Mccain « Commentarius

November 4, 2008

Punishing the Party

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: Adelman, Mccain, McCardle, punishing the party

A lot of libertarian and conservative commentators have been arguing that we should punish the Republican party for its abdication of fiscal controls. But a lot of the rhetoric is a pretty poorly thought-through.

Take libertarian Megan McCardle’s off-the-cuff comment here:

But for me, I think one thing is clear: the Republican party cannot survive without some time in the wilderness.

So conservatives are going to lose if they don’t lose. What? If we don’t spend time in the wilderness, won’t that mean we are surviving?

Or conservative Ken Adelman in his endorsement of Obama:

Granted, McCain’s views are closer to mine than Obama’s. But I’ve learned over this Bush era to value competence along with ideology. Otherwise, our ideology gets discredited, as it has so disastrously over the past eight years.

McCain’s temperament — leading him to bizarre behavior during the week the economic crisis broke — and his judgment — leading him to Wasilla — depressed me into thinking that “our guy” would be a(nother) lousy conservative president. Been there, done that.

I’d rather a competent moderate president. Even at a risk, since Obama lacks lots of executive experience displaying competence (though his presidential campaign has been spot-on). And since his Senate voting record is not moderate, but depressingly liberal. Looming in the background, Pelosi and Reid really scare me.

Ok, so an incompetent Republican will discredit the conservative ideology. Won’t a competent Democrat do the same thing – or the mirror image, gain credit for the progressive ideology? Shouldn’t Adelman be looking for an incompetent Democrat to endorse if he wants to shore up conservatism’s long-term health?

I’m unsure if there are any good arguments for punishing your own party by voting for the opposition. But I am sure that most of the arguments I have read have been pretty thin.

said Wallace Forman @ 4:47 PM. Comments (1)

October 19, 2008

What are the Candidates’ Tax Policies?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: Mccain, Obama, taxes

There was a lot of talk about tax policy in the third debate, but much of it vague. Curious what the tax policies are? Well here is an apparently respectable summary by the Brookings Institute.

The takeaway point:

The two candidates’ tax plans would have sharply different distributional effects. Senator McCain’s tax cuts would primarily benefit those with very high incomes, almost all of whom would receive large tax cuts that would, on average, raise their after-tax incomes by more than twice the average for all households. Many fewer households at the bottom of the income distribution would get tax cuts and those tax cuts would be small as a share of after-tax income. In marked contrast, Senator Obama offers much larger tax breaks to low- and middle-income taxpayers and would increase taxes on high-income taxpayers. The largest tax cuts, as a share of income, would go to those at the bottom of the income distribution, while taxpayers with the highest income would see their taxes rise significantly.

It’s a hard sell for Republicans. Because the Republican goal for the income tax is a flat tax (a single percentage of income regardless of income) and the current income tax is progressive (higher rates for higher income levels), Republican proposals are inevitably exposed to the charge that they primarily benefit the wealthy.

And how does the Republican party recover from Obama’s proposed entrenching of the progressive system of taxation? Does the next Republican administration simply reverse the tax hike for those affected? Imagine the outroar if a tax cut were to benefit only the wealthiest 5% of Americans. The desire to avoid this is probably why McCain has tacked on meager tax cuts for middle and lower class Americans as well. The most straightforward way, of course, to flatten the tax rate would be to drastically lower the rate for the wealth while increasing the tax rate for the middle/lower class. Where does that lie on the impossibility spectrum?

A fair tax policy is a hard sell, and Obama’s inevitable victory will make it harder. Yet another reason for me to be depressed by the Obama victory.

said Wallace Forman @ 11:36 AM. Comments (0)

October 7, 2008

Debate Live Blog

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: debate, Mccain, Obama, second presidential debate

For all the people dying to get my take on the debate (Mom? Dad???) here it is, the Commentarius live-blog of the second Presidential Debate!

Times will reflect CST. I’m getting started late here, so you’ll have to go elsewhere for takes on the first 20 minutes.

Click Here for Live Blog!!!

