The McCain campaign is naked.
The news is out that the McCainiacs do not believe they can win a fair fight against Barack Obama. Their strategy: slime him. And here's how it works. This past weekend, Obama blasted McCain's health care proposal, which relies on tax credits. He called it "radical." And the McCain camp was outraged at Obama's use of the R-word.
But rather than do battle on policy grounds, the campaign issued a statement slamming Obama for having once served on a board with Bill Ayres, a former Weather Underground bomb-thrower who gave up his radical ways and became a respected education expert:
On a day when new reports have surfaced about Barack Obama's long association with a domestic terrorist, our Democratic opponent had the audacity to call John McCain's health care plan "radical." The American people know radical when they hear it, and John McCain is not the candidate in this election they should be concerned about.
It seems that whenever Obama criticizes McCain's policies, McCain's response will be, "Bill Ayres, Bill Ayres, Bill Ayres." Or, I suppose, it might shift to "Jeremiah Wright, Jeremiah Wright, Jeremiah Wright." I wonder how McCain is going to follow this strategy in the debate on Tuesday night. His running mate, Sarah Palin, looked quasi-foolish trying to change the subject so many times during her face-off with Joe Biden. If McCain is asked about the fact that Obama's tax proposal offers more tax cuts to the bottom 99 percent of taxpayers than his own, will he say, "That's just the sort of plan that a pal of Bill Ayres would propose. And let me tell you about Bill Ayres...."?
Meanwhile, let's pretend that reality matters. McCain's health care proposal is "radical." Or so suggests Jane Bryant Quinn, the not-at-all-radical economics writer for Newsweek. She writes:
To see how much the McCain plan helps, I asked Scott Leavitt, president of the National Association of Health Underwriters, to price typical policies for healthy singles, couples and families in the Chicago area. It appears that the credit could pretty much cover the premium in your 20s and 30s, even early 40s, making it a good deal. At 55, however, a couple might pay more than $12,000--difficult for older people with modest incomes.
* The Tax Policy Center estimates that 20 million workers will leave the employer-based system, not always voluntarily. Midsize and smaller companies are likely to drop their plans and tell you to use the credit to buy a policy yourself.
* It's a shock to move from group plans into the harsh world of individual insurance. You get "choices" (rah, rah). But the policies cost more and cover less than company plans do--especially for women, older people and those whose health is less than perfect.
That is, if you can find coverage at all. In 2006, the Commonwealth Fund studied working-age adults hunting for individual policies. One fifth were charged more or rejected for health reasons. More than half found it hard or impossible to secure a policy they could afford.
Conservatives love health plans that throw more of the costs on you. When it's hard to pay the bills, you see the doctor less. Through the "magic of the marketplace," that's supposed to slow the rate of increase in medical costs.
Friends, there's zero evidence that that works. In the long run, tax credits will raise your costs without changing the game. And we still won't have helped most of the uninsured.
The details of health care policy can be hard to absorb. Biden did a pretty good job critiquing McCain's plan during the debate. But Quinn's conclusion is easy to understand: you pay more, you get less, millions remain uninsured. If that's not "radical," then Bill Ayres was a nonviolent resister.
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Comments
DC,
Yet we have heard time and again from so many that the negative attacks work. They are dumb, or lies, or misstate facts but they work and are effective or so they say.
I wonder if we will hear about the efficacy or will the talking heads just claim Barack ran negative ads too so - see they really do work?
It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out. How everything will looks after the election.
Thanks
Posted by: capt
| October 6, 2008 11:05 AM
""The news is out that the McCainiacs do not believe they can win a fair fight against Barack Obama. Their strategy: slime him.""
oh i don't think that is their only strategy - remember the florida debacle of '00 and the ohio vote theft of '04 and the massive voter disenfranchisement of both elections.
it is already happening again.
there is no way that bushco will allow obama to win.
Posted by: as_if!
| October 6, 2008 12:58 PM
I think Obama is opening up such a lead now that Florida and Ohio-style election skullduggery will just not be sufficient this time or the R's.
