538 Update

At 5 weeks out, Obama is in a strong position:

Voting for Bush's Third Term

I was a strong supporter of McCain in 2000, but I steadily lost respect for him in recent years. His campaign this year has been extremely dishonorable. However, it wasn't until this week that I started to think the previously unimaginable.

Bush has been a disaster, including failing to act on the mortgage crisis for way too long. Nevertheless, when I contrast Bush's leadership in the past week with McCain's empty grandstanding, I would have to consider voting for a third term of Bush over McCain if those were my only two options.

Democrats have tried to paint McCain as a third term of Bush. I'm not sure he wouldn't be worse. McCain wants to give even more tax cuts to the wealthy. Whereas Bush has discovered the art of diplomacy in his second term, McCain wants to pursue an even more neoconservative foreign policy than Bush's first term. Bush is a juvenile frat boy who always seems to think he operates with divine inspiration. McCain is an erratic drama queen who thinks himself more moral than anyone around him. At least Bush seems to have learned from his mistakes.

McCain could accomplish quite a feat by winning this election. He could make me nostalgic for Bush.

Tax Cuts for Wall Street

The Republicans' have introduced their counter-proposal:

So now they've released their own set of "principles" in the 11th hour, relying on mortgage insurance, injections of private capital into the financial system and free market principles. Many of the ideas are tried and true conservative ideas, like loosening regulations in hopes of freeing up private capital. The thrust of the GOP alternative is essentially a private insurance plan for mortgage backed securities, but it's not clear if such a plan could go into effect quickly enough to salvage the teetering credit markets.

They're relying on the same failed supply-side economic theories that got us into this mess. Brilliant. Is anybody in this party fit to govern?

Palin is no Obama

An excerpt from a really strong post by Coates (I hadn't heard of him before he replaced Yglesias on The Atlantic, but I'm becoming a fan):

For weeks we heard this ridiculous line of argument that Palin brought the same "excitement" and "energy" to the table as Obama, thus equalizing the race. That is exactly the sort of fatal underestimation that is going to get John McCain murked in November.

Obama isn't Obama because he is more "exciting" or had me more "heat" or "energy." He's Obama because his handlers had a deft understanding of caucus rules, because they understood the promise of the Dean/Trippi internet strategy, because they understood the ground game. Fuck all the rhetorical flourishes, all the talk of "exotic" lineage, all Ivy League pedigree, all the hoary meditation on the impact of a black president. It's all bullshit. If Obama doesn't hang eleven straight on Team Clinton in February then we'd all be talking about the dream of Susan B. Anthony. If Hillary Clinton's people understood the rules the way Obama's people did, then McCain would be running ads attacking The Restoration.

The point is that Palin brings "excitement" and "energy" but nothing else. It's all hot-sauce but no catfish. And now the jig is up.

Bailout

I basically stand by what I wrote back in June. Don't give away taxpayer money to the reckless. Instead, help lenders and borrowers meet their mutual obligations.

I worry that the initial proposal doesn't do anything for borrowers facing foreclosure. That's the root of the problem here - borrower default and foreclosure. I wouldn't be surprised if this Administration assisted banks at the expense of borrowers and taxpayers. They are supply-siders, and the essence of supply-side economic theory is the false belief that what is good for Wall Street is good for Main Street. Just as tax policy should increase the spending power of the consumers that drive the economy, any solution to this crisis should minimize future foreclosures as much as reasonably possible.

The solutions that I proposed, voluntary renegotiation of mortgages and personal loans to cover negative equity, would go a long way to breaking the credit crunch and housing market stagnation. Banks could take more confidence in borrowers' ability to pay the renegotiated notes. Borrowers in upside-down homes could finally sell, spurring the market, and banks would receive loan payoffs that could serve as capital for lending to the new purchasers.

Finally, too many executives have escaped any accountability. Former executives are probably untouchable unless they committed fraud, but new regulations should allow the federal government to seek penalties from future executives of businesses that eventually must be bailed out.

Banking is McCain's Model for Health Care

Priceless (McCain in the Sept/Oct 2008 issue of Contingencies):

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

In his defense, he was referring to allowing consumers to purchase health insurance across state lines, which would presumably provide more nationwide competition and replace much of the state regulation with federal regulation. But I don't think that more choices of innovative products in mortgages (ARMs, 100% loans, interest-only loans, balloon payments) turned out to be a good thing for the banking industry or its customers, necessarily. And McCain here seems to be strongly advocating deregulation. He doesn't mention adding more sensible federal regulation, just eliminating state regulation.

Crazy Pastors

Obama's pastor believes that white racism exists. One of Palin's favorite pastors is an African evangelical who believed it necessary to rid a Kenyan town of witchcraft. Clearly, Obama hangs out with nutjobs and Palin is just an All-American girl.