825- Ok, missed some of the earlier debate. But here’s a summary:

McCain did a good job explaining that Obama wanted drastic increases in expenditures. Before that he missed on his defense of the bailout. He should have started his explanation exactly the way Obama did – explaining that the bailout might be necessary to save the financial system.

Also, Obama called out McCain for saying the fundamentals of the economy were strong, then minutes later said he wasn’t pessimistic and that the American economy was strong. So only Obama can be optimistic?

826- Obama just compared getting off foreign oil in 10 years to going to the moon: “We can do it even if we don’t know how now.” This is what why conservatives are justifiably suspicious of environmentalist policy proposals. Even if the science behind global warming is strong, the science – and the economics - behind the solution is often non-existent.

Now he’s saying oil companies don’t deserve tax breaks. Does he mean the tax “break” they get when the corporate tax rate is reduced across the board? If he were selling a higher tax for oil companies as an emission reducing measure I’d be on board, but he’s selling it as punitive populism: oil companies should be taxed extra because they’re bad.

833- McCain: Earmarks! Obama: economic populism!

834: Obama is hitting McCain’s obsession with earmarks. As I’ve said before, I think this obsession is small-minded on McCain’s part.

I think this is the moment for McCain to call Obama out on the enormous amounts of money that he is going to spend, and the billions in taxes that he is going to levy.

836: I want to hear how many billions, McCain.

837: McCain is doing a decent job explaining how wrong-headed and inopportune Obama’s economic policies are. Too little too late though.

Obama just got cut off by Tom Brokaw. It made him look pretty weak.

839- Obama: I’m only taking money from rich people. Rob the rich with me!

Everyone knows the rich are evil and don’t deserve their money. But if having money makes one such a horrible person, maybe we shouldn’t all be pouring it on our government.

842- This has been a much better debate so far. Much less rhetoric, more policy than the last one. I guess they figure only wonks watch the second debate.

845- McCain defends nuclear power. Good. Obama sells snake-oil economics: “We can make over 5 million new green jobs.” Um… Yes, by raising taxes on all the rest of the jobs and forcing who knows how many lay-offs. 4 million? 6? Subsidies make the economy less efficient, not more.

848- Brokaw complains about time limits, McCain waves arms around awkwardly.

850- Obama takes a question about whether we should treat health-care as a commodity. He explains his complicated and extremely flawed plan without explicitly answering the question. Though you could probably read a no in there…

853- McCain is saying a lot of health care words. He’s not as eloquent as Obama and also doesn’t really answer the question. (The correct answer is yes.)

854- Brokaw notices that McCain has not answered the question. He pins him down and McCain sort… of… says no. “Yes I believe its a right but I’m not comfortable with government mandates.” So you support universal health care but not a mandate, McCain?

Oh, now Obama jumps in and says no explicitly. “Health Care is a right.” There you have it. The battle against the welfare state is lost. Both candidates think that health care is a right that rich people should have to buy for you.

900- McCain: “America is the greatest force for good in the world.” Greater than OBAMA???

902- Talking about Iraq… Nothing we haven’t heard before. Right on the surge v. right from the start, vice versa.

Here is where McCain should step it up and accuse Obama of abandoning people to suffering under the petty tyrants of the world.

904- Brokaw pins them down on the morality of looking away from genocides.

Obama: “When we stand idly by as genocide happens, that diminishes us.” That’s why I find your foreign policy repellent, Obama. I have no faith in your will to intevene. You’ll have at least 4 years to prove me wrong.

McCain misses a big moment. He should have accused Obama of wanting to abandon Iraqis to a possible genocide. Instead he complains about Obama wanting to surrender. Ugh!

909- Question: should we violate Pakistani borders to fight Al Qaeda?

Obama takes the opportunity to slam past military conduct. Bloviates for a long time before saying that we have to be stern with Pakistan. Says we’ll violate borders if we have Bin Laden in our sights. But for that only?

