.”
So about one-third of Penn State’s students. None of them are donors.
It appears that Obama’s best bit at this point is Bob Barr’s cannibalization effect.
The Republican ticket drew over 10,000 in Colorado Springs today. Sounds like less than Obama. They were, I admit, enthusiastic. So were the Obama fans. The bases are happy.
I think we’ll discover in November that Obama’s issues beats character without judgment. Do you really think Palin’s signed requests for earmarks won’t reproduce in a newspaper?
I cannot find much to support in Obama’s proposed programs. While I might not find that much in McCain’s either, the possibility that Obama will get his through Congress is much more likely.
Therefore I will vote for McCain.
#19 from Andrew J. Lazarus:
bq. _The Republican ticket drew over 10,000 in Colorado Springs today. Sounds like less than Obama. They were, I admit, enthusiastic. So were the Obama fans. The bases are happy._
That means Sarah Palin has proven herself to be a game-changer. Before her, only one side was up for this conflict.
#19 from Andrew J. Lazarus:
bq. _I think we’ll discover in November that Obama’s issues beats character without judgment._
I don’t think that’s what we’ll find.
#19 from Andrew J. Lazarus:
bq. _Do you really think Palin’s signed requests for earmarks won’t reproduce in a newspaper?_
I think that’s what we’ll find: that anything that can hurt McCain and Palin can and will be reproduced endlessly in the mainstream media, while Barak Obama will continue to benefit from mainstream media favoritism, and for that reason above all others (and there are many others), Barak Obama is still the favorite to win this election.
So Hilary Clinton is not needed. Joe Biden will do fine.
The only reason I see for Republicans to be hopeful is: from when she started to pretend to be the kind of woman Sarah Palin really is, Hilary Clinton became invulnerable to Barak Obama. He didn’t lay a glove on her after that, it was his decisive edge from the caucus states that carried him home. Since Barak Obama performed unimpressively against a fake, Republicans have reason to hope that he may also perform feebly when challenged by the real thing.
Barak Obama could not have made a wiser choice for the attack dog spot than Joe Biden, and John McCain picked the strongest pit bull available in Sarah Palin.
“I don’t think that’s what we’ll find.”
Indeed. I think we will find that anti-incumbent sentiment, combined with media-fueled anti-Americanism, combined with a third party siphoning off a few points from McCain, can put an extreme leftist into the WH.
I think Obama will win by a hair. That a Democrat wins by ONLY a hair in such a favorable year for them exposes their structural weakness (and inability to win 50% of the vote in seven elections since 1980 – a trend that will continue here). But he will win.
The fun begins after that. Bush took 5 years for his approval rating to drop below 50%. Obama will take 90 days. By April 2009, he will be disliked.
“Do you really think Palin’s signed requests for earmarks won’t reproduce in a newspaper?”
As opposed to Obama’s $740 million in earmarks.
“How do we get him to drop Biden for Hillary?”
Hell, if you’re going to wish for something, wish big. How do we get him to drop his Marxist, anti-achievement mentality and class warfare for good old free market, property rights lovin’ Americanism?
I’m not a huge fan of the Republicans, who often campaign like Libertarians only to govern like Democrats, but it is freaking blowing my mind that thinking people, and I know you are one, believe that the policies Obama has laid out are going to benefit this country and her people. Add to that the fact that he is going to have a Democrat Congress to play with and you have recipe for disaster for personal freedom and liberty.
#19 from Andrew J. Lazarus:
“Do you really think Palin’s signed requests for earmarks won’t reproduce in a newspaper?”
#23 from davod:
bq. _As opposed to Obama’s $740 million in earmarks._
Or Joe Biden helping to rewrite the laws massively to the benefit of credit card companies and presumably to the approval of his son who lobbies for them.
Or as opposed to lots of other evidence that Obama and Biden, far from being honest and demonstrably efficient reformers and the only real alternative to a third virtual term for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, are lethargic at best in reform and far more comfortable with corruption than the real reforming rebels, McCain and Palin.
But it doesn’t matter if the press isn’t interested. _People aren’t swayed by things they don’t hear._
What people _will_ hear about, from now to the twelfth of forever, is every bit of filth the mainstream media can cram up against or smear on or about a woman they hate and want to destroy – her and her whole family, and if she had a little dog, it too.
I think they want to hurt her and her loved ones so badly that no dumb conservative cracka bitch in high school will grow up dreaming that if she works hard and does all the right things, then despite her lack of family connections and liberal elite advantages, she too could be Sarah Palin. That’s the dream they have to kill, for power to belong by right to the best people (with them deciding who’s best). And they’ve tried to kill it very simply and very crudely by pillorying her, by making an example of her. They won’t forgive her for having even temporarily survived the process. And as Bush Derangement Syndrome should have taught us, the staying power of their hatred is endless, and ultimately corrosive of the public image of even the most resolute (or according to the mainstream media _”smug”_) target.
That is much more important than whether Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden shares Barak Obama’s ticket. Whether he picked one of the other, his real attack dog was always the media. It’s an Obama – MSM ticket.