And the negative Ayers/Wright campaigning will also just not stick this time out. It will be a sad epitaph ultimately for the career of John McCain -- to go down, and leave the national political stage, in such an ignominious fashion...
The last couple weeks have been a perfect storm for the McCain candidacy... An economic crisis that is completely over his head (and his long-time economics tutor Phil Gramm entirely discredited), and his lovely Sarah turning sour...
I wonder if he watches those Tina Fey sketches... Even if he doesnt, I bet even he is starting to get a glimpse of what a disastrous choice she's going to turn out to be...
I think an overwhelming swath of the American electorate is sick to death of the down-home-know-nothing-folksy-politician act... the type of politician who don't know much about much, but instead relies on his or her small-town "gut"...
Americans are deeply yearning, even desperate, for someone who is articulate and is clearly smarter than they are... Facing an incomprehensible financial crisis makes that need all the more acute...
Every gaffe and verbal slip-up is just another bitter nail in the coffin or McCain/Palin...
Posted by: Diff
| October 6, 2008 1:51 PM
I read where palin's staff have now agreed to honor the subpeonas and testify. Also read where todd palin agreed to testify to a different parallel investigation, but not the official one that issued subpeonas. If anybody hears more about these developments, please post 'em.
Posted by: Alan
| October 6, 2008 2:25 PM
Compare Bill Ayers 3 bomb (2lbs each) to 23 bombing missions by McCain on the people of North Vietnam. McCain admitted to being the war criminal he is. Obama and McCain have worked for the same firm for four years and have been seen in public together often. Obama has lauded McCain for his heroism (bombing civiliansfrom 20,000 ft alt).
Another contemporary acquaintance of Obama has bombed a sovereign country into the stone age. This state sponsored act of terrorism began the murder and dislocation of 20% of the population, which would compare to 60 million Americans, and knocked out the lights on enough people to equate to 100 Hurricane Katrina's. He has not apologized for his actions. And no one seems to have plans to bring him to justice. Of his behavior, McCain says "More, More, More." Obama says "Enough"
I guess my being rational about this is why they won't let me buy a gun.
The negative connection that Obama needs to make is not Howard Keating, it's Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush
Posted by: geof01
| October 6, 2008 2:43 PM
Brought to you by "Swiftboaters for McCain" because we are fkn desperate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvzLCTyqFo
Posted by: Alan
| October 6, 2008 2:43 PM
Anyone want my $1.00 bet that the first check that Paulson writes is to Lehman Brothers and it gets handled by asset manager Jeb Bush?
Posted by: geof01
| October 6, 2008 2:44 PM
funny karaoke called "Hey Sarah Palin"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwqGPMf5aAI
Posted by: Alan
| October 6, 2008 2:53 PM
SARAH PALIN RAPS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm-gX7D6U4E
Posted by: as_if!
| October 6, 2008 4:45 PM
Keating Inquiry Appears Different, 17 Years Later
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYxnk4JDdWQ
Sometimes in politics, memories fail.
In a conference call with reporters, attorney John Dowd was asked about a specific part of the Keating Five inquiry, the fact that Cindy McCain and her father had invested in a Keating strip mall.
"It was part of the inquiry, but it did not -- John was unconnected to that and unaware of it at the time, and did not participate in it," Dowd said.
But thanks to the quick research skills of Democratic partisans, here's John McCain's answer to an attorney who asked him about that very investment during the ethics committee hearings in 1991.
"Sometime in 1986, I was told by Mr. Delgado, who was Executive Vice President of my father-in-law's company, that they were going to invest in a shopping center and that the investment -- the project -- was being put together by a subsidiary of American Continental," McCain said. "He later told me that they -- that that had happened. And I had no interest in it and just noted in passing that this investment took place."
The attorney asking the question during the hearing? John Dowd.
http://tinyurl.com/4a8rfp
*****
Lying liars and the lies they tell.
Posted by: capt
| October 6, 2008 4:51 PM
BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE DESPERATE FOLKS AT SWIFTBOATERS FOR McCAIN: because "we're fucking desperate!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvzLCTyqFo
Posted by: as_if!
| October 6, 2008 10:15 PM
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