McCain says some nonsense about how we can’t admit publicly that we are going to violate borders. “This turns countries against us.” But by saying we can’t admit it, you’ve admitted it anyway. Weak.

Obama demands a response and uses it well. Calls out how inappropriate some of McCain’s previous behavior has been (e.g. singing “bomb bomb Iran”). You brought this on yourself with your last weak argument, McCain.

915- McCain acts concerned. Whatever.

916- Brokaw asks whether or not we will accept a dictator in Afghanistan. Obama leaves open that possibility in his long answer about tactics. I find your lack of faith in democracy disturbing, Obama. McCain says some stuff about tactics and that “We will succeed”. Ok… so dictator or no dictator? Did I miss the answer?

920- Question about Russia – I missed some of McCain’s answer but he supports aid to Georgia and pressure on Russia. Cool.

Obama says that McCain is wrong, we should give aid to Georgia and put pressure on Russia.

925- McCain has gotten worse as time went on. Every time he dives into rhetoric it gets awkward. When he talks policy he sounds good. Is he just not able to talk policy easily and fluently in this setting, or does he think that the rhetoric sells? The former would be more understandable, I think. Debating in public is tough.

929- Everyone loves Israel. I don’t think we’ve heard any substantive disagreement here, but I wasn’t really paying attention.

930- Tom Brokaw: “What don’t you know.”

Obama ignores the question and starts talking about what he knows: poverty is evil, we can fix it by taking money from evil rich people. Killing two birds with one stone?

932- McCain”I don’t know what will happen tomorrow.” A fair enough answer, and unlike Obama, an actual answer to the question, though not one that converts it into useful information. He also talks about what he knows, which sounds a lot like what Obama knows.

935- Its over… Well this has been the least intellectually strenuous blog-activity I’ve undertaken. Maybe I’ll have a more substantive post on Obama’s health care policy in a little.

Who won? I’m leaning toward a tie… I thought McCain did better for the first half, but had a few bad moments and missed opportunities at the end. But let me look through what I’ve written and see if it tips me one way or the other.

UPDATE: Ok… I’ve reviewed my liveblog. I think I’ve made it clear that I disagree with Obama’s policies, but it would be hard to read a McCain win into what I have written. I think my frustration that McCain didn’t cream Obama comes through more strongly than my appreciation for the decent job he did.

But few people’s opinions will be changed by this debate. We are entering a dark time for the Republican party and for the values that I hold dear. If the last eight years had been better spent, I might not be so disappointed.

said Wallace Forman @ 8:29 PM. Comments (1)

September 29, 2008

Funding the Troops

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: debate, funds for troops, iraq, Mccain, Obama, timetable

During the presidential debate there was an argument over whether Obama supported cutting funding for the troops in Iraq. I think the moment deserves a comment.

Check out starting around 1:30 into this video:

[youtube]0xomfrpyObI[/youtube]

I’m not sure I have my finger on the pulse of the emotional import of the accusations of refusing to fund troops. The accusation as it is generally understood may imply some sort of anti-military animus or lack of patriotism. Some people who use this argument may mean to suggest that Obama wanted the troops to fight with insufficient pay or weapons. But of course that’s a misunderstanding of the funding tactic.

What cutting funds would have done is force Bush to withdraw the troops. Without funds, the troops cannot fight. McCain raised the point of Obama’s opposition to funds as part of a contention that Obama had not supported Bush’s determination to continue fighting in Iraq. Obama then argued that McCain was being misleading – he only voted against funding the war in Iraq because President Bush had refused to set a timetable for withdrawal. He tries to brush off the funding issue as just leverage for an alternative Democratic strategy.

Obama’s defense is simple obfuscation. Establishing a strict timetable is not simply a different “strategy” – it is tantamount to setting a date for surrender. It commits the US to giving up at a certain date. In other words, by voting against funds because of the timetable issue, Obama was trying to force US troops to leave now if they weren’t guaranteed to leave later. McCain’s critique, that Obama was opposing, not supporting, continued efforts in Iraq, was valid. Obama’s counter – that McCain was being misleading – was itself the misleading argument.

said Wallace Forman @ 2:33 PM. Comments (0)

September 26, 2008

Watching the Debate

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: debate, Mccain, Obama

McCain keeps complaining about millions of dollars, and Obama keeps coming back with billions. I think this is a signature problem of McCain’s. He doesn’t appear to have any overriding proposals for revamping government; instead he betrays a small-minded obsession with minor spending scandals.

