Common Dreams
Bogus Voter Fraud Allegations Are Part of Voter Suppression Strategy
CLEVELAND - October 16 - In order to protect the integrity of Ohio's elections, the American Civil Liberties Union today called on the Ohio Republican Party to stop intimidating lawful voters. On Wednesday, the party asked all of the state's 88 county Boards of Elections to hand over information about all newly registered voters and those who have legally registered and cast an absentee ballot on the same day. These records will likely be used to challenge innocent voters, according to the ACLU.
"We all deserve better than a system that's tainted by partisan maneuvering - by any party - in the weeks before a hotly contested election," said Carrie Davis, staff counsel with the ACLU of Ohio. "The Ohio Republican Party ought to stop harassing innocent voters. First they challenged newly registered voters' right to vote absentee, and now, after the courts turned them down, the party is continuing to imply wrongdoing by undertaking a sweeping investigation of legitimate voters for simply having the nerve to lawfully cast a ballot. Voting is a right. It should not be treated as a crime."
The Ohio Supreme Court and U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio ruled on September 29, 2008 that same-day registration and voting during the five day window is legal under Ohio law. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio declined to stop the program subsequent to the Ohio Supreme Court's ruling. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the five day window as well.
Last week, officials in Greene County sought similar information from the county's Board of Elections. Citing a complete lack of evidence of "voter fraud," the ACLU sent a letter in opposition to the request and it was subsequently withdrawn.
"Voter suppression by any other name is still the same. It is un-American to intimidate voters and make more people afraid of participating in the political process," said Meredith Bell-Platts, staff counsel with the ACLU Voting Rights Project. "This is a part of a broad effort to use bogus claims of ‘voter fraud' to remove eligible voters from the rolls and challenge them at the polls. We should be expanding and protecting the right to vote, not threatening it."
By Robert Parry - Consortium News
One danger of a political campaign is not just losing an election, but losing one’s dignity, becoming a laughingstock or a caricature. After three flailing debate performances – including Wednesday night’s twitchy anger – that is a danger now confronting John McCain.
Despite Barack Obama’s limited experience, it is McCain who is coming across as the unelectable one. Not only is McCain short of ideas that come anywhere close to matching the magnitude of the nation’s problems, but his petulant-old-man demeanor isn’t what many Americans want to invite into their living rooms over next four challenging years.
McCain also appears to lack a sense of balance or even reality, such as when he insisted that he was the true victim of negative attacks – and, in essence, telling Americans they shouldn’t believe their lying eyes.
For the past two weeks, Americans have watched McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, regale audiences with her over-the-top charge that Obama is “palling around with terrorists.” Some of Palin’s attacks on Obama have prompted cries of “kill him” or “off with his head,” as Palin tells her audiences that they “get it.”
McCain himself has invited ugly crowd reactions with allusions to Obama’s tenuous links to ex-Vietnam War-era radical William Ayers and the ominous question, “Who is the real Barack Obama?” drawing answers like “terrorist.”
Yet, in Wednesday night’s debate, McCain insisted that he was the real victim on this front because Rep. John Lewis, a veteran of Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights marches, warned that the tone of the Republican campaign could unleash violence in the same indirect way that segregationist Gov. George Wallace did in the 1960s.
So, instead of chastising Palin for her “palling around” remarks or expressing some self-criticism for his own provocative comments, McCain cited Lewis’s cautionary statement as an example of “unacceptable” and “totally inappropriate” rhetoric.
McCain said Lewis “made allegations that Sarah Palin and I were somehow associated with the worst chapter in American history, segregation, deaths of children in church bombings, George Wallace. That, to me, was so hurtful.”
In other words, it’s okay to associate Obama with terrorism and question his patriotism, but it’s wrong to warn McCain about risks involved in such incendiary comments.
McCain also bristled at the criticism of his sometimes unruly crowds.