Plus, let’s face it, the Republican Party stinks like three day old fish in the hot sun. McCain and Palin are fighting to reform it. But there’s a whole lot of the party that’s not reformed yet, and has no plans ever to reform or have reform imposed upon it.
Funny, the dems and lefty bloggers are pushing the Eagleton option for Palin in an act of desperation and wishful thinking because they know that her selection is the game changer that puts them in a bind, yet it only makes sense for Obama to do it with Biden.
McCain is now up according to Gallup, tied according to Rasmussen. Cant imagine why theyre keeping this Palin around.
Does anybody have the Sullivan-and-Atlantic-part-company watch?
I’ll put $10 on February of 2009. Too controversial before the election, but after electional analysis will be on how out-of-control bloggers hurt brand identity.
#27
Far be it for me to burst your bubble, but let me introduce you to a polling site that aggregates all polling data: Pollster.com
Another interesting site put up by a Princeton professor is here: http://election.princeton.edu/
Go take a look at the data there and then come back to let us know if your optimism for McCain is still well-founded.
I’ll just bring one point from there into the thread. The spread of individual polls can often be wide, and there have throughout the cycle been “outliers”. So, it is really worthless to cite the results of one single poll if you are trying to make an accurate assessment of the matchup. However, if you’re trying to provide some data for a point you are trying to make, then perhaps citing individual outliers might be a better strategy. Which is what you’ve done.
PD Shaw I’ve do not care for Sullivan anymore. But KOS started the BS by being bagged by McCain’s campaign. You wait for their release of info on Plain Not chase your ass on stupid ideas.
Atlantic will not let him go.
Hilliary will not replace Biden. Her negatives are so high-talk about another juice to the Republican base and Bill is a nightmare if you win. Hilliary has reserved a place for herself on the 8th level of Hell-Lieberman will be joining her. Plain is not important in the long run-the vote is for President and the economy is the killer for the Republicans.
On the economy I see both McCain and Obama have both had their dumb as stump moment. Obama’s economic program is far superior to McCain’s.
Actually, the best polling site going is “‘Political Arithmetik'”:http://politicalarithmetik.blogspot.com/
I follow it every day. Today’s post on battleground states is fascinating…
A.L.
#31,
Why is that “the best” polling site?
Notably, this sentence appears prominently at that site:
“For the latest state and national horse race polls go to Pollster.com”
If you look at it, you’ll see that he does the best analytics on poll data – the other sites tend to just report polls – as pollster.com does.
A.L.
I had never seen Political Arithmetik before. I like the sophistication, but isn’t that most recent post over one week old now?
Vista, thanks so much for the unsolicited advice. What you’ve not realized is that since polling data is taken over a number of days, and since major events happen in the interim, and since an aggregate of polls will have data that occurs before those events, you will always be well behind the curve of current opinion if you really soley on aggregate polls. That may not be an issue when not much is going on, but when you have 2 VP selections, 2 nationals conventions, and 4 major speeches with 2 weeks, it becomes rather important in the short term.
If you want to know which way the wind is starting to blow, aggragates of polling data is not the way to go. You get a sense for what 2 or 3 trusted polls are doing and its a pretty good assumption that the rest will follow as they catch up in timing. And, as Bill Clinton will tell you, the Big Mo is a big deal in politics.
The only way you’ll know which way the wind has blown is to look at the data for it. Trying to predict it is a worthless waste of time the further out in the future you go. For example, I or anyone can predict with 100% certainty that the weather 1 second into the future will be the same as it is now. 10 minutes, maybe 99%. One hour, 95. One day, 40%. Even with fancy detection equipment that is itself based on sampling data.
In other words, unless the election is going to be held tomorrow, short term trends (the only reliable ones in weather and likely also in public opinion) are not relevant.
But what I find interesting is that both of you seem to be arguing that analysis and opinion (Political Arithmetik) or prognostication are somehow better than hard data.
I guess I feel that I’m well qualified to make up my own mind and see the raw data rather have someone else tell me what they think the data means or, worse, where they think it will go in the future.
Why do I get the feeling that this debate would have a very different trajectory if McCain was leading in most polls rather than Obama? Or if he were leading in most state polls, which are really the only serious measure of electoral success? Or if many of the formerly “red” states weren’t tetering on turning blue?
#33
I guess the obvious follow-up question then is why do you think “he” does “the best analytics” on polling data? To what are you comparing this to? What is your metric?
Well, take a look at what he writes and it’s kinda self-evident…
A.L.
_”In other words, unless the election is going to be held tomorrow, short term trends (the only reliable ones in weather and likely also in public opinion) are not relevant. “_
Simply not true. Polls dont happen in a vacuum. They affect how people perceive the election and the candidates. More importantly they impact how the campaigns view their situations. How do you think these campaign decisions get made? Magic 8 ball? Well maybe in Kerrys case… but everybody else has professional pollsters for a reason.
Vista, simply put because data is not information. Sketchy data – like polls with sample sizes in the four figures – is a long way from information, and so you need to think about it in order to make it useful.
A.L.
#27 from Mark Buehner:
bq. _McCain is now up according to Gallup, tied according to Rasmussen. Cant imagine why theyre keeping this Palin around._
🙂
#29 from Vista:
bq. _…Go take a look at the data there and then come back to let us know if your optimism for McCain is still well-founded._
Speaking for myself: I looked, and it didn’t alter my opinion. I think Gallup polls are the best made, and I believe they’ll give me the best guidance I’m likely to get, over time, so I believe them whether they’re telling me what I want to hear or whether they’re telling me what I don’t want to hear.
#29 from Vista:
bq. _I’ll just bring one point from there into the thread. The spread of individual polls can often be wide, and there have throughout the cycle been “outliers”. So, it is really worthless to cite the results of one single poll if you are trying to make an accurate assessment of the matchup. However, if you’re trying to provide some data for a point you are trying to make, then perhaps citing individual outliers might be a better strategy. Which is what you’ve done._
I don’t think like that and neither does Mark Buehner.
Sarah Palin is a tabula rasa on all issues other than energy and abortion. As of today, we can conclude that (unlike, to give credit, her running mate) she knows nothing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Oh, but she has that great authenticity of small-town America. And that’s the GOP narrative, right? So much character that she turned down all those earmarks, except the ones she begged for.
The problem, IMO, with the traditional media is they still feel obligated to repeat arrant nonsense (e.g., McCain’s claim that Obama will raise taxes). Whether this is out of a desire for spurious balance, our out of a perceived need not to antagonize one party, it’s bad.
Andrew, are you saying that Obama won’t raise taxes? because that’s the only way to read what you wrote…
A.L.
No, the way to read Andrew’s comment is that the Media is uncritically reporting McCain’s lies about Obama’s tax plans.
What G_Tarhune said.
McCain’s description of whose taxes will be raised by Obama is false. Actually, it’s a lie.
Cool – thanks for the link.
A.L.
Read a lie in the first 2 paragraphs- that Obama will provide a tax cut for the majority of American families. Factually impossible. 50% of Americans dont pay income tax anymore.
At least the link is to a nonpartisan site. My eyes are rolling but no-one can see.
Mark, got a link for the claim 50 percent of Americans don’t pay income tax and how it refutes Obama’s claim? (Please note that since Obama talks about families, a family where an adult is paying income taxes and three children counts for him.)
I think it’s your responsibility to come up with a number, but I see from what looks like a conservative site that about 92.7 million returns with non-zero income tax liability in 2006. Allowing for some joint returns and dependents, I can easily see that as covering more than half of the households in the USA, which is about 110 million.
#42 from Andrew J. Lazarus:
bq. _Sarah Palin is a tabula rasa on all issues other than energy and abortion._
Those are important issues; and she’s made herself clear on other issues, above all on “special needs” kids.
bq. _To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters._
bq. _I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House._
There are no specifics, but clearly she regards this as a higher priority than other politicians do, and that matters. If she was removed from the Republican ticket – the Eagleton option – the concerns of families with special needs kids would drop back to where they were in the priority list of politicians typically occupying the White House.
Hey, Andrew – email me? I have a proposition for you…
A.L.
David, I will agree that energy and abortion are important issues, but that leaves a lot of ground to cover, such as 100 percent of foreign policy. I’m afraid that absent some concrete policy statement, the special needs children remark is just a specialization of “I feel your pain”. For example, does she think the ADA goes too far? Not far enough? Let’s get some beliefs, other than religious ones (and energy), out in front of the public.
Andrew, I think that’s reasonable.
One problem she has doing that is that she and John McCain barely know each other. They want to work together of course. But where do their beliefs tread on each other, and where do they support each other? Where does she stand on campaign finance reform? And border control, or comprehensive immigration reform, depending on how you frame that issue? What issues does she think matter in Washington that he doesn’t think matter at all? (I’ve already suggested one.) It’s hard for her to step out and make her call on every topic without being briefed, talking to the boss (who is also busy) and taking some time to think about where she’ll be able to stomach playing “follow the leader” politics and where the best she can do is to shut up and minimize differences. (As even so loyal a Vice-President as Dick Cheney did: gay marriage was an issue where he could look down and bite his lip, mostly, but not one where he could ever warmly support George W. Bush’s line.)
Even though it’s reasonable for her to take some time over this, it can’t be very much time in the context of the campaign remaining. I found it a bit disappointing that her first pubic statements after Sarah’s Speech were just rehashes from it. In order to nourish her supporters, never mind to meet the challenges of her political enemies, she is going to have to step up to the plate in the next couple of weeks, and present the sorts of brass tacks you ask for in #52.
Could it be that even a Masters graduate of the Alinsky Method is subject to the old French adage, “No one is smart enough to be a good liar”?
It would seem so, on the present evidence.
Sarah Palin is a tabula rasa on all issues other than energy and abortion. As of today, we can conclude that (unlike, to give credit, her running mate) she knows nothing about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Sometimes you need to understand the cost of doing business. You may want read this analysis
Send Better Gaffes! at JustOneMinute. A very small portion is included here:
“Hmm – apparently this is a gaffe because, since there has been no cash outlay as yet by the taxpayer, it is not accurate to say that Freddie and Fannie were “too expensive”.