$66 Million in August

Ta-Nehisi Coates reminds worried Democrats that Obama knows what he's doing:

The Bias Canard

If there is no reliable source for the truth, you don't have to acknowledge reality. Any opinion or report that contradicts with your worldview can be dismissed as biased. John Cole, who points out that Rove is now after the fact checking organizations, is catching on to the purpose of the Republicans' assault on sources of independent expertise:

There is no truth. All things are relative. The truth is a lie. All politicians lie, so why are you so worked up about the McCain campaign? You see how this works, don’t you?

And that is exactly what they want, because once they have destroyed every component of society that Americans trust, then they can simply do whatever they want. It has worked everywhere else they have tried it- intellectuals are dismissed scornfully as coastal elites, Universities dismissed as havens of bias.

There is no consensus on evolution- just different opinions. Sure, they say that McCain’s plan will be bad for the health of the nation, but those are just different opinions, and you are biased anyway. it is just your opinion that there are no WMD in Iraq. Who knows, they may have moved them all to Syria and we were right. Your anti-Bush bias is showing. Starting to see how this works, yet?

More Voter Fraud Nonsense

This is reprehensible.

The Republican Chairman in a swing Michigan county is going to use a list of foreclosures to block people from voting. I'm guessing people who have recently undergone foreclosure have more important things to worry about than updating their voter registration addresses or committing voter fraud. But I suppose I could be wrong.

MSNBC

MSNBC has decided to reduce Olbermann's and Matthews' roles in their election event coverage.

I don't particularly enjoy Olbermann. He's an obnoxious arrogant blowhard. While it's sometimes nice to have him on the air as an answer to Fox News and the idiocy coming from the right, this post isn't necessarily a defense of Olbermann. As for Matthews, the right hasn't been paying enough attention if they think he is a lefty.

But I have to say I disagree with MSNBC's decision, although I'm not terribly upset by it. MSNBC is cable news, where opinion is more acceptable, but they are tied to an NBC News organization that must maintain a high level of credibility. I get that. So, while I think they could argue that MSNBC is separate and distinct, I can understand NBC News' nervousness about Olbermann's prominence. That said, this is one more example of the supposedly liberal media's complete fear of the right.

Glenn Greenwald explains that MSNBC has caved to the right in making a decision contrary to its ratings (in a much longer post):

This decision by MSNBC is as alarming as it is illustrative. They just implicitly chided and overtly demoted their most popular and valuable news personality because the White House, the McCain campaign and the Right demanded that they do so. It's fine for Brit Hume to host a "news program" and for hard-core right-wing ideologues to dominate cable news. The fact that Dick Cheney (understandably) viewed Tim Russert's Meet the Press as the ideal forum to allow the White House to "control the message" bothered nobody outside of a few online critics, and didn't remotely impede the perception of Russert as the Beacon of Tough and Objective Journalism. But MSNBC's ratings-based decision to feature Keith Olbermann is a grave threat to modern journalism and must be stopped. So decrees the White House and the McCain campaign, and so the GE-owned MSNBC complies.

If they're looking for respect and deference, we can add the freedom of the press to the rights that Republicans aren't so fond of.

False Equivalency

I have noted before that the media often attempts to look balanced by presenting both sides as equally meritorious when they objectively are not. The Washington Monthly picked up on this in a fact-checking article in The Washington Post:

In the Post's fact-checking piece, these two claims, Biden's and Palin's, are offered as relative equivalents. The reader is left with the impression that all the candidates for national office are fudging and spinning on the campaign trail.

But this is a false equivalency. Biden's claim is completely accurate -- McCain really has voted with Bush 95% of the time. Palin's claim is complete false -- she really didn't reject earmarks.

Why lump them both together as "questionable claims"?

Why I Hate Republicans...

in under 6 minutes (I know this video has already made the rounds, but it really is classic):

Giuliani Sticking Up for Small Towns

Giuliani complains that Obama doesn't think Wasilla, Alaska, is big enough? He was the mayor of one of the largest cities in the world!

According to Giuliani, Obama disrespects Wasilla by not thinking it's cosmopolitan enough. I'd be willing to bet that Giuliani has touted NYC's cosmopolitanness. Let's run it through Google...

Yep:

The Mayor hailed New York as "not only the world's most diverse city but also the world's most cosmopolitan and tolerant city."

Palin's Convention Speech

Give me a break? Is this all the Republican Party is now? Sneering contempt in a culture war against celebrities and elites? Are they dragging out that bitter crap, again?

They act like it's been another party running the country into the ground for the last 8 years.

After Obama and Biden showed tremendous class towards Palin the past few days, she comes out obnoxiously attacking them with total condenscension for Obama. I'm sorry, what the hell have you done, Palin? Please.

If she wants to play hardball, that's fine. I hope Obama and Biden take the f'ing gloves off now. When they do it, I don't want to hear any more sexist crap from the "liberal media" about how Biden needs to be careful not to bully poor little Sarah.