“Let me just say categorically I'm proud of the people that come to our rallies,” McCain said. “I am not going to stand for anybody saying that the people who come to our rallies are anything other than patriotic citizens.”
In demanding that Obama join in denouncing Lewis, McCain insisted that “every time there’s been an out-of-bounds remark made by a Republican, no matter where they are, I have repudiated them.” However, he has not rejected Palin’s “palling around” formulation nor spoken up when her comment elicited death threats toward Obama.
Defensiveness
Americans are learning about McCain what many in Washington have known for years. For a politician, the Arizona senator is extremely thin-skinned, getting his back up whenever he perceives someone questioning his honor.
McCain watchers have long taken note of his quick temper and readiness to question the integrity of others. That behavior has led to angry confrontations with Senate colleagues and earned McCain the nickname “Sen. McNasty.”
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa once said he was so upset at being the target of a McCain tirade that the two Republicans didn’t speak for two years.
Earlier this year, Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi told the Boston Globe that “the thought of [McCain] being President sends a cold chill down my spine. … He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”
McCain’s also known for a cruel sense of humor, such as in 1998 when he mocked Bill and Hillary Clinton’s teen-age daughter, Chelsea.
"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?” McCain asked a group of Republicans at a fund-raiser. “Because her father is Janet Reno."
McCain later apologized, and his friends in the national news media literally hid the joke from public view, supposedly to spare Chelsea’s feelings but also protecting McCain’s reputation. [See David Corn’s account in Salon.com.]
However, McCain’s recent Irritable and erratic behavior has grown so pronounced that it is becoming a topic of worried conversation in Washington, with hushed concerns at dinner parties about whether the 72-year-old senator is on medications related to his past cancers or on behavioral drugs seeking to control the excesses of his temper.
Last spring, the McCain campaign reacted to doubts about the candidate’s recovery from repeated bouts of skin cancer by giving a select group of reporters access to some of McCain’s medical records. The reporters, including CNN’s medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, were limited to three hours and not allowed to copy any of the records.
Gupta said later that while the records he reviewed showed no evidence that McCain’s stage-two melanoma has recurred, he could not say whether all relevant documents were included in the piles given to the reporters.
The Palin Pick
The lingering doubts about McCain’s physical – and possibly mental – health were put back in the spotlight because of McCain’s surprise choice of first-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate.
Though the charismatic Palin gave an immediate jolt of excitement to McCain’s campaign, her lack of experience and her shaky performance in responding to simple questions in her few media interviews have alarmed many voters over the thought that she could be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
However, perhaps the biggest problem with McCain’s performance in the third debate was that he not only failed to knock Obama off-stride but that McCain ended up reinforcing some of the concerns that voters have about him.
McCain’s herky-jerky facial expressions reminded voters of his age, anger and health issues. His insistence that he was the real victim of negative campaigning simply didn’t fit with what voters have been seeing for weeks. His sarcasm and harsh attacks on Obama raised questions about whether McCain has the right temperament to be President.
Throughout the debate, McCain spoke about Obama with open disdain and sarcasm. He twice praised Obama’s “eloquence” with the sneering suggestion that Obama was guilty of slick double talk.
When Obama argued that restrictions on abortions should have exceptions for the life and health of the mother, McCain used air-quotes around the word, "health," saying: "That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, 'health.'"
In short, McCain came across to many voters as petulant, self-pitying and (with his focus on an obscure 1960s radical) living in the past. Also, by overdoing the references to “Joe the Plumber,” McCain sounded like someone who gets a laugh over a clever comment and then won’t let go.
Though McCain's pundit friends insisted after Wednesday night's debate that McCain had helped himself by putting Obama on the defensive, public opinion polls revealed that McCain actually completed a kind of negative debate trifecta as far as voters were concerned.
His first debate is now remembered for his refusal to look at Obama; the second was notable for McCain’s wandering around the stage and calling his opponent “that one”; and the third may be recalled for McCain putting his face through contortions of disdain for his rival and ending up looking a bit like silent movie actor Lon Chaney.