Sure, I much prefer McCain’s plan to save us hundreds of millions of dollars to Obama’s plan to increase taxes by billions, but it makes for mismatched rhetoric.

UPDATE:

Check out, for example, the quibbling that begins around three minutes into this video:

[youtube]DpAr_TW_IcA[/youtube]

said Wallace Forman @ 8:35 PM. Comments (0)

September 12, 2008

Partisan Slanders

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: conservatism, innuendo, Mccain, Obama, race, racists, religion

Democrat accusations of religion-bating have persisted through the campaign. It’s a well-established among progressives that Republicans exploit racial or religious bigotry by spreading false rumors about liberal candidates’ affiliation with various disfavored groups – Muslims, blacks, jews, homosexuals, etc.

Obama himself is so worried that he set up a “Fight the Smears” section on his website. Recently, he complained about Republican intransigence in a television interview:

Mr. Obama, who is a Christian and often proudly speaks about how his faith has influenced his public service, said he finds it “deeply offensive” that there are efforts “coming out of the Republican camp to suggest that perhaps I’m not who I say I am when it comes to my faith.”

The exchange came after Mr. Obama said that Republicans are attempting to scare voters by suggesting he is not Christian, which McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said was “cynical.”

Asked about it on ABC, Mr. Obama said, “These guys love to throw a rock and hide their hand.”

What has always bothered me about the race/religion/etc-baiting complaint, is that I have never actually met anyone who was race-baited. Perhaps that’s only testament to the enlightened company I keep…

What I do see is the constant traffic in liberal horror-stories on leftist blogs, email lists, and among my Democratic friends. They agree that identity baiting is a constant, organized tactic, a substantial portion of Republicans either are racist or employ racism, and that, specifically, Barack Obama’s candidacy has been hurt by widespread bigotry.

Since high school, and throughout college, most of my friends have identified casually as liberal, socially liberal and fiscally conservative, or libertarian. When I pressed them to identify the root of their political affiliation, they usually pointed to revulsion at conservative homophobia, religious zealotry, nativist paranoia, and ethnic bigotry. Only a few embraced redistributive principles; most defined themselves by what they opposed.

To them, conservatism was the evil in society. Conservatives had been the racist bigots of To Kill a Mockingbird and Beloved, the theocrats of Inherit the Wind and The Crucible, and the fascists of Number the Stars. In history they had been the Inquisition in Spain, the Catholic Church that persecuted Galileo, the plantation owners in early Latin Americas, the British in the revolutionary war, and, again, the fascists. It didn’t matter if the pigs of Animal Farm and the Roosevelt who had ordered the Japanese Internment were technically leftists. Even if left governments could be bad, the badness in society was always conservative.

So if reports of isolated conservative intransigence do not bother me much, it is not because I believe the reports are false, nor because I think that conservative slanders are acceptable. I do not. They do not push me to the left because they seem to me to fuel a much more powerful slander: the leftist rhetoric that conservatives are by default bigots and fanatics, that an identification with the right is a mark of stubborn ignorance and an endorsement of arbitrary hatred.

As idiotic as rumors about Obama’s Muslim heritage may be, his counter-accusation that McCain would deliberately and explicitly appeal to racism was just as unfounded and immeasurably more potent. Where Republicans turn against fellow partisans who hint at racist sentiments, Democrats can comfortably attribute the unholiest of taboos – racism – to their opponents without evidence or fear of consequences.