Really? Did the concepts of “opportunity cost” and “implicit cost” go on a post-convention vacation? The implicit Federal guarantee of Freddie and Fannie distorted the mortgage market in many ways, the costs of which are coming home to roost to all of us, taxpayers included.”
#46 Armed Liberal
I’d like to tie up a loose “thread” from this discussion and another with a question:
In a prior thread, you noted that the possibility that Obaba/Biden would spearhead congressional/criminal investigations into the current Administrations activities could push you away from voting for Obama.
The question was raised: Does this mean you would vote for McCain instead?
Now, given your acknowledgment in this thread that McCain and his surrogates have been repeatedly lying about Obamas tax plan, how does this affect your decision to vote for McCain? Isn’t open lying a pretty good litmus test for the character of a potential President?
And that is not his/their only brazen lie. To me, this is an absolute deal breaker.
Davod, I can assure you that the upcoming bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be much more expensive to the taxpayers than whatever amount of imputed hidden costs you determine for government under the status quo ante. The idea that the plug was pulled because of increasing expense to the taxpayers is ludicrous; the plug was pulled so that institutions holding debt, like the Bank of China, knew they would be paid.
It’s going to be very frustrating to watch Republicans trying to make sense of Gov. Palin’s uninformed musings every time she is off the teleprompter. I repeat, she did not understand how these agencies worked.
In your heart of hearts you know she can’t find Georgia on a map, too.
Vista – if I don’t vote for Obama, I honestly don’t know what I’ll do. It’s unimaginable enough that I don’t have a ‘Plan B’. I think you’re being somewhat hyperbolic on the tax issue; in campaigns everyone frames the opponent’s issues favorably to them, and it’s certainly true that Obama intends to raise taxes – whose taxes is a legitimate point of debate, and since Obama’s plans aren’t signed in blood, we have to accept them as principles rather than laws.
AJL – but if the bailouts are costing taxpayers money, isn’t Palin right in questioning whether they are too big for taxpayers to afford? (couldn’t help that one…).
A.L.
AL, I appreciate your honest reply.
I agree that taxes are a legitimate debate to be sure. Unfortunately, that is not what McCain/Palin are engaging in, nor do they show any signs of doing so. If they were, they wouldn’t be lying about Obama’s record as they are (you are being far too generous classifying this as a “framing” issue). This is an extremely cynical approach to politics which demeans the American public as too stupid to recognize the importance of the issues as they are, not as they pretend they are.
And it’s not that they’re only lying about Obama’s positions but their own as well: The Bridge to Nowhere issue is quickly becoming a widely recognized example of a lie.
Their emerging pattern of brazen lying and derision under the guise of “legitimate debate” is not something I think should be rewarded but rather condemned. When will McCain/Palin decide that telling the truth or making a real effort to address the issues accurately is a better approach then intentionally untrue “framing”? If they don’t think the American public can respond to the boring truth now, will they ever? Why should they ever attempt to provide it?
The reason this is worrisome is that they will also almost certainly lie about terrorist or national security threats if they believe that is what is necessary to convince the American public of their position, whose relationship to reality will be impossible to determine based on information they provide. Sounds way too much like Bush and Iraq to me, just with a notoriously aggressive hothead with their finger on the button playing the role of “Commander-in-Chief”.
Well, hmm. In one ad, Obama claims to have helped lock down loose nuclear weapons, when the substance of his supported amendment (Nunn-Lugar) appears to have rather related to things like Stingers and Strelas (man-portable air defense). “(link)”:http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/09/021467.php If Obama will lie about that, why won’t he lie about starting WWIII?
Just asking. You know the old adage about how you can tell when a politician is lying, right?
#57 from Andrew J. Lazarus:
bq. _It’s going to be very frustrating to watch Republicans trying to make sense of Gov. Palin’s uninformed musings every time she is off the teleprompter. I repeat, she did not understand how these agencies worked._
They did just fine with Ronald Reagan’s musings, so it’s reasonable to suppose they’ll do fine with Sarah Palin’s.
The same accusations of stupidity, ignorance and mindless belligerence get made generation after generation. Eisenhower in his time was mocked for his shallow intellect.
#57 from Andrew J. Lazarus:
bq. _In your heart of hearts you know she can’t find Georgia on a map, too._
There you go again.
AJL: In your heart of hearts you know she can’t find Georgia on a map, too.
Lots of Alaskans are better than lots of people who ride the New York subway system at reading actual maps. And at figuring out how to deal with ignorance, instead of clinging to it as if it were the Bible or guns.
And at not responding to people yanking their chains, too. Depends on the person.
I might as well have said “In your heart of hearts you know that Obama’s true understanding for the residents of fly-over country is as thin as toilet paper.” There’s at least as much evidence for that.
People delight in “misunderestimating” the opposition, and this election cycle is no exception.