Meanwhile, Obama – though not doing much to distinguish himself in Wednesday's debate – maintained an unflappable cool, swatting away the personal attacks with concise responses that made McCain’s attacks sound like right-wing conspiracy theories.
Yet possibly worse for McCain, his final, shaky debate performance came at a time when a shaken nation was looking for a steady, vibrant leader who could address today’s challenges and formulate a coherent vision for the future.
In failing to do that – and instead presenting himself as a cranky old man consumed with anger – McCain may have done more to seal the deal for Obama than Obama did for himself.
By Carey Purcell, AlterNet
I had a job and health insurance when I got sick, but my claim was denied. And that was just the beginning.
"I'm too young for this," I thought. It wasn't the first time that those words had crossed my mind in the past few months. I thought it when I was diagnosed with advanced thyroid cancer. I thought it when the company I was working for began facing financial problems and my paychecks were bouncing. I thought it when I learned I would be dependent on a prescription drug every day for the rest of my life. And I thought it again when I got the bill. In spite of having insurance, I had been billed in full for my surgery and two nights in the hospital. The total was $20,759.89. I was 23 years old.
I had never felt healthier when I found out I had cancer. I was seeing an allergist in March of 2007 to get a refill of my asthma medicine when she noticed a large lump in the center of my throat. I was immediately sent for an ultrasound and a biopsy. The tumor was more than five centimeters wide and had apparently been growing there for months. The consensus was unanimous: It had to come out.
My first thought was, "I can't afford this." I was making an entry-level salary in the publishing industry and barely scraping by as it was. I didn't know much about cancer, but I knew it wasn't cheap.
Compared to other cancers, thyroid cancer is relatively easy to treat. I would undergo radiation, not chemotherapy. The treatments would carry few, if any, side effects. Still, I needed health insurance to pay for the radiation, and I was about to lose mine. My supervisor at work told me that she could only guarantee coverage for eight more weeks.
Up until that point, my perspective toward health insurance could be described as ignorant bliss. I had insurance through my school until graduation, and my mother helped me set up insurance to cover me until I landed a job. I had no idea how expensive it was or how horrific living without it could be.
I was rushed into surgery, and as soon as I could, I began the radiation treatment. By the first of June, I was stabilized. Other than some pain, swelling and a small scar in the center of my neck, I thought I was done.
By September, I found a new job. Though its benefits didn't kick in until I had worked there for 90 days, I was getting health coverage through COBRA, a continuation of the benefits I had through the insurance my former job had provided. At $300 a month, it was more than I could afford on a receptionist's salary, but I had to take the drug Synthroid every day and couldn't pay for my prescription without it. I also needed frequent -- and costly -- blood tests to monitor the calcium deficiency the surgery left me with. I couldn't not have insurance.
Then I got the bill. It came in the mail almost six months after my operation. The total for the surgery, the painkillers and the two nights in the hospital was a few thousand less than what I make in a year. But its amount was probably less shocking than the fact that there was a bill at all. I couldn't understand why my claim was being denied by my insurance company. Before I had the surgery, I had cleared everything. I had been told by more than one person that all of my surgery-related costs would be completely covered. Aside from the co-pays for each appointment, I was not supposed to be billed for a cent.
I began making phone calls, attempting to figure out what was going on. I could only call on weekdays, during my lunch break, and by the time I got through the 800 number's main menus and actually was able to speak to an actual person, I was out of time. On more than one occasion, my cell phone dropped the call. I did not have a private desk or phone, so I had to make the calls standing in the break room of my office.
It took two months, countless phone calls and more than one very high cell phone bill before I got through to someone who told me that my claim was denied because I had a lapse in coverage, so the cancer was considered a pre-existing condition.
Proving that she was wrong was easy enough. I got a certificate of creditable coverage from my insurance company and faxed it to the hospital. Right before Thanksgiving, I received confirmation that the bill was cleared. But the problems weren't over yet.
I had been on COBRA since June and had planned on continuing with it until December, when I would get insurance through my new job. In the middle of October, the accountant from my old company informed me that my coverage was being canceled because the company was declared insolvent. I tried to get coverage through Healthy New York, a program designed to help uninsured people obtain affordable coverage, but I made too much money to qualify for it. I tried to buy into my new insurance early but that wasn't possible. I tried to buy a plan from my old company's insurance broker at the last minute, but there wasn't enough time for the purchase to be processed in time. Nothing worked, and I was without coverage from October until December.
I was terrified. My friends laughed at the paranoid behavior I developed to protect my health: I refused to cross the street until there was a walk sign. I was scared to walk down the five flights of stairs in my apartment building. I wanted to go ice-skating at Rockefeller Center before Christmas, but I wouldn't go until I was covered under my new plan, in case I fell and hurt myself.
Being uninsured not only made me afraid to leave my apartment, but it brought up the issue of the pre-existing condition again. My lapse in coverage was 64 days, and the pre-existing condition clause with my new insurance required a lapse of 60 days or less. Even though my radiation treatment was successful, I am not done with doctor's appointments. I still have to have my blood tested. I still have to have my neck scanned. An uninsured office consultation costs $150.02. An echography costs $80.26. A fine needle aspiration with imagery is $118.90. These are all routine procedures that I am required to get every few months. I would have to pay out of pocket for the rest of my life, and there was no way I could afford it.
I didn't know what to do or who to go to. I had exhausted every opportunity I could think of, and I was about to give up. I even thought about moving back in with my parents in South Carolina because there was no way that I could afford to live in New York and pay those bills.
In the waiting room at the doctor's office or the hospital, people would ask me what I was there for. When I said I had cancer, everyone had the same reaction: "You're so young." But illness cannot be determined by age, and sadly, neither can financial disaster.
Stories in the media that describe people without health insurance typically fall into similar categories -- destitute, unemployed, homeless. I am a college graduate who was renting an apartment, working a full-time job and babysitting for extra cash. But if things hadn't changed, I might have ended up like all of the above.
By pure luck, I learned that the new insurance coverage I was getting ignores pre-existing conditions. As long as I stayed on that plan, I would be covered. That takes care of me at the moment, but who knows what will happen when I change jobs and as a result change insurances? I still might have to pay out of pocket in the future. I am cancer free but have to go to plenty of appointments to stay that way.
Repairing the health care system has been mentioned countless times this election season. It's widely acknowledged that the system is flawed. What will it take to change it? When a 23-year-old college graduate making less than $30,000 a year gets cancer, what can she do? I am lucky that my story has a happy ending, but I also know that many others don't.
The phrase "health care" has become a paradox. The economy is sinking and the dollar's worth is depreciating by the day. The only affordable way for many people to get health insurance is through a job, but increasingly, companies are downsizing and not obligated to provide coverage. And a McCain presidency would gut employer-based insurance across the board. Instead, he wants to replace it with tax credits of $2,500 per individual or $5,000 per family and eliminate the tax subsidies that support employer-based health insurance. Considering the average price of health insurance is $12,000 a year for a family purchasing coverage on the open market, McCain's plan would fall far short of providing the level of assistance people need. On top of that, it would make getting insurance nearly impossible for people with pre-existing conditions.
With employer-based options dwindling, what remains (besides federal entitlement programs like Medicare) are private plans and COBRA. However, on a meager salary, those options are almost impossible to afford, with even the cheapest costing several hundred dollars each month. The New York Times reported recently that people are getting married simply to obtain their spouse's health insurance, and in some instances, contemplating divorce to be eligible for a plan.
Affordable and effective health care has become an elusive dream of American citizens -- 16 percent of the population is uninsured -- and the search for it has become the ruin of many. A study from the Commonwealth Fund estimates that one in five Americans have medical debt. The study includes people with health insurance. In fact, almost two-thirds of those who reported having financial problems resulting from health care were in possession of health insurance at the time their debt was incurred.
According to the National Coalition on Healthcare, someone in the United States files for bankruptcy resulting from a serious medical problem every thirty seconds. And 54 percent of all bankruptcy filings have at least one medical cause, according to a 2005 Harvard University study.
The system is punishing people for being sick and desperately needs an overhaul. Sen. Obama promises change, but even his health care proposal is a patchwork plan that would leave about 18 million people uninsured. What we really need is a complete breakdown and reconstruction from scratch.
by Robert Scheer - TruthDig / Common Dreams
And the winner is ... Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Remember him-the great Democratic president who saved capitalism from the capitalists by reining in their exorbitant greed? Forget the Reagan Revolution heralding a new era of small government, which turned out to be nothing more than a fig leaf for legalized corporate crime. The hero of the hour is FDR, as the essential wisdom of his New Deal is now embraced by most Republicans as well as Democrats.
Roosevelt's legacy was acknowledged Monday when GOP presidential nominee John McCain absurdly accused his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, of advocating policies pursued by Herbert Hoover, the Republican incumbent whom Roosevelt defeated in 1932. While clueless GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin prattled on at the same rally about Reaganomics and getting government out of the way of business, most other Americans noticed-and are grateful-that the federal government now directly manages many of our biggest businesses in the all-important financial sector.
The banking bailout is pure FDR at his big-government best. Greedy bankers are being taken to the woodshed and read the riot act: If they behave, then they will once again have the opportunity to be filthy rich-that's the American way.
As McCain put it Tuesday: "I will begin by making certain that the $700 billion already committed to economic recovery is not used to further enrich the very people and institutions that invited these troubles with their own reckless conduct."
Yes, McCain finally gets it: "I will not play along with the same Washington games and gimmicks that got us into this terrible mess in the first place. I am going to Washington to fight for you." I didn't check whether this performance made it into the "Moment of Zen" in "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," but it should have. "I am going to Washington" is a classic proclamation of stupidity that assumes the rest of us are unaware of where McCain has been these past three decades.
The "gimmicks that got us into this terrible mess in the first place" were made legal by the passage of radical deregulatory legislation that McCain, as much as anyone in Washington, enthusiastically supported. Those gimmicks-hybrid instruments, credit swaps and so on-were codified in laws pushed through Congress by Phil Gramm, the man McCain esteemed so highly that he chaired the then-senator's 1996 presidential campaign and then chose Gramm to co-chair his 2008 run for the White House.
No one in Washington had a clearer warning of the dangers of those games and gimmicks than McCain, who, as one of the Keating Five, ran interference for the savings-and-loan swindlers of an earlier era. But McCain did not personally share in the financial misfortune of those who lost their life's saving in the S&L meltdown; his wife, Cindy McCain, had an inside track with Charles Keating and made more than a million bucks participating in Keating's swindles before the financier was dispatched to prison.
Instead of learning the harsh lessons of the S&L debacle, McCain plunged ahead, crusading for even more extreme deregulatory measures that dismantled the financial safeguards FDR had put in place to prevent another Great Depression. McCain, as much as anyone, is responsible for the decriminalization of the reckless conduct that he now attributes to Wall Street: "We will learn from this crisis to prevent the next one, with much stricter oversight. No more wild over-leveraging, no more liabilities concealed from the public and from shareholders, no more bundling of assets to maximize profit by assuming insane risks. Those days are over on Wall Street. With new rules of public disclosure and accounting, my reforms will make certain those betrayals of shareholders and the public trust are never repeated."
Why not begin with a reversal of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which Gramm sneaked into an omnibus bill only hours before Congress adjourned for the 2000 Christmas recess, codifying "Legal Certainty for Swap Agreements"? Or that act's Title IV, which explicitly exempted from regulation the new gimmicks (which McCain now condemns) by forbidding the government to "exercise regulatory authority with respect to ... an unidentified banking product which had not been commonly offered, entered into, or provided in the United States by any bank on or before Dec. 5, 2000 ..."?
Over the last eight years, McCain has consistently opposed all efforts to modify the legislation that gave the bandits the keys to the banks. It's McCain who is the Herbert Hoover in this presidential race.
By Isaac Fitzgerald, AlterNet
A new documentary by Stefan Forbes shows the origins of the GOP's playbook -- the manual of scare tactics on which McCain's campaign is based.
"Rovian." That's the way many people are describing McCain's current presidential campaign. Although Karl Rove officially holds no place among McCain's staff, it is known that he is still in close contact with the campaign, especially his protégé and McCain adviser Steve Schmidt (whom the New York Times credits with some of the campaign's most headline-grabbing moves, including the infamous Paris Hilton Britney Spears ad). But to describe the manipulation, prejudice, fearmongering and undertone of racism found in McCain's current campaign as "Rovian" is to have a short memory. As director Stefan Forbes reminds us, the GOP playbook that we are all too familiar with today was written more than 20 years ago by an ambitious young man from the South named Lee Atwater.
Forbes' "Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story" is a magnificent documentary that focuses on Atwater, a horrible but fascinating character. From Atwater's quick rise in the College Republicans during the time of Nixon, through his years in the Reagan White House, to the height of his political career as George H.W. Bush's '88 campaign manager and head of the RNC, Forbes shows how negative campaigning, manipulating the media and flat-out lying seemed to come as easy to Lee Atwater as picking his beloved blues guitar.
But "Boogie Man" isn't just about the bloodthirsty win-at-all-costs side of Atwater. Forbes does an incredible job of highlighting the undercurrents of Atwater's life and times that helped shape him as a person as well as a political powerhouse, such as his upbringing in the South with its deep scars and racial tensions, the childhood loss of his brother, the excess and uber-ambitious attitudes of the '80s, and, perhaps most importantly, his charm. Liberal journalist Eric Alterman, despite all of his distaste for Atwater's negative style, describes Lee Atwater as "the most fun man I ever met," and with the amount of film that Forbes has of Atwater singing, playing guitar and generally having a good time, it shows.
But even with all his charisma, it's hard not to watch "Boogie Man" without focusing on the fact that if there hadn't been an Atwater, George H.W. Bush or even Ronald Reagan may never have been elected. Karl Rove would not be the power player he is today, and George W. Bush (who became friends with Atwater during his father's presidential campaign) wouldn't have learned the worst lesson in politics: winning at all costs. This is the lesson that is Atwater's legacy, shown by many of the stories from those interviewed who were left much worse off for being on the wrong side of Atwater's insidious politics (the most interesting of these being Mike Dukakis ... Willie Horton, anyone?).
Forbes tells Atwater's whole story, ending with the sudden illness that led to Atwater's death at the young age of 40, and the supposed remorse that he felt about the undignified way that he had affected politics. Remorseful or not, Atwater had an influence that can be seen in modern politics today, and it looks like many of his tactics are here to stay. Take the time to learn about the man who took dirty politics to a whole new level, and the next time you hear someone describe McCain's current campaign as "Rovian," correct them. It is "Atwateresque."
by David Corn - Mother Jones
A political campaign can be like a rock slide. At some point, it's just going to continue in the direction it's heading--and not much can stop it. After the final debate between Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, it may well be that the 2008 presidential contest has reached not the tipping point, but that rock slide point. This is not a prediction of a pro-Obama avalanche on November 4--though that's a possibility. It's merely an observation that the campaign may be done in the sense that there are no major inputs to come (barring a bolt-from-the-blue event) that will affect the final tally. Polls will show that there are still some undecided voters out there. (Who are these people?) But whatever's going to determine this election--economic concerns, a desire for change, racism, you name it--is probably already in place, and the candidates may not be able to alter this, at least not in a proactive manner. Certainly, at any time, either can turn the race upside down by saying or doing something particularly dopey.
Neither got dopey on Wednesday night. McCain even had his best (or his least unsuccessful) debate performance, but it was no--damn, I hate this cliché--game changer. McCain was more aggressive than in the previous face-offs, and he finally dared to challenge Barack Obama directly on the--drum roll, please--Bill Ayers Question. But there was this: viewers watching McCain's reaction shots during the evening could have easily wondered if the Republican presidential nominee would make it to the finish without his head exploding, for he seemed to be in the midst of an exercise in anger control.
Prior to the debate, there was much chatter about whether McCain would play the Ayers card. Judging from video of his recent rallies, it appeared that his base was demanding blood on this front. But polls indicated that these sorts of attacks have been hurting McCain with in-the-middle voters. So he faced a tough decision: ignore Ayers and upset the diehards or accuse Obama of being a pal of a domestic terrorist and alienate the indies.
McCain and his strategists came up with a hybrid approach: take a shot on the Ayers front and combine it with a traditional political assault. "I don't care about an old washed-up terrorist," McCain huffed, but then he went on to say, "we need to know the full extent of that relationship." Huh? If you don't care about Ayers, why do you care about the relationship? And why repeat the false claim that Obama launched his first political campaign within Ayer's living room?
This was essentially McCain's love letter to the GOP base. ("Now get off my case, okay?") More important, he attached it to his true attack of the night: Obama will raise your taxes. After quickly running through his Ayers index cards, McCain noted, "My campaign is about getting this economy back on track...I'm not going to raise taxes the way Senator Obama wants to raise taxes." In what was probably the last big moment of the campaign before Election Day, McCain offered this meta-argument: Obama is a liberal tax-and-spend Democrat, and I'm a conservative. (He left off the Republican part.)
Repeatedly, McCain accused Obama of wanting to throw money at problems and of yearning to raise taxes. When Obama maintained he would give tax breaks to the bottom 95 percent--and more tax relief than McCain would to this large slice of the American public--McCain replied: hey, this guy wants to raise taxes. And, by the way, he wants to spend your money.
McCain did tout his own plan to spend $300 billion to buy up troubled home mortgages, and he maintained his health care tax credits were the right medicine. (Obama blasted the former as a "giveaway" to banks and noted that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had slammed the latter.) But his main message was, Obama is just another Democrat and, my friends, we all know what that means. Obama, he charged, wants to spread the wealth. J'accuse: he wants class warfare.
After nearly eight years of a conservative Republican White House now held in disdain by many voters--and at a time when the federal government is partially nationalizing banks--how much juice is there in this old Democrats-are-bad argument? Sure, McCain was punchier in this debate than in the previous two. But being aggressive on a tired message won't do a candidate much good. "I am not President Bush," McCain proclaimed with some anger in his voice. But this declaration of purported independence may have come a bit late in the process.
And Obama did fight back. He repeatedly corrected McCain when McCain mischaracterized his tax plans. He reminded viewers that McCain favors handing $200 billion in tax cuts to corporations, including ExxonMobile. Obama talked about raising taxes on the wealthy in order to pay for "core investments"--tax breaks for middle-class Americans, health care, education, and energy independence. McCain fired back: there he goes again, thinking that the government can do better with Joe the Plumber's money than Joe can. (Joe the Plumber is a real guy, and McCain cited him as someone who would not fare well under Obama's tax proposal.) But at a time of crisis, such Reaganistic rhetoric--as much as it jazzes up base voters--could come across to some as either retro or, worse, irrelevant.
McCain talked much about how he would cut spending in Washington; Obama discussed how he would assist middle-class Americans. Perhaps the key question then is, do voters want a president who will kick butt on Capitol Hill regarding certain types of spending, or one who will help them during tough times?