Oh, and if the family is off-limits, don't parade around the Downs Syndrome baby and talk about how much Sarah's and Bristol's pregnancies confirm their pro-life values.

Watching the Republican Convention

Mitt and Rudy have reminded me why Obama has to win. A party this detached from reality and impervious to logic can never have power.

Republicans, go rediscover why you ever had power (e.g. limited government, fiscal conservatism, foreign policy realism) and come back to me in 4 years.

Palin Defends Us From Russia

Cindy McCain reminds us that Alaska is close to Russia.



And the McCain campaign points out that Palin is commander of the Alaska National Guard.



Thank goodness for Sarah Palin. She is the only thing preventing Russia from marching down through defenseless Canada and kidnapping Mariner Moose.

Sarah Palin?

She seems like a generally decent person, but she's not experienced and perhaps not the reformer she has been made out to be. My main thoughts are below. For more on Palin from up close, see this blog. There's also the potential issue of the suspicious pregnancy. And she's not gonna be as strong with women as McCain probably thinks.

Foreign Policy Experience

For months, McCain has been saying that, not only is Obama less experienced than he is, Obama is dangerously inexperienced in a time of terrorism and global conflict. Of course, McCain people will argue that Obama is inexperienced, too. Anybody that says that Obama is no more qualified to be president than Sarah Palin is just being dense.

First, Obama just has more experience. Palin was a city council member and mayor in a town of 5000 for a decade before becoming Governor of Alaska. She has been Governor for less than 2 years. In contrast, Obama represented part of the third largest city in the nation in the Illinois state legislature for eight years before being elected to the U.S. Senate. Republicans like to end Obama's experience in January of 2007, the moment he began his presidential campaign. But the fact remains that Obama had already been in the Senate for 2 years when Palin took office as Governor. Since that time, Obama has been serving in the Senate and on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

More importantly, Obama has spent the past year and a half explaining to a skeptical public why he should be commander-in-chief. During that time, he has studied foreign policy issues thoroughly, traveled abroad, taken questions from reporters and voters, and participated in more than 20 debates against candidates including Biden, Clinton, and Richardson. He earned the confidence of the Democratic party during the course of that campaign. There is no evidence that Palin has even thought about foreign policy.

Some will point out that Palin's experience as Governor is executive experience. Hilzoy explains why any doubts about Obama's executive skills have been put to rest by his stunningly well-run campaign. Meanwhile, Palin has managed a tiny population flush with oil revenues.

Government Reform

McCain is touting Palin as a fighter for honesty and accountability in government. However, there is currently an investigation into the firing of a public safety official as part of a personal vendetta against a state trooper. Even if the investigation reveals no wrongdoing, some of her denials have been proven false. Here is a rundown of the story and Palin's trouble with the truth:



Previously, as mayor, she fired a police chief for what appeared to be purely political reasons. That action nearly led to a recall.

McCain likes to claim that she killed the Bridge to Nowhere. In fact, she was a very strong supporter of the project until it became unpopular.

McCain

The bottom line is that Palin is not a known quantity to McCain or anybody else. McCain has selected a person with no foreign policy credentials to be one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency. The decision was made impulsively and recklessly with, by all accounts, essentially no vetting. He claims to always put his country first, but this decision seems to put his political campaign ahead of the national interest. Either he does not believe what he says about the dangers of Obama's inexperience, or he is willing to jeopardize national security for political purposes. I'd rather have the judgment of Obama, who rejected attractive options in battleground states to select a VP ready to step in "on day one". Obama looks to be the careful, steady hand while McCain looks to be the unpredictable gambler. I'll take the former.

Finally, some claim that this is McCain showing his maverick tendencies. I think it is just the opposite. McCain's maverick image was created by taking on the right-wing of the GOP. Calling the religious right "agents of intolerance", opposing Bush's tax cuts, thwarting Bush's efforts on judges, and proposing amnesty-based immigration reform. Sure, there were government reform issues like campaign finance reform, earmarks, etc., where he took on both parties, but those were minor concerns. What really made McCain a maverick was his willingness to take on his own party on partisan issues. Insiders report that McCain wanted a more experienced person like Lieberman or Ridge. Even Romney, who McCain doesn't seem to get along with, would be more ready for VP. Unfortunately for McCain, the base would have vetoed a pro-choice candidate like Lieberman or Ridge, and the evangelicals would have been turned off by Romney. So he dodged and went with Palin, who is beloved by the base for her very conservative positions. This was not the maverick McCain I liked in 2000. It was more of the base pandering McCain that has cozied up to the right wing since 2000.

UPDATE: It looks like rumors that Sarah Palin's pregnancy was faked to pass of her 17-year-old daughter Bristol's child as her own have been put to rest with news that Bristol is actually now carrying a child conceived around the same time as the birth of Sarah Palin's son. I don't really care what Sarah Palin's daughter does, but was inviting this controversy into his campaign a wise decision by McCain?