#60
Here’s a different view on Obama’s bill with Lugar that he claims helps “track down loose nukes”:
“Link.”:http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/568/
bq. “We’ll note here that the legislation Obama and Lugar sponsored did not deal solely with nuclear weapons, but rather with all weapons of mass destruction, and that a good bit of their legislation focused on conventional weapons. But it does seem like part of the legislation’s intent is to “help lock down loose nuclear weapons.” For that reason, we find Obama’s statement to be True.”
So this claim would seem to more accurately fall under the “framing” rather than “lying” label.
You are also ignoring the magnitude and pattern of lies coming out of the McCain/Palin camp, Nortius. Isolated examples of false statements do not add up to lies. I’d like someone to post strong evidence that Obama has lied during his campaign, or that there is a concerted effort to lie for political purposes, as a campaign strategy (as it seems to be for McCain).
Remember, this requires a knowing mis-statement of a clear fact that was known to the candidate/campaign as being false prior to making the false statement.
I’m not saying they don’t exist. I just haven’t seen any yet that cannot be chalked up to hazy memory or political spin (which I guess we can all agree is an acceptable part of issue framing).
(I will pre-emptively raise the issue of how easy many of you who support Bush and the Iraq War find it to defend Bush’s false statements on Iraq WMDs before the war as not qualifying, technically, as “lying”).
Just to expand a bit on #60.
I am wondering if you are trying to argue that whether a politician lies or not is not a relevant question because they all do?
In that case should we collectively agree to forgive or overlook all lies that politicians make?
Are there not differences among lies?
It would seem to me that, given this notion (aside from whether it is true or not) we should tighten our definition of what a “lie” is, because an overly broad definition also encompasses harmless or meaningless inadvertant mis-statements or mis-representations.
I certainly do not think that there is any value at all in dismissing all such questionable statements on this dubious principle. Are all murders equivalent? Robberies? Acts of terrorism or aggression?
Surely everyone can recognize the difference between these two statements even if they are both considered lies:
1) That person attempted to strike me before I shot them.
2) I never used the “N” word in my life.
That speaks to a completely different issue—whether the bailouts are a good idea. On the plain reading of her statement, Palin seemed to be under the misimpression that the past losses were a cost to the taxpayer, whereas they were primarily a cost to the FNM shareholders who saw share value collapse (now, almost to zero).
Most Americans in Alaska or elsewhere can’t find Georgia, the ex-Soviet state, on a map. I’m awaiting evidence that Palin decided to educate herself above the national average on this. The fact her supporters are reduced to Alaska’s proximity to Russia as evidence of foreign policy knowledge is a discouraging sign. (Has anyone ever suggested that the Republican Governor of Hawai`i must be a China expert?) Most Americans, including me, can’t identify the different areas of the brain very well, but I’d like that talent in a neurosurgeon.
Andrew – I’ve gotta disagree with you on this one. I used to do housing stuff, so I may have more knowledge than the average politician on this, but it’s always been the case that the housing markets have seen the two quangoes as backed with the ‘full faith and credit’ – hence the need for a bailout. It’s not just a market-calming decision.
A.L.
Vista – here I’ve got a different view from you; I think both sides shade the truth and lie (and even sometimes plagarize). In some cases they are understandable – people’s positions change, and there were for things before they were against them. In others people make supportive noises about things while working to undermine them – both Obama and McCain as well as Palin and Biden have done those kinds of things, and do.
Very little of the stuff I’ve seen from the campaigns (as opposed to the blogs, news media, etc.) falls outside the normal salesmanship I expect in politics.
I think that “we tell the truth! they lie!” thing is tiresome not just to me but to the average voter.
A.L.
A.L.—I do stock stuff. And the bailout messes with our customers, who are more likely to be stockholders than bondholders. 🙁
We’ve gotten in the habit of privatizing gains and socializing losses all over the place. S&L, etc. I don’t have my own opinion right now on the merits of this bailout. Usually I think it’s a best alternative as long as the people who thought up these stupid ideas are hanged at sunrise.
I have found Palin’s remark in larger context.
I think the second sentence is just as problematic as the first. Really, she didn’t know the actual role and legal status of these institutions. By today their campaign is making a much better suggestion of dumping these hybrid agencies across the board.
I’m still not sure what’s objectionable about the Fannie/Freddie quote. Are you asserting that they’re not too big (responsible for roughly 1/2 of the $12 trillion dollar US Mortgage market)? Or that they’re not too expensive to the taxpayer (bailout estimated at $80-200 billion dollar taxpayer cost, and the largest bailout in US history)? Where’s the gaffe?
The general sense of the statement is absolutely true. Do you expect a stump speech to be the context to go into a discourse about the nature of GSEs? Does any candidate do this? Do you hold any other candidates to the same level of scrutiny?
Now perhaps you’re right that she is ignorant of the details of how they are structured. I just don’t think that you can fairly conclude that from the quote. I also don’t think it’s that important. I’m sure Joe Biden knows more about financial services than Sarah Palin. I’m also confident that Sarah Palin knows more about energy than Joe Biden. I’d guess that both know more about their respective areas than Obama or McCain. Every candidate has areas of expertise and areas of ignorance. (Although, I’m unsure what Obama’s area of expertise is). This is small beer at most and largely a wash.
bq. I think that “we tell the truth! they lie!” thing is tiresome not just to me but to the average voter.
