Daily Show Clip of Commentary Related to Treatment of Sarah Palin

John Stewart cracks me up.  Nothing I say really adds anything, so just go watch the clip.

(I tried to embed, but couldn’t figure out flash video embed. sorry.)

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184086&title=sarah-palin-gender-card

Awesome, Awesome Political Cartoon

I came across this cartoon by John Deering today at Slate.com.  Not only do I tend to agree with the message of the cartoon, its also a reference to one of my favorites scenes from anything Monty Python ever did.  Its a bit dated, but still definitely worth posting.

A Couple of Interesting Articles re: the Presidential Campaign

Lately, I’ve been wondering why Obama hasn’t been doing better in the polls given all the positive press he’s been getting over his trip abroad, the general bad taste of the Republican Party in the mouths of the American people, and some reasonably significant missteps by John McCain over the last couple of weeks.  The International Herald Tribune provided some pretty simple, and good reasons for what I considered an unexpected lack of success.

I have to keep in mind that many people aren’t interested in the campaign like I am and really don’t care that much about it yet.  People either haven’t taken the time to get to know what Obama is about and he doesn’t really have a history to go on.  A simple “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t” situation.  Not to say that people will automatically favor him when/if they do get to know him.  Just saying that some independents who would naturally gravitate towards him may not favor him at this point because they don’t know enough about him.  You also have to consider that there are independents who will break the other way.  They are caught up in the hype machine of him right now, but when they get to know what he’s about, they may end up supporting John McCain.  There’s still a long way to go before that plays out.

I also thought it was really interesting that Obama is going to be getting advice from two former members of the Bush administration.  I think this is a bit of a gamble by Obama.  From one perspective, he can tout his willingness to reach across the political isle to get a different perspective on the issues.  Though a deeper look suggests that these two guys weren’t exactly “company men.”

There’s no real way to know how something like this would be received by the voting public, if it even ends up on anyone’s radar.  (back to that whole paying attention and caring thing)  Some could hear that Obama is being advised by former “Bushies” and be immediately turned off because of how much they dislike the current administration.  It would be a bit difficult to clearly explain the nuance of the situation to a voting public that still don’t believe or aren’t sure that Obama is a Christian, even after all the coverage of aspects of his religious life in the press.  Given the early timing during the election season and what looks like it will be a relatively low key environment, its probably pretty safe.

Support for vs Excitement about John McCain

Reading election new today I came across this article at Talking Points Memo.  For anyone that doesn’t know about TPM, its a liberal blog that gained notoriety when their investigation into the firing of US attorneys, aided heavily through active participation of readers across the country, brought to light the indications of political motivations.  They won journalistic awards for their coverage, but realize its a blog that both reports news and provides a great deal of opinion at the same time.  I appreciated their thorough coverage of the Dem primary and their reporting on government scandal that doesn’t get as much play in the main stream media, even though I do have to pull back a bit from the liberal bias at times.

While the bulk of the article isn’t terribly interesting, the below quoted excerpt made me think for a minute or two.

Let’s be honest. Hardly anyone cares about McCain or his campaign. No one’s excited about it in any way. I don’t think that’s an overstatement. Caring or being excited about isn’t the same as supporting. Lots of people support McCain — but as the anti-Obama, the alternative. This isn’t to say he can’t win; he definitely can. But very little of this campaign is about him. Virtually all of it is about Barack Obama.

This is a very interesting thought to me, and I think there might be some validity to it, even if I’m not sure I agree with some of how it was worded.  There’s no secret that the Republican brand is looked at less favorably than the Democratic brand at the moment, though I’m not sure that’s saying a whole lot.  Nevertheless, McCain is having to fight through some pretty negative ratings for his party and he really hasn’t been able to excite voters for him.  Even after he became the presumptive nominee people were still voting for other candidates in more than negligible numbers.  Its not a good sign when you’re running against no one and you can’t get near 100% of the vote.

On the other hand, Obama has cultivated much more than support and has fostered a feeling of excitement bordering on frenzy at times in his voting cohort.  I think its fair to say Hillary Clinton did the same thing during the primary.  Obama is changing the shape of the campaigning game through the so far successful “50 state strategy” and his use of the Internet to raise an insane amount of money from thousands and thousands of small dollar contributors.  Obama has stumped to crowds much larger than you would typically see for a political event, and if I remember correctly, his planned acceptance speech in a stadium will be the first since JFK.

What is still unanswered for me is where does all of this excitement get us.  One of my friends suggested that this campaign is Obama’s to win or lose.  Obama definitely doesn’t have it locked and McCain definitely has a shot at winning the election, but the sense is that a win for McCain will likely be the result of missteps by Obama, as opposed to him gaining a wave of support.  A question I have is how much of the excitement is for Obama himself, and how much of the excitement is for Obama because he represents something significantly different than what we’ve had in Washington for the last two decades?  One way or the other, I’m going to enjoy watching the whole thing unfold.

McCain and Obama Tax Policies Still Missing the Point

After reading this article on cnnmoney I’m kind of annoyed about the tax plans that Obama and McCain are putting forth.  At their basic level, the two plans aren’t all that different from stuff we’ve seen from the two major parties before, but its still nice to see the exact differences and how each one will effect you.  You can read all of the specifics in the article, but I’ve including the key portions below.

Under McCain’s plan

The net result: compared with their tax bill today, taxpayers on average would see their tax bill cut by nearly $1,200. That means their after-tax income would rise by 2%.

But those in the lowest income groups would only see their after-tax income rise by less than 1% (or between $19 and $319). By contrast, the highest-income households – those with incomes of at least $603,000 – would see a boost in after-tax income of 3.4%, or more than $40,000.

Under Obama’s plan

The net result: compared with their tax bill today, taxpayers on average would see their tax bill cut by nearly $160 under Obama’s plan. That means their after-tax income would rise by 0.3%.

But those in the lowest-income groups would enjoy the biggest after-tax income rise as a percentage of income – between 2.4% and 5.5% (worth between $567 and $1,042). By contrast, the highest-income households – those with at least $603,000 in income – would see a dramatic decline in their after-tax income – a drop of 8.7%, or $116,000.

For what its worth, I’m favoring Obama’s plan.  I have to support making it easier for people that don’t make as much to buy things they need like food and clothing, than giving the super rich people in this country more money to buy another boat or a second or third house.  I like capitalism, but I’m not a fan of the ridiculous excess that ends up coming with it.

That part of the whole article that just fries me is the portion below.

Under both plans, all American taxpayers could pay a price for their tax cuts: a bigger deficit. The Tax Policy Center estimates that over 10 years, McCain’s tax proposals could increase the national debt by as much as $4.5 trillion with interest, while Obama’s could add as much as $3.3 trillion.

The reason: neither plan would raise the amount of revenue expected under current tax policy – which assumes all the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire by 2011. And neither plan would raise enough to cover expected government costs during those 10 years.

We always hear politicians talking about fiscal responsibility, but none of them seem to get the concept that paying off your debts is a fiscally prudent thing to do.  I recognize that the economy isn’t as simple as I’d like it to be, but at least an effort needs to be made to pay down the debt.  I find it ironic that more than a few members of Congress and political appointees in government were successful businessmen prior to entering government and politics, yet they continue to run the government in a manner that would bankrupt their companies in a second by spending more money than you take in.

I wasn’t sure of all of the negatives of a huge national debt so I went to my Wikipedia crutch.  It turns out there is an argument for carrying a national debt, but given the example of Japan in the Wikipegia article, it doesn’t sound like the best idea.

I’m still in favor of paying down the debt, and at the very least not pursuing policies that are going to make it bigger.  Can anyone say Balanced Budget Amendment?  The CNNMoney article notes that the candidates’ plans will likely be adjusted some as time goes on, and as more information is available the analysis will change.  Let’s hope the changes that are made are positive, but I’m not going to hold  my breath that paying down the debt is going to be a part of that.

McCain Speech vs. Obama Speech

Wow and wow. The difference between these two speeches today was amazing.

McCain spoke in New Orleans, likely in an attempt to preempt the message Obama was going to put out in his presumed primary victory speech. To put it bluntly, McCain’s speech was a train wreck. I had the honor of seeing McCain speak in person in 1999, and his speech today wasn’t even a shadow of the energy and presence he displayed that day. He was really animated in a good way and got the crowd behind his message.

Today sort of reminded me of Weekend at Bernies or Pinocchio. McCain looked like he was made of wood or he was recovering from some kind of sickness. He had no energy behind what he was saying, and it almost seemed like he didn’t even believe what he was talking about. All of his attempts at “gotcha” moments had as much life as a deflated balloon. It also didn’t help that he had a really awkwardly colored green background behind him, and it sounded like there were about 50 supporters at his speech.

Contrasting that with Obama and its the difference between night and day. Obama had a huge crowd in the arena in St. Paul, MN and from what they were saying on TV there was a huge crowd listening to a PA outside of the arena. Obama was his normal good public speaking self. He had great energy that the crowd fed off of, and he kept pushing his message of positive change. He was completely in his element, giving a big message speech to a big crowd, drawing statements from some of the pundits that he might be the best political speaker since Ronald Reagan.

There’s obviously a lot more to a candidate than his public speaking. You have to have good policy behind your ability to speak in front of a crowd if you want to win a presidential election. That being said, if the general election that started today was a heavyweight fight, Obama would have won with a first round knockout. There’s a ton of time between now and November so a lot can and will happen before the election, but from my perspective this was a good day for Obama.

Update: All of the speeches from today can be found here.

Some of the Scott McClellan Talk is Colossaly Stupid

Sorry for those expecting more road trip updates. I had to get this off my chest. More updates to come later.

Some of this talk about the Scott McCellan book is just completely ridiculous. Every time I turned on CNN yesterday they kept talking about how what McClellan said in his book is not what he said a couple of years ago when he was White House press secretary. They keep saying that he’s a disgruntled employee and that his message now doesn’t match his message then. Really, they’re surprised by this?

Now, a former administration employee can go three ways. They can continue to drink the president’s Cool-aid after they stop working for him and openly support his policies, a-la Rumsfeld and others. They can quietly be non-committal in the Colin Powell mold where most think he didn’t agree with the president a lot, but he’s not going to openly say that. Finally, they can stop holding in all their angry feelings and frustrations and write a book about how they feel or felt while they worked in the White House.

Scott McClellan’s position really isn’t that complicated. If he didn’t agree with the president’s positions while he was in the White House, there’s no way he’s going to say that out loud. He was paid to say what the President told him to say. It was his job to put out the message that the President wanted him to put out. If he openly voiced his disagreement, he would have been fired. Why is he now writing a book to say all these things. Well, money for one thing. If I’m in his head I’m probably thinking, they made me look stupid for a couple of years by making me be the face of an administration that appears to have been less than forthcoming in at least a couple of instances. I’m going to voice all my frustrations and hard feelings in public…and I might as well get paid for it.

Now, is that the most classy way to go about things? Probably not. Is it as complex an issue as the press is making? No. I think its just another example of the main stream media missing the obviousness of an issue.

Hillary, Barack, and the Gas Tax Holiday

I was reading posts over at Talking Points Memo about the whole Gas Tax Holiday goofiness and I had a couple of thoughts I had to get off my chest.  For anyone living under a rock, essentially the Gas Tax Holiday (GTH) is a suspension of the tax on gas for the summer months to try to save consumers some money.  To make up for the money lost from the tax, the profits of oil companies would be taxed.

Hillary is for, Barack is against.

Since stating she is for the GTH, there’s been a lot of talk in the press, with policymakers, and from economists basically saying the GTH idea is a waste of time and wouldn’t truly bring relieve to drivers for a variety of reasons.  One argument is that the oil companies would just raise the price of gas 18 cents per gallon, the amount of the tax, and make more money, b/c they know the market can sustain that price.  When asked what she thought of the fact that not a single economist thought the GTH was a good idea, Clinton basically said she didn’t care what economists think.  What the hell is that?  Would she rather have the opinion of pharmacists or clowns when dealing with economic issues.  Its really hard for me to wrap my head around that response, and the thing that bothers me the most about it is that its a very W-like response, which really scares me.

I think Barack isn’t taking full advantage of the opportunity that she’s presented him with.  He’s been hitting her pretty hard on the fact that she’s not offering a worthwhile long term solution, and she’s making the politically expedient move.  What I think he’s missing or isn’t saying is that she’s trying to promise something there’s no way she can deliver.  Even if she introduced the GTH today, a good number of legislators said they wouldn’t support it, and even if there are enough that do support it, when does Congress move fast enough on something like that to get it passed by this summer.

As much as I don’t trust her and hope she doesn’t win I have to give Clinton credit.  She doesn’t have anything to lose.  She makes a promise she probably knows she can’t keep that will likely get her votes.  She tries to get the GTH passed in Congress, but it fails and she can blame it on people like Obama for not supporting it and not caring enough about the working man.  It could backfire on her by bringing the ire of other Democrats in Congress, but given the scorched earth policy her campaign seems to have taken on at times, I’m not sure she’s not blind to everything but trying to win the nomination.