Ultimately, it’s all a distraction. Rumors about Barack’s religion and Republican bigotry are irrelevant to the real policy questions. They have no bearing on the merits of the welfare state, the importance of universal healthcare, or the proper vigor of our foreign policy stance. If it all comes down in the left’s favor anyway, if half of the progressive ranks define themselves against an ugliness that is nine-tenths fantasy, then I’ll count the score as settled. I’ll go ahead and vote for the policies I favor, rather than the bogeyman of the culture I oppose.

said Wallace Forman @ 4:12 PM. Comments (0)

August 29, 2008

Campaign Silence

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: Mccain, Palin, Pawlenty, VP

The McCain campaign did a great job controlling the release of the Senator’s VP pick. Some people had worried that the news would leak on Thursday; on Fox News last night, at least one commentator accused the campaign of doing just that when rumors about Pawlenty were still in the air.

But it’s Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. My cautious first reaction is that this is a good pick. Palin is young, appealing-looking, and apparently very popular in Alaska. Clearly the McCain campaign is trying to chase women voters disappointed by Clinton’s exclusion from the Obama ticket. Tina-Fey-look-alike-Palin is probably as good a choice as any for that tactic.

Palin has been in office for just a short time – since 2006. To some extent, the McCain campaign is probably daring Obama to say that she is not experienced enough. Her short career leaves me a little unclear as to her broader policy platform. But her rise to the governorship, how she clawed her way past superiors she accused of corruption, makes for an interesting enough story. As long as she proves to be a fiscal conservative, I’ll be satisfied.

said Wallace Forman @ 10:37 AM. Comments (0)

August 28, 2008

Rumors…

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: Mccain, Pawlenty, Romney, VP

… right now say that McCain has chosen Pawlenty as his running mate. His Intrade stock is currently around 80% right now, and Romney is down at 15%.

I’m a little disappointed. Maybe I just don’t know Pawlenty well now (right now it seems like no one knows him). But it seems like he is a pretty low-key, undynamic politician. Romney brings some baggage, and it’s unfortunate that McCain laid into him a few times at the convention, but I don’t know anyone who has had a more enthusiastic following among Republicans.

McCain’s campaign has suffered from its slow pace and lack of vigor. Romney might have brought some excitement back to the campaign. I’m not sure Pawlenty, whoever he is, can.

said Wallace Forman @ 8:50 PM. Comments (0)

August 27, 2008

McCain to Announce VP Friday

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: Hutchison, Mccain, Romney, VP

Thats the word. Romney’s Intrade stock took a ~20% hit today but he is still on top. The biggest gain has been for Texas Sen. Kay Hutchison. Though McCain is not expected to announce until Friday, I’m sure the news will leak, at least on Intrade, sometime Thursday!

UPDATE: Romney’s back up at 70%, Hutchison back down in the single digits. I guess her bounce was just a reaction to the story above, and not to any larger leak. Watch the numbers tonight!

said Wallace Forman @ 11:13 PM. Comments (0)

August 25, 2008

Back to Intrade…

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: Biden, intrade, Mccain, mormons, Romney

For those of us who were secretly rooting for Romney back in the primaries (me), conventional wisdom has some good news. According to the Intrade Prediction Markets, Romney is the betting favorite to be selected for McCain’s VP!

For reference, here is how Biden’s Intrade stock did in the last month.

Looking through the last-week performances of the other Democratic contenders, it seems like the markets did a pretty good job: Biden was the favorite at around 40% probability. Is conventional wisdom just that good? Or are these markets strongly affected by rumors and insider trading leaking from the campaigns?

For a related question, why has Romney’s stock skyrocketed from around 30% to 60% in the last two days? Has their been some audible murmurs from the McCain staffers? Or did the Biden announcement just get a bunch of people curious and generate a new round of Intrade betting? I know that that’s what drove me to Intrade.

How should we feel about a Romney selection? I have mixed feelings about it. I think he’d be a very competent VP, but I’m not sure how palatable he is to the American electorate. But then, I’m not sure any Republican but John McCain is palatable to anyone right now. Romney will hold down the Mormon vote for Republicans at least.

said Wallace Forman @ 6:10 PM. Comments (0)

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