Sure, perhaps a constant drone of unfounded accusations can get tiresome, but I’m nowhere near as cynical as you that people don’t care if a politician is telling the truth on a regular or even sporadic basis.
I care a great deal about it.
Another side issue raised by your attitude, AL, is how are people who DO care supposed to know who is telling the truth and who is not? Isn’t it the media’s responsibility to provide this “information” rather than just the “data” (i.e., “Obama camp says Palin is lying about Bridge to Nowhere”), as you so recently said about polling data?
Don’t you think that if politicians knew that their lies would be more frequently exposed then they might be deterred from making them a central campaign strategy?
Is that the kind of election and public discourse that you really think America wants and deserves?
Here’s what the NYTimes printed on Sept 22, 2007
Now, I agree that the McCain campaign is spinning the issue somewhat, but to call it a lie seems overwrought. The contemporaneous reporting, before Sarah Palin was any kind of national figure, was that Palin said no to the ‘bridge to nowhere’. If her repeating this now is a lie, then no one ever tells the truth.
OK, here’s Josh Marshall’s summary:
Sometimes when you’ve got a liar as big as Sarah Palin on the line only a timeline will really do justice to her fibbing ways.
So a lot of you have written in to ask: Okay, she says she said ‘Thanks. But no thanks’ to the Bridge to Nowhere. But how exactly did it all come out? What’s the order of events? Well, briefly, it went like this.
Actually, Congress put the kibosh on the Bridge to Nowhere back in November 2005. Since Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) was then head of the Senate Appropriations Committee he was able to force a compromise in which the earmark for the bridge was killed but Alaska got to hold on to the money — some $442 million of federal tax dollars.
Fast forward to November 2006. That’s when Sarah Palin was running as a staunch supporter of the Bridge to Nowhere — that is, after the feds had themselves already said ‘No Thanks.’
In 2006, the Democrats took over both houses of Congress. So by the time Palin got into office it was clear that not only was the first Bridge earmark killed but that Congress was not going to be ponying up any more money. That meant that Alaska was going to have to pick up the tab all on its own. So since she couldn’t pay for its with the federal pork barrel, in September 2007, Palin officially halted the project which was then a state project since Congress had said ‘Thanks. But no thanks’ two years earlier.
She couldn’t say ‘No Thanks’ because Congress had already said ‘Forget It’.
Still with me?
So the money Palin sent back to Washington? Well, she didn’t. She kept the money for other bridges and roads in Alaska.
So, to boil it all down, Congress pulled the plug on the Bridge to Nowhere in 2005. Palin was still for it in 2006. And when she finally ended the project because Congress had cut off funding, instead of saying ‘No Thanks’ she actually said ‘Thanks!’ because instead of sending the money back to Washington she kept it all in Anchorage.
You can see Palin on Fannie Mae on You Tube (warning: volume is very low). When I listen to the clip, it truly seems to me that Palin believes Fannie and Freddie were government-run agencies that became excessively large bureaucracies and will have to be trimmed back by executive decree. While they were indeed excessively large bureaucracies, she doesn’t seem up to speed on their status.
Here’s some more reporting (Anchorage Daily News Published: March 12th, 2008 10:18 PM)
[Emphasis Added]
A common target for earmark snipers is the so-called “bridge to nowhere” plugged by Alaska Rep. Don Young into the five-year transportation bill in 2005. Congress stripped the earmarks directing the spending but let the state keep the money to use on the bridge if it wanted.
Palin ruffled feathers when she announced – without giving the delegation advance notice – that the state was killing the Ketchikan bridge to Gravina Island, site of the airport and a few dozen residents.
[…]
Palin also declared last year that her administration was going to cut back its own earmark requests submitted to the delegation. Her budget director, Karen Rehfeld, wrote, “to enhance the state’s credibility,” state requests should only be for the most compelling needs.
[…]
[Stevens] said it’s tough to get earmarks now, and having them criticized in Alaska makes it harder.[…] “It is a difficult thing to get over right now, the feeling that we don’t represent Alaska because Alaska doesn’t want earmarks,” he said.
Kevin Sweeney, state director for Sen. Murkowski, said Murkowski has also mentioned it’s tough to push for earmarks if the state is saying they’re not needed. Rep. Young’s spokeswoman, Meredith Kenny, wouldn’t comment on how Palin’s position on earmarks was affecting his job in Washington.
I suggest reading the whole article. It seems fairly balanced, and it was written before she became such a celebrity and it became harder to separate fact from legend.
Now, I agree that the particulars on the bridge to nowhere are being spun, and listeners are encouraged to think that she gave money back to Washington. I think it’s fair to push back against that spin.
But as a statement of fact what she has said is true. And the larger statement, that her administration pushed back, even against members of her own party, to reduce the earmark requests received by her state is also true.