And do they want a grouch? McCain frequently appeared irritated. He interrupted Obama more than he should have. And he stumbled over his words too often. (In deriding gold-plated health care plans, he equated transplants with cosmetic surgery.) At one point, McCain went on too long, demanding that Obama repudiate Rep. John Lewis' observation that the hatred on display at McCain-Palin rallies was reminiscent of the worst days of the civil rights movement. On this matter, McCain came across as petulant. (Obama noted his campaign had put out a statement calling Lewis' comparison inappropriate.) More than once, McCain sarcastically complimented Obama's "eloquence."
Obama was, again, cool and calm. He praised McCain for showing "commendable independence" on some issues, such as the use of torture. Obama never took the bait. He ably batted back McCain's attacks on his tax record and proposal. He spoke in measured tones about abortion and voiced respect for those who differ with him on this topic. If his goal was to look steady and smooth--like someone capable of dealing with, say, a mega-crisis--Obama succeeded.
In his closing statement, McCain said the fundamental issue of the campaign was whether "you can trust us or not to be careful stewards of your tax dollars." He noted his decades of service to the country--as in, Country First--and asked voters to "give me an opportunity to serve again." Obama took a different approach: he again outlined what he wants to do for the middle class: tax cuts, health care reform, greater access to college, an energy independence program. As had happened in the last debate, McCain finished by referencing the McCain-the-Hero Story; Obama was offering himself as a leader who will do right by and for you. It was past versus future. Old guy versus young guy. You do the math.
Though television pundits initially praised McCain's feisty performance, the quickie polls, once more, indicated viewers scored the debate a win for Obama. (CNN: 58-to-31; CBS: 53-to-32.) That was no surprise. The issue is not whether McCain's attacks this time around were slightly more focused or assertive; it's what he's selling. And in the midst of an economic maelstrom, how many voters want a fellow at the helm who says government is the problem. There's also a significant measure of cognitive dissonance within McCain's pitch: one moment, he's assailing Obama's addiction to government solutions; the next he's calling for the government to buy up all those bad mortgages.
Which brings us back to the rock slide. The forces that will dictate the final outcome may well be set by now. And there was not much McCain could have done in this last debate to change the movement of the tectonic plates of this election. There could be last-minute bombshells. And it's likely that independent outfits on the right are preparing a final blitzkrieg of negative ads against Obama (that secret Muslim/Black Panther socialist who hangs out with domestic terrorists who want to kill you and your family). But the race might be over but for the remaining shouting and the actual voting--though early voting has begun in many states, with already 540,000 people having voted in the state of Georgia.
It sure is not an encouraging sign for a candidate when he does his best in a debate and the insta-polls indicate that he was crushed. Following this debate, Obama will continue to stride along--being reassuring, if even boring. And for McCain, there does not appear to be any obvious path. After all, he's not behind the wheel. For the next three weeks, he's stuck in the passenger seat. And see that sign? Caution: falling rocks.
Crooks and Liars
Watch for these consolidations in 2008:
1.) Hale Business Systems, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W. R. Grace Co. Will merge and become:
Hale, Mary, Fuller, Grace.
2.) PolyGram Records, Warner Bros., and Zest Crackers join forces and become:
Poly, Warner Cracker.
3.) 3M will merge with Goodyear and become:
MMM Good.
4. Zippo Manufacturing, Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining will merge and become:
ZipAudiDoDa
5. FedEx is expected to join its competitor, UPS, and become:
FedUP.
6. Fairchild Electronics and Honeywell Computers will become:
Fairwell Honeychild.
7. Grey Poupon and < class="EC_ececyshortcuts">Docker Pants are expected to become:
PouponPants.
8. Knotts Berry Farm and the National Organization of Women will become:
Knott NOW!
And finally ....
9. Victoria 's Secret and Smith &Wesson will merge under the new name:
TittyTitty Bang Bang
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