John McCain

You can feel it. The Obama campaign is firing on all cylinders, driving the news cycle now, hitting McCain hard, systematically taking Palin down, announcing an extraordinary fundraising month and expanding its grassroots base, making much better use of Biden and other surrogates, and finding their voice on the economy as never before. The McCain campaign is on the defensive, reeling from harsh criticism of McCain's character and working to contain the downside of Governor Palin. The new McCain ads, issue-based, without the wildness of earlier ads, speak to a chastened McCain camp. The national tracks have shown a 1-2 point shift in the race this week toward Senator Obama.

Today the race is still dead even. But Senator Obama has seized the initiative, and the momentum has shifted from Palin to the Democratic ticket. 

I still think the greatest challenge facing McCain is that he has no real plan for the future, and that running on a culture war and character simply isn't going to be enough in this election given all the very serious stuff going on. As Jake wrote yesterday, the two main arguments of the new McCain TV ad - that lower taxes will create jobs, and drilling will lower gas prices - are not true, and not promises America can bank on. 

The lack of seriousness of the McCain campaign - and the whole national Republican Party at this point - is simply astonishing. 

But at least, as Tina Fey says, the good Governor can see Russia from her porch. 

In a new television spot released today, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's campaign attacks U.S. Sen. John McCain's record on women's issues:

So McCain is not exactly a natural pick for women voters (see his recent performance on "The View" - he looks like he'd rather be just about anywhere else). However, poll data shows that some women have been swayed by McCain's pick of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running-mate. This is frankly surprising, given that she wants to make abortion illegal even for rape victims, and in fact charged rape victims between $300 and $1200 for evidence collection as the Governor of Alaska (contrast this with Obama's VP, U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, who authored the Violence Against Women Act).

The New York Times editorial board recently took McCain to task for his pick of the incredibly underqualified Palin:

"If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two
years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such
a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If
the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly
irresponsible."

Picking Palin may have been a cynical bid for women's votes. However, as voters have become more familiar with Sarah Palin, her poll numbers have begun to drop drastically. Perhaps McCain's impulsive decision may still come back to haunt him.

U.S. Sen. John McCain’s new ad on the economy is interesting mostly because of its frighteningly weak economic fundamentals. It is similarly weak on truth – nothing new from the McCain camp, but these lies, some recycled and some fresh out of wherever they come up with this stuff, come in the policy field and not, as most of the others have been, in the personal.

The ad is called "Crisis." Take a look:

The ad promises three actions the McCain campaign would deliver on to improve the economy. The first is "Tougher rules on Wall Street." The credibility of this promise is low, as it comes from a campaign advised by Phil Gramm, who authored much of the deregulation of Wall Street that got us here to begin with, and from a man who, as the New York Times points out, "has consistently characterized himself as fundamentally a deregulator and he has no history prior to the presidential campaign of advocating steps to tighten standards on investment firms."

The second promise is "Lower taxes to create new jobs." Now, John McCain probably honestly believes that lower taxes do create new jobs, and, functioning under the rule of Costanza, "It's not a lie, if you believe it," then perhaps McCain is not a liar. Under any other standard, however, the cause – effect relationship he posits between lower taxes and new jobs simply isn't true. One doesn't need to look into ancient economic history for proof: Under the Bush administration’s tax cuts, job growth has been far, far slower than the Clinton years of relatively higher taxes.

Finally, McCain promises, "Offshore drilling to reduce gas prices." Things get especially un-truthy for the senior Senator from Arizona here. Granting expanded leases for offshore drilling will not provide a meaningful reduction in gas prices for Americans any time soon. Period. That’s it. This flat out lie has been debunked time and time again, but McCain continues to present a cause and effect relationship that just is not true as a central plank in the rationale for his presidency. Hopefully someone asks him about it soon. (For example, in a presidential debate in 10 days.)

The lies the McCain campaign has been throwing around about everything from kindergarten, to pigs, to pigs in kindergarten have certainly caught the media's attention. But isn’t lying to the American people about what one's governing agenda will do for them even worse?

The further weakening of America's financial markets is tossing a major new issue into the Presidential race, one, that today, appears to make the job of the national GOP and their ticket much harder. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama opened up this new debate with this well-crafted statement:

"This morning we woke up to some very serious and troubling news from Wall Street.

"The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that are generating enormous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets. This turmoil is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments.

"The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren't minding the store. Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.

"I certainly don't fault Senator McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. It's a philosophy we've had for the last eight years - one that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. It's a philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise, and one that says we should just stick our heads in the sand and ignore economic problems until they spiral into crises.

"Well now, instead of prosperity trickling down, the pain has trickled up - from the struggles of hardworking Americans on Main Street to the largest firms of Wall Street.

"This country can't afford another four years of this failed philosophy. For years, I have consistently called for modernizing the rules of the road to suit a 21st century market - rules that would protect American investors and consumers. And I've called for policies that grow our economy and our middle-class together. That is the change I am calling for in this campaign, and that is the change I will bring as President,"

It will be interesting to see how the McCain campaign responds. Over the next seven weeks, its goal has to be to talk about anything other than the economic performance of this GOP era.