Leaving aside the fact that she’s got an (R) after her name, don’t you wish more politicians acted this way? I can see a whole host of reasons why someone might not want her elected, but is this really the bridge you want to die on? (Pun intended)
Don’t be silly people The Bridge was an earmark of money allocated to Alasaka. Of course they could keep the money.
“Well, hmm. In one ad, Obama claims to have helped lock down loose nuclear weapons, when the substance of his supported amendment (Nunn-Lugar) appears to have rather related to things like Stingers and Strelas (man-portable air defense). (link) If Obama will lie about that, why won’t he lie about starting WWIII?”
The Georgians gave up their “Excess” MANPADS at the “suggestion” of the State Department. I bet the excess would have made a big difference in the ongoing conflict with the freedom loving Russian peacekeepers.
Davod: Yes, this is one of those interesting things. “What do you need all those xxx for / Nobody needs all those xxx…”… Expect to hear that if O gets elected. Only it won’t be MANPADS he’ll be talking about. “Nobody needs to own 1000 rounds of ammo. Nobody needs to own any weapon that can shoot more than 10 bullets as fast as you can pull the trigger… …Nobody needs to own 100 gallons of gas all at once….”
Sorry, this thread has gone walkabout. On topic: I don’t see a way in heck for what AL asks to take place, barring some medical excuse for Biden. Any more elective upheavals in the Dem ticket would be just as disadvantageous electorally (possibly more so).
I don’t believe Barak Obama could ever have selected Hilary Clinton, because she would have acted like she was the rightful president, and Bill Clinton would have acted like it was the good old days again. It would not have been possible to govern like that. Joe Biden was the smart pick, and the responsible pick.
That said, I don’t see Joe Biden reducing John McCain to strategic disarray and name-calling, which is what Sarah Palin has done to Barak Obama.
The vice-presidential nominee is the attack dog, while the presidential nominee reaches out to independents. (Which John McCain seems to have done with success in his speech, whether people who’ve been paying attention to the campaigns up to now found it boring or not.) One of these attack dogs is a pit bull. The other is just yappy.
I’d like to make another point about Sarah Palin being mostly unavailable to a hostile mainstream media. She has other jobs.
One is to go around with John McCain, showing her face to the faithful, introducing herself and her boss, and giving John McCain big crowds to talk to. A second is being briefed, and I hope thinking over what she’s being taught. A third, very time-consuming job will be fund-raising. She seems to be better at it than John McCain is for now, and Republicans further down the card will need all the help they can get.
Talking to the press, and saying more than what she already said in her speech, is her fourth most important job, tops. She has to do it. But she doesn’t have to move it to the head of her schedule right away.
Sarah Palin can take her time because she’s in demand, and because the hate-crazed mainstream media is diminishing the credibility it will use to play “gotcha!” on her as soon as she gives it an interview, that is an opening. The same gaffe – and gaffes are inevitable – will be less costly if those who intend to exploit it have spend a few days going ape crazy in public first. I sincerely think that at this point she could answer Andrew Sullivan’s suggestion that she’s too fragile to run for the job she’s running for by telling him to strap on boxing gloves and find out who’s fragile, and a lot of women would just say _”You tell ’em, love!”_ or whatever Americans say. The more patient she is, within reason, the less restraint she’ll have to show if and when she decides it’s time for her to drop the hammer on her attackers.
Forgive me, i was running a little fast with the facts saying 50% of the nation doesnt pay income tax.
Let me state it accurately: of those who filed tax returns (not children generally) the bottom 50% had an average federal income tax rate of 3.01% (as of 2006). BEFORE the Earned Income Tax Credit.
“source”:http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html
So to state it more accurately- once tje EITC is taken into account, the bottom 50% of tax filers pay _virtually_ no income tax. Many, many individuals will pay none. So indeed it remains impossible to give every working American a federal income tax cut.
Mark, your analysis still has problems. What constitutes a tax cut seems to be a matter of contention, but I suggest that if income tax rates are changed in such a way that recipients of the EITC get an even larger credit, then for them the new rate is a tax cut. As I wrote before, over 90 million tax returns were filed with tax paid to the Treasury, which makes it seem quite plausible to me that Obama’s cuts could reach 150 million Americans.
By the way, have you tried the same analysis on McCain’s claims about his tax cut?
_”I suggest that if income tax rates are changed in such a way that recipients of the EITC get an even larger credit, then for them the new rate is a tax cut.”_
Andrew, you have to admit that the idea of a ‘tax cut’ with the net effect of giving someone more money than they started with stands the term on its head. That is redistribution of wealth, plain and simple. Welfare for the working.
McCain’s plan isn’t very different from what we have today, aside from lowering corporate taxes (the highest in the world) which will likely spur tax revenue (a smaller tax bill is more likely to be paid rather than hid offshore or via accounting tricks). Its certainly not the depression creator Obama’s tax hikes are.
Mark, sight unseen, do you want to bet cash money that all the PR numbers about how many people benefitted from the Bush tax cuts include people whose income tax was reduced (or eliminated) even if their EITC was larger than their tax liability?
I should also mention that the Clinton tax plan was also supposed to destroy the economy. How’d that work out?
Neither of those points addresses my point. I expect spin and muddying of the waters in tax debates (its almost unavoidable with our insane tax codes). But Obama’s claim is false on its face. Unless you are willing to pull an ‘is, is’ with the language, there is just no way to cut the taxes of millions of people who dont pay income tax.
Now if he were advocating cutting payroll taxes, that would at least be debatable (dont get me started about the democrat game of claiming its a tax under some circumstances, but a retirement investment under other circumstances).
Obama’s ‘tax’ plan is basically the Robin Hood principle. He’s going to take money from the rich and give it the the poor, and call it a negative tax, essentially. That’s just dishonest.
AJL – one of these days I’ll have time to do some serious research, because I’ve got a topic – I’m betting that a lot of the Clinton economic boom was based on regulatory changes; they changed a lot of the rules and made financial engineering much more profitable, and that drove an explosion in corporate value – which drove a boom in everything else.
It’s been a pet theory of mine for a while.
I’ll also note that a lot of the financial industry craters are based on revisions of regulations to tighten some of the Clinton-Bush deregulation, based in part on the rise (and tanking) of hedge funds like Long-Term Capital Management.
What’re your thoughts on that?
A.L.
Sight unseen, Mark (and I don’t often do this without Google), I’m willing to bet that the same process you refuse to accept as “Obama will cut your taxes” was accepted as “Bush did cut your taxes”. As it happens, I don’t think either of the statements is false, at least, not in the way you are suggesting. (Tax cuts that cause 12-digit deficits?! Somebody has to pay that back.)
These EITC recipients most certainly do pay income tax. They just get back more than the amount of income tax they pay in a refundable credit.
I have no doubt that if Obama were, for some reason, to increase the bottom-most tax rate, you would be criticizing his tax increases even for those whose EITC refund shrank, as opposed to positively paying taxes.
A.L.: The number one reason for the boom was probably Moore’s Law, IMHO. Number two was probably serious attempt at deficit reduction, which became possible when increased productivity and higher tax rates weren’t squandered on tax cuts for people making hundreds of thousands a year. However, I’m sure that alternative financing instruments had a lot to do with something, just not sure what. How do options figure in? Don’t know.
I have no doubt we would have hit a very hard recession if Greenspan hadn’t turned houses into ATMs, and that had a lot to do with strangeness. How nasty that burst bubble will be? Not yet clear.
one of these days I’ll have time to do some serious research, because I’ve got a topic – I’m betting that a lot of the Clinton economic boom was based on regulatory changes; they changed a lot of the rules and made financial engineering much more profitable, and that drove an explosion in corporate value – which drove a boom in everything else.
I’d be interested in seeing that research. My pet theory is that the fed has been printing money like no one’s business for the last 10 years or so, but the inflation (inflation being always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon) has been in “assets”. First equities, then real estate, and then commodities. It’s now finally shown up in goods.
AJL – not sure I agree wrt Moore’s Law – the dot-com boom started after the Clinton boom. And the deficit reduction was because tax collections zoomed while the Clintons did a good job (unlike Bush) of keeping everyone’s hands out of the till.
A.L.
_”These EITC recipients most certainly do pay income tax. They just get back more than the amount of income tax they pay in a refundable credit.”_
Thats not a payment, thats an investment.
Andrew, in a slightly wider canvass, does it bother you that we’re on the cusp of the point where a majority of the electorate are consumers of taxes while a minority provides all of it? From a purely mercenary point of view, whats to stop the majority from leaning more and more on the minority. This seems to me like one of the few places in our government with no checks and balances against tyranny of the majority.
bq. A.L.: The number one reason for the boom was probably Moore’s Law, IMHO.
I’d phrase it differently: it was the creation of an entirely new industry, not just the optimization of existing ones (a la the Industrial Revolution). That industry boomed, burst, and stabilized over the course of the last 16 years; Clinton just had the dumb luck to be President during the boom (and during the first year of the bust, which everyone conveniently forgets when the legend of Saint Bubba’s Magickal Economy is told).
My own pet theory is that the advent of instantaneous communications rewrote the classic economic concept of competitive advantage. Basically a firm has to have some advantage in order to turn a profit, or else arbitrage comes into play and reduces profits; that advantage could be location, economy of scale, technology/patent, natural monopoly, first mover, brand recognition, etc. I suspect that many forms of advantage were based on firms exploiting areas of inefficient communication in the marketplace, and that instant communications allowed some firms to suddenly turn huge profits in industries where communication barriers kept certain business models profitable. The lag time between newer models putting these older models out of business merely looked like a time of economic boom, when it was actually a time of creative destruction.
A full analysis would be off-topic and painfully long; but the gist of it is that the economic prosperity would necessarily exist outside of tax rates or government regulation/boosterism.
bq. Number two was probably serious attempt at deficit reduction, which became possible when increased productivity and higher tax rates weren’t squandered on tax cuts for people making hundreds of thousands a year.
Oh really? So the capital gains tax _cuts_ of 1997 have nothing to do with it?