I'm bound and determined to post another proposition review today...but it will likely be the no-brainer, prop 12.  I just can't face any more fine print at the moment.

I did get the chance to watch last night's debate...but not until this morning.  Yesterday afternoon we were at the celebration of Shelter Partnership's newly named S. Mark Taper Foundation Shelter Resource Bank.  The Taper Foundation gave the inaugural grant for the nonprofit's refurbishment of their central warehouse, which distributes nearly a million dollars worth of goods to L.A. County shelters each month.  Dan's on their board and I am so proud of the work he's done with them.

We were joined by our friends, Tom, Peter and Rod.  Then Rod and Peter joined Dan and I at the club for a round of golf in the late afternoon.  It's definitely coming on Fall, as we weren't able to finish the round in the daylight.

At any rate, the day's festivities, combined with writing up Prop 9, left me with no blog time.  Sorry to have missed you!

As to the debate, I thought it was the best of the bunch.  Moderator Bob Schieffer did an excellent job of keeping the candidates on topic (as much as is possible) and allowing for back and forth exchange.  I don't think we learned anything earth-shattering in the debate.  It seemed like both candidates shared their views on what's best for America going forward.

McCain's line about Obama not running against Bush was a good sound bite, but I don't think he was effective at drawing a clear distinction between his own economic policy (cut taxes for businesses and the wealthy) and Bush's.  And Obama had very artfully stitched the two men back together by the end of the debate.

19 more days to go!

Not a very eventful day here at Chez Morefield.  Dan played golf in the morning while I gardened (amazing what happens when you're gone for a week!).  Then we hung out all afternoon watching the Ryder Cup.  The score at the end of the day (5 - 2 America) does not tell the story of the incredibly close matches.  It was a particular joy to watch Phil Michelson and Anthony Kim come from behind to win both of their matches.

I did get in some political reading while watching the match (and listened to a couple of political podcasts while gardening).  Lots of nattering about Sarah Palin and the post-convention bounce for McCain/Palin.  But I see the latest polls have Obama drawing slightly ahead again.

The best article of the group, imho, was an opinion piece by Jonathan Alter of Newsweek.  Click here to read it.  Like Alter, I am tired of the central topics of discussion being related to faux issues (ads, lipstick, all things Wasilla) instead of actual issues.

When we are faced with a financial market crisis that requires a government bailout to the tune of trillions of dollars, it's time to start talking about how these two men at the top of the ticket will govern.

A big clue from today?  Obama sees these steps as necessary.  McCain decries government bailouts.  Well, duh.  Nobody likes them...but if we don't shore up the system and allow banks to fail by the onesies and then the tensies...things will be a lot worse.  That seems like it would be just fine with McCain as long as he has someone to blame.

 

We're off today to visit our friend in prison...but I am taking the p.c. and the list of 12 (count 'em, twelve) propositions for the upcoming November election.  So I plan on at least blurting while I'm away.

In the interim (and because I've got to pack soon!), here are some articles you might want to check out regarding Sarah Palin, the Republican strategy of playing against "the media" and a very thought provoking opinion piece by Steinem on Palin.

My feeling at this juncture is that the Republican campaign will be about Barack Obama--his supposed elitism, his supposed inexperience, his supposed liberal agenda.  My hope is that Obama's campaign hits back when necessary and then turns to the issues:

The economy

The horrible blunders of the Iraq war

The need for actual change (rather than the hijacking of change message by politicians who live in the pockets of big oil and big money).

From my lips to Obama's ears.

I took an internet-based gander at Republican VP Sarah Palin today (which, according to the LA Times is all that McCain's vetting people did).  My conclusion is much the same as my question upon hearing the announcement.

What the f**k was he thinking?

By now you've, no doubt, heard about several issues surrounding the relatively new Governor of Alaska.

1.  She's been on the job for 21 months (and McCain has spent the past several months bashing Obama as "not ready"..and McCain is statistically at risk of death in the next four years).

2.  She is an advocate of "family values" with a pregnant 17-year-old daughter (not to worry, she's going to marry the baby's father) and a four-month old child with Down Syndrome (not to mention 2 other children of an age to need...according to the religious right...a mother @ home).

3.  She fired the Alaska Public Safety Commisioner and there is an ethics question pending about whether or not his firing related to his refusal to dismiss her (admittedly wacko) brother-in-law.

Any of these things might have put a reasonable man off of Palin as a V.P. choice (especially if that reasonable man was the oldest Presidential candidate in history and his running mate, one of the youngest V.P candidates).

But there are two little tidbits that you may not know despite today's media frenzy.

A)  The person Palin chose to replace the Public Safety Commisioner resigned when it was discovered that he had been reprimanded of sexual harrassment.  Rather than express shock and dismay (at her staff for failing to turn up this crucial piece of information or at her chosen replacement for not disclosing the smoking gun to her), Palin berated the media and said it was no wonder that good people don't get into politics.

B)  McCain's camp touts Palin's "experience" as an executive, saying that she's at least as qualified as Obama since she was Mayor of Wassila for six year and Governor of Alaska for 21 months.

Wasilla, Alaska (according to their own budget figures) had fewer than 70 full time staff as of 2003, the year after Palin departed Wasilla for her failed attempt to gain the Lieutenant Governor seat in Alaska.  Just by point of reference, that's about 380 fewer people than I was reponsible for as a District Manager of a major bank a few years back.

Want to vote for me?

My gut instinct is that this choice for V.P. will come back to haunt McCain.  It exemplifies his rebellious, shoot from the hip nature--which he likes to style as a reformer/rebel with a cause approach.

There will, no doubt, be more to come with Palin in the coming days.  For now, I see it as a rather large miscalculation--aimed at Hillary voters...claiming only the right wing die-hards who love her pro-life stance.

Let's not even get started on what might have been prevented if her daughter had access and education on condoms in addition to abstinence only rhetoric...

Barack Obama made an interesting point today as he spoke to folks in Rolla, Missouri.  Observing the truism that doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of madness, he noted that "more of the same" is exactly the economic strategy of John McCain.

McCain today pledged that he would not raise taxes ever if he's elected President.  (At least he didn't say, "Read my lips.")  Indeed, McCain intends to cut taxes even further than the Bush/Rove administration has--offering additional tax breaks to corporations (whose tax rates are at near all-time lows).

So let me see if I've got this straight--We're in an economic turndown that promises to become a full-blown recession.  We've got record deficits because of Bush's tax cuts and ill-advised (very expensive) "war" in Iraq.  McCain's solution is to cut taxes further and stay in the war.  Hmmm.

I used to like John McCain, back when he was seemed to be a genuine maverick.  But I lost about 90% of my respect for him when he became Bush's (pardon the expression) "bitch" during the '04 campaign.  Since then he's seemed to me to be flailing around, declaring over and over again that he'll change things in Washington (to try to co-opt Obama's message) while proposing policies that, if they change things at all, will only make things worse.

Want an example?  How about energy solutions.  McCain says, let's drill more in offshore oil fields and ramp up nuclear power plants.  Well, since oil rigs are at capacity, the drilling won't help.  Nuclear power is part of the interim energy solution but long-term, we need to go with renewable energy sources...not create more (and potentially bigger) problems by creating more nuclear waste.

I lost the last 10% of my respect for McCain in recent days as he went on the attack with a few anti-Obama ads.  McCain had it rough during the 2000 primary election with Rove doing push polls suggesting he had an illegitimate black child.  He's not reached that low, I'll admit.  But it's surprising that a man who claims to have such high integrity would not flinch at ads equating Obama with shallow celebrities and suggesting there's a media bias for Obama.

He accuses Obama of not being substantive while simultaneously whining about how unfair the media is and how Obama's too popular.

What is this, high school?

So how could McCain impress me?  If he looked his party of tax-cut hogs straight in the eyes and said, "You've had an awfully good ride these past 8 years.  And now it's time to pay the piper.  We have an economic crisis in this country and we can't solve it by collecting less revenue.  We can get some by cutting programs, cutting pork barrell spending, reducing expenses in Iraq.  But we can't get there without more revenue and since you got almost all of the Bush tax cuts, you'll have to shoulder a bit more of the burden with the money you've saved in taxes since 2000."

Never gonna happen.  But that would be integrity.

As I blogged yesterday, we watched the movie Bobby this weekend.  It's a well-wrought drama about the day of presidential candidate and Senator Bobby Kennedy's assassination.  What makes the movie so powerful is that it's not just a rehearsal of the facts, not mere dramatization, but a careful weaving of the stories of individuals who were at the Ambassador Hotel that day.  About how their lives have been impacted by a presidential candidate who lifts them out of the everyday, who creates a vision of a country united by hope rather than divided by prejudices, violence and hatred.  And about how those lives are shattered when Bobby Kennedy is taken away by an assassin's bullet.

Hillary Clinton's reference to Bobby Kennedy's assassination was the focus of much media attention during the past week.  She has apologized for her inappropriate comments and Obama has graciously allowed that all politicians say things they regret while on the campaign trail.  (I'm sure he wishes he could take back the "bitter" comment as much as Hillary wishes she could take back the Kennedy and "hard-working white" comments.)

In typical fashion, the media pile-on continued--despite apologies proferred and accepted.  Which led to the horrific comments by Liz Trotta on Fox "News."  Discussing Hillary's gaffe, Trotta committed an even bigger offense and then laughed about it.  (See the clip below.)

Here's the quote (talking about Hillary):

"The vast right wing conspiracy blame has been undermined by her evasions, by her outright lies if I may say, by her pandering, by her race baiging, and now we have what...uh...some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama...uh...Obama...well, both if we could.  (laughs)"

Trotta goes on to say that Hillary is "tone deaf" on the issue.  Sort of the pot and the kettle, eh?

Trotta was on Fox News again this morning, still talking about Hillary Clinton--accepting her apology this time for her slip of the tongue.  In the next breath, however, she repeated a quote from political columnist Michael Goodwin about Hillary--"We have seen an x-ray of a very dark soul."

Trotta goes on to apologize but I would appreciate Trotta's mea culpa more if she didn't immediately try to excuse herself by saying (while again laughing), "It's a very colorful political season and many of us are making mistakes and saying things we wish we hadn't said."

Fine.  She wishes she hadn't said it.  But isn't what's good for the goose good for the gander?  Since Trotta feels so free to adopt Goodwin's characterization of Hillary's soul in this situation, can't we assume such judgement just as surely applies to Trotta?  We have, indeed, seen an x-ray of what appears to be a very dark character.  And it's not Hillary. 

One last comment on the odd confluence of the movie and the unfortunate comments of a right-wing pundit.  In the extra features of Bobby, there is a comment by a man who was present during the assassination.  He said that once it sank in that Bobby was gone, they each realized that they would have to pick up on his vision and march on as individual change agents in the world.

I propose that we need both.  We need a President who is a change agent.  And we need citizens who are change agents.  What we don't need are pundits who conflate our enemy with a galvanizing candidate and then joke about knocking them both off.

As promised (and re-promised...apt for a political blog, eh?), my topic today is the economic plan proposed by Barack Obama.  As with Ms. Clinton, I got most of the information about Obama's plan from his website and by reviewing one speech.

There was an immediate, palpable difference between the two websites that, in some ways, seems to reflect a key difference between the candidates.  As I mentioned, Clinton's plan is scattered in pieces throughout her website--interested parties have to glean her intentions from press releases, sub-categories of issue lists, and by sheer guesswork. 

Obama's plan is found under the heading of "Economy" on his site (How simple!).  There's a bullet point overview followed by details and then (for those who are interested) a link to an extremely detailed plan called, "Keeping America's Promise--Strengthening the Middle Class."

I realize the candidates don't design their own websites, so to some extent, it's not really fair or accurate to judge them by the structure of their sits.  Still, it bears noting that the difference between the sites does seem to be reflected in their plans as well.  Obama's plan is comprehensive, global and visionary.  Clinton's plan is piecemeal, localized and tactical.

So here's the quick and dirty on Obama's 8-point plan:

1.  A middle-class tax cut aimed at 150 million American workers, paid for in part by repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy 1%-ers.  Obama would also simplify the tax code, eliminate taxes on retirees earning less than $50,000 per year, and create a new tax credit that would essentially eliminate taxes for the poorest 10 million Americans.

2.  Obama pledges to review and revamp NAFTA and to enforce fair trade requirements in order to level the playing field for American workers.

3.  The most detailed portion of Obama's plan is job creation through focus on innovation, new technologies and renewable/clean energy investments.  As with Clinton, Obama sees the future growth of this country's job market springing from the soil of cradle-to-cradle enviromental technologies.

4.  Focus on labor including strengthening unions and increasing the minimum wage.

5.  Protecting home owners from predatory lending practices, helping some avoid foreclosure and cracking down on the industry with more (and better) regulation.

6.  Curtailing predatory credit card practices (this is unique to Obama's plan).

7.  Reforming Bankruptcy laws to help families in crisis and aide individuals rather than financial institutions.

8.  Under what Obama calls "Work/Family Balance," are a number of proposals to expand family leave, encourage flexible work schedules and to expand the child tax credit.

There are a number of similarities, not surprisingly, between the Democratic candidates' approach to the economy.  Both have a middle-class tax cut, repealing the Bush tax cuts and investment in green energy technology as cornerstones of their plans.

Obama's plan is more expensive than Clinton's--perhaps because it is more expansive than hers...more encompassing.  Both have the advantage over McCain's non-plan of making the Bush cuts permanent.  (As Jon Stewart summarizes that idea--"Are you suggesting we take the policies that got us into this mess in the first place and render them irrevocable?!")

In short, I give the Dems a thumbs up on this issue over McCain.  And between the two Dems, I give Obama the edge for the comprehensive nature of his plan. 

Since I'm only a bit more recovered than I was yesterday, I'm settling for a link-laden blog today.  (Hope y'all don't mind too much!)  I spent the morning going through this week's Newsweek and found several articles I think folks should read.

The first is the cover story, "Only in America."  The article addresses Hillary's argument (and likely McCain's argument if Obama wins the Democratic nomination) that he is somehow "elitist" and out of touch with mainstream Americans.  (Maureen Dowd is quoted parsing Obama's food choices as if she is an oracle gazing at entrails.  I find myself wishing more and more these days that she'd just shut up.)

Mainstream Americans meaning blue-collar, high-school graduates earning around $50,000 per year.  The speculation is that this will be the deciding battleground for the presidency and that McCain is likely to be better at getting such individuals to vote against their economic interests by using his just-folks appeal than Obama will be at getting them to ignore his "otherness."

I'm beginning to see him referred to as "other" more and more often.  It seems dangerously like a code word for "black" to me.  Anyone else seeing this?

The second is a series of essays about Obama's candidacy, kicked off by the (imho) odious Karl Rove who supplies sound advice about Obama's campaign after devoting the first four paragraphs of his column to pigeon-holing Obama as elitist in what might actually be a preview of Republican strategy against him.

Jonathan Alter supplies a succinct summary of the real issue of the candidacies of Obama (Hope) and Clinton/McCain (Fear).

And then there's Fareed Zakaria, one of my favorite global political thinkers, talking about McCain's recent (scary) proclamations about Russia and China.

There.  That should keep each of you busy with a little light reading while I head back to the couch.

Nice to see that the New York Times agrees with my take on McCain's economic proposals saying, "But a major component of his economic plan — like those of Presidents Bush and Reagan — centered on tax cuts."

However, there were aspects to his plan that were not from the Republican "all-tax-cuts, all-the-time" playbook.  It's worth touching on a few of those ideas.

In addition to the harebrained "gas tax holiday" proposal, McCain proposed that we stop filling the Strategic Petroleum Preserve.  Makes sense since the reserve is at adequate levels and we'd be filling them at record high prices.  Of course, as my friend Bev twittered, today's horror inducing prices are today's bargains. (Says Bev, "More from my diary of 1975. I was spending $65 a week to feed a family of 7 and was appalled at the cost. Oh for the good old days!")  Still, suspending government gas purchases may be a good way to reduce demand on gas and, perhaps, slow the climb of gas prices.

In terms of the housing crisis, McCain proposes a HOME plan, essentially an idea to convert qualifying loans from the various interest-only, adjustable rate varieties into fixed-rate 30-year loans.  It's a conservative strategy designed to help individuals keep their homes if they are credit-worthy and have equity.  I certainly like this approach better than the Democrats' recent proposal to bail folks out by absorbing their lost equity.

The last bit of the plan I wanted to mention falls under the heading of "Job Security."  He has some innovative ideas about Unemployment Insurance including combining redundant programs (I'd have to see more detail about this before I say it's a good thing but it sounds reasonable); developing a portable, "lost earnings buffer" account that would allow employees to carry a portion of their unemployment contribution with them; and a "re-employment bonus" for folks who quickly re-enter the workforce.

You'll note that I am mostly positive about these details of the McCain economic plan.  In these sub-points, I think he has some good ideas and creative approaches.  Unfortunately, these are minor issues in his plan.  The majority of his economic approach does exactly what he says he doesn't want to do--simply "dusting off" the economic policies of four, eight, and 28 years ago.  Reagan and Bush, two deficit spenders who railed about fiscal discipline while buying votes with tax cuts.  Frankly, I can't see there's much of a difference between them and McCain, despite the fine print.

I'd intended to do a bit of research and writing on the candidate's economic policies and then, ever so conveniently, John McCain announced his economic plans today.  I love serendipity.

Unfortunately, there are a number of things not to like about his plan.  It's a bit too convoluted (as are all economic plans) to go into thoroughly on a blog, so today I'll be touching on the plan in general and a few of the specific proposals.  Over the coming week, I'll delve into some of the less "sexy" portions of McCain's proposal and also into the two Dem's.

My central conclusion about McCain's proposal is that, true to his party, McCain seems to conflate the ideas of "Economic Policy" and "Tax Cuts."  Although he doesn't go as far as Dubya in making tax cuts the sum total of his economic policy, much of what he announced today had to do with feel good, short term injections of money into the economy (in the form of tax cuts and anticipated consumer expenditures of dollars saved in taxes on goods and services) rather than solving the very real problems of the deficit and the economic burden of the war.

The two areas he addessed in terms of tax cuts were corporate cuts and "family" cuts.  For corporate cuts, he proposed a 10% reduction in taxes across the board.  For a detailed and convincing summary of why a reduction of corporate tax rates is relatively ineffective as economic stimulus, read the article by the Center on Budget Priorities.  It's important to note that federal corporate tax rates are at historic lows (while many corporate profits, particularly in the energy sector are at historic highs) and corporations only foot 8% of the federal tax bill to begin with.

More appealing on the corporate front is McCain's proposal (which I've written about before) to provide a tax credit to companies for research and development.  The American economic engine has always been driven by American ingenuity.  Such a tax credit might be a jump start to revving that ingenuity engine back up again.  (Love the way engine and ingenuity have internal rhyme!)

On the "family" front, McCain proposes a number of tax cuts:

--Eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax completely.  While it's true that the AMT (originally designed to help close loopholes for high income earners) now affects middle class families instead of the folks it was aimed at, a better solution is recalibrating the tax so that it fixes loopholes for high earners while providing relief to middle class families.

--Doubling the dependent exemption.  This idea might actually have some economic stimulus effect.  I haven't gotten into the nuts and bolts but it would be especially helpful if limited by income to middle class families.

--Gas Tax Holiday.  Mere pandering, in my opinion.  Giving us a "holiday" from the 18 - 24 cents per gallon federal tax on gasoline might inject some short term stimulus into the economy, but at what price?  First off, the tax pays for infrastructure, which is in need of assistance nationwide.  Secondly, the tax does nothing to encourage a change in gasoline consumption--something which rising gas prices might encourage and which is highly desirable. 

Overall, I'd have to guardedly agree with the Democratic Candidates' conclusions that McCain's plan is "more of the same" rather than an innovative approach to healing our economic woes.