Sunday's NY Times:

As we watched Sarah Palin on TV the last couple of days, we kept wondering what on earth John McCain was thinking.

If he seriously thought this first-term governor - with less than two years in office - was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible.

I was looking back at some old posts and found this one from August 1st, McCain Disapears into A Rovian Fog:

It is clear that John McCain would rather lose his integrity than lose this election. After a series of lies and mischaracterizations that have been chronicled by numerous news sources, U.S. Sen. John McCain released an attack ad today about Barack Obama's record on immigration.  Having participated in the immigration debate during 2007 as a Hill staffer as it was happening, and having delved into the dozens of amendments thrown at the bill per minute by those who would try to block immigration reform, and having had to sort through all the "poison pill" amendments, I feel a responsibility to distinguish between truth and fiction in regards to an issue as important as immigration reform.  The truth is that Senator Obama proposed an amendment to the section on a temporary worker program in order to ensure that those workers are a paid a prevailaing wage - i.e., to help push wages up.  It is disturbing to see this attempt to misinform Hispanic voters, as members of the Democratic leadership are accused in this ad for having halted immigration reform, when they were the ones who presented the legislation to the floor and fought to have the issue voted on and passed - not once, but twice.  The reason immigration even came to a vote twice is that many Republicans - including President George W. Bush - also recognize the dire need to fix the broken immigration system, and there was thought to be enough support at the time for reform.  What really happened: there were insufficient votes to close debate and move to vote on immigration reform because the Republicans who had pledged to support the legislation caved to the anti-immigrant rhetoric and voted against cloture.  The truth is John McCain changed his position and did not participate in the 2007 debate to provide the necessary political leadership to pass reform.  And that could have made a difference - one could argue that it was John McCain's absence and lack of leadership on this issue that led to its demise.  I'll refer you to our Hispanics Rising report, where we track the immigration debate and John McCain's abandonment of his own reform legislation.  The truth is, John McCain abandoned the reform he had once promoted because he feared the political ramifications.  As reported by the Washington Post (see Hispanics Rising), John McCain told his party "I got the message", immigration reform was not popular.  Sadly, it remains very necessary.  

Here is the translation of the ad, called "Which Side Are They On":

ANNCR:Obama and his Congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they?
The press reports that their efforts were 'poison pills' that made immigration reform fail. The result:
No guest worker program.
No path to citizenship.
No secure borders.
No reform.
Is that being on our side?
Obama and his Congressional allies ready to block immigration reform, but not ready to lead.
JOHN MCCAIN: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.
ANNCR: Paid for by McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee. Approved by McCain-Palin 2008.

I must say, this ad insults my intelligence, and it is a shame because John McCain was the first to come out promising to keep this campaign "clean", and to not reach for baseless attacks like this one.  You will see below, McCain said, "Do we have to go to the lowest common denominator? I don't think so". Well Mr. McCain, you already have - this is just another example of how low you can go. Is lying to voters putting "country first"? I don't think so.

As the Congress moves closer to bipartisan energy legislation, John McCain is nowhere to be found. Instead his campaign – on the one issue that was supposed to separate him from Bush – is clinging to the old energy paradigm. It's hard to believe, but John McCain is now more out of touch than most of the Republican members of the U.S. Senate.

Bipartisan energy legislation, discussed today at the U.S. Senate’s energy summit, has gained momentum through the work of the "Gang of 10/16/22," and now looks to be one of three proposals that will come up in the Senate next week. (The House is also at work on bipartisan legislation.)

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama has said he is willing to accept a compromise on drilling to advance energy legislation that includes provisions for the expansion of renewable energy and efficiency. McCain, meanwhile, is stuck in a dogmatic anti-tax fuzz. Left behind by much of his party, McCain unwilling to compromise, show up to vote, or take any sort of stand to help make moves on energy.

Meanwhile, the bottom half of the McCain ticket has pledged to try to move him toward drilling in ANWR, which shouldn’t be hard since he only recently moved away from an opposition to drilling in the OCS to a wholehearted, singular support of it, and since he looks to be moving away from supporting Cap and Trade climate legislation.

This move away from Cap and Trade isn’t a surprise, as coming up with a serious energy policy doesn’t seem to be a goal of his ticket. Since his VP candidate knows more about energy than just about anyone else, and doesn’t believe climate change is man made – despite her absurd claims on television last night that she had never said that – John McCain owes American voters a big clarification as to where he stands on energy.

It looks like he may get the chance next week. Will he step up to plate and vote, or will his old, no show ways get left in the dust by Democrats and Republicans alike? Next week, when John McCain finds himself looking to the right on energy and only seeing James "Global Warming is a hoax" Inhofe, he’ll find himself running on empty. (Unless Jackson Browne sues him again.)