Herman Cain

I was listening to Herman Cain on NPR yesterday. I think he did pretty well. What really got me though is this notion he brought up about being a Main Street business conservative vs Romney, who he said was a Wall Street business conservative. Cain said that, unlike Romney, he knew when to go to the customers to see what they wanted - if he can get that notion out there, and people believe him, he might just pull out a win in the primary, since it is exactly what the people want to hear. in fact, i couldn't put down in words exactly what it is that Republicans want from a business GOP savvy leader until i heard Cain say that 'customer line': they want to be customers again in that staid sense of 'the customer's always right, if you'd just listen to what he wants'. If they are anything eternally, Americans are customers. I think this race is going to get interesting between Romney and Cain.

The Iran Plot

The Iran plot is baffling, but here's what no one seems to be saying: since the Revolutionary Guard Corps controls Iran, and they are worried about Ahmadinajad's desire to improve relations with the US, they have the most to gain from souring relations between the US and Iran via an assassination plot on US soil. As Hilary Clinton has said, the plot will only increase Iran's isolation, which is exactly what the Revolutionary Guard Corp wants - they want to head off any reconciliation with the US led by Ahmadinijad and other Iranians who are 'getting cold feet' in the fight against the Great Satan. But they aren't stupid enough to attack the US, even as directly as a plot to assassinate a foreign dignitary on US soil, giving the US a casus belli.If they wanted to isolate Ahmadinejad without actually attacking the US, if they wanted to present a case that Iran was willing to attack the US, they could do no better than to conspire with an entity they know is being watched by the US as intricately as any entity in the world - a Mexican drug cartel, riddled with DEA agents. This plot is so baffling because the Quds force of the Iranian Rev. Guards who planned it intended it to be foiled, intended to use it as an excuse for the US to isolate Iran further and head off any reconciliation, no matter how slight, between the current Iranian administration and the US.

The OPM public option alternative

From today's Washington Post:

One potential alternative [to a true public option] being discussed Sunday would create a national coverage plan operated by private insurers but run by the Office of Personnel Management, which administers health coverage for federal workers. Senators participating in the talks said the OPM idea had been well received across the ideological spectrum . . . Under the Office of Personnel Management idea, national plans negotiated by the agency would be offered through state-based insurance exchanges that the Senate bill would create for small-business workers and people who do not have access to affordable coverage through an employer.

The cost of donating Mr. Obama's nobel - are the limitations on charitable donations too excessive?

From a letters to the Editor in today's Washington Post:

The most interesting aspect of President Obama's Nobel Prize money [is that, unlike] many countries, the United States considers the money accompanying Nobel Prizes to be ordinary income, and, hence, subject to taxation. Also, the U.S. tax code limits the amount of charitable donations that are deductible. So, if Mr. Obama gives away all his prize money [as he said he will], it will cost him a lot of extra money. And, finally, Mr. Obama is already on record as wanting to further reduce the charitable deduction. Will his current situation change his view on this?

State of the estate tax debate

From 'Extend the estate tax,' in today's Washington Post

In one of those fiscal time bombs left from the Bush administration, the estate tax, having gradually dwindled, is set to be eliminated entirely next year - only to spring back to life, full-force, in 2011. Unless something is done, 2010 will be the year to throw Mama from the train, tax-free. This would be terrible policy, not to mention unkind to Mama. The least bad, hold-your-nose alternative would be to set the tax permanently at its 2009 level, exempting the first $3.5 million of any individual estate - $7 million for a married couple - from taxation. At this level, 99.8 percent of estates are not subject to the tax. Claims of 'death tax' foes notwithstanding, a tax at the 2009 level would have scant impact on family farms or family-owned businesses. In 2011, according to estimates from the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, only 100 such entities would have to pay any estate tax, and virtually none would have to be liquidated to pay the tax. Nonetheless, the estate tax would continue to bring in badly needed revenue even at this level: $206 billion over the next 10 years. This is the hold-your-nose solution because it is excessively generous to the wealthiest Americans at a time of fiscal emergency. Making the 2009 level permanent would drain nearly $400 billion from the federal treasury from 2012 to 2021 compared with letting the estate tax revert to the rules in effect in 2001, when the tax was set at 55 percent with a $1 million exemption per person. In a perfect world, which is to say not the 111th Congress, the tax would be set somewhere between the 2001 and 2009 levels.

Gay marriage being pushed too hard?

From today's New York Times:

The New York State Senate decisively rejected a bill on Wednesday that would have allowed gay couples to wed, providing a major victory for those who oppose same-sex marriage and underscoring the deep and passionate divisions surrounding the issue . . . The defeat, which followed a stirring, tearful and at times very personal debate, all but ensures that the issue is dead in New York until at least 2011, when a new legislature will be installed. Since 2003, seven states, including three that border New York, have legalized same-sex marriage. But in two of the seven - California last year and Maine last month - statewide referendums have restricted marriage to straight couples, prohibiting gay nuptials. Pollsters say that while support is generally building for same-sex marriage, especially as the electorate ages, voters resist when they fear the issue is being pushed too fast.

TDB | The transition to competence

The word is that Obama will pick Arizona governor Janet Napolitano to head the department of homeland security. And in one simple but smart move, the Bush-created department that has for seven years existed without a raison d'etre is given new life and new purpose. It will - get this! - protect the homeland! The queen of a border land will now be queen of borders.

MAKES SENSE, NO?

It's a small move, but symbolic of how far from competence the Bush administration has been for these many years. Even though so much good can be done with a pragmatic (as opposed to ideological) spirit, some clear headed people, and a bit of dedicated thinking about basics, the present administration 'process' never considered these virtues.

Anyway, it's nice to see the return of plain American solutions driven competence...

...and (somewhat similarly) the rise of an American leader who can't imagine life without his blackberry.

MY GOD - HE'S ONE OF US!

TDB | In Case You Need Another Reason

Another reason, that is, to feel confident about the upcoming Obama administration.

Whatever you may think of Exxon, you can't fault it on management grounds. It is widely considered the best company in the world, speaking strictly in financial and management terms. More people in the know have confidence in the 'Exxon way' than in any other set of practices. And it just so happens that the 'Exxon way' is almost identical to the 'Obama way':

What might be called the Exxon Way can be summed up in three ideals: discipline, patience and long-term vision.

Team Obama adhered closely to these ideals during the campaign, to great effect. If an Obama administration can do the same (and there's ample evidence to suppose confidently that it can) the US could see competence coming from Washington for the first time in nearly a decade.

ike/Speaking Generally

Colin Powell is appearing on Meet the Press Sunday and the expectation is that he'll endorse Barack Obama. Powell's admiration for Obama has been evident since early 2007 and he has openly discussed the "electrifying" nature of an Obama presidency.

By and large, political endorsements are overrated. But Colin Powell, long-viewed as a dissenting but participatory voice in the Bush administration, adds credibility to Obama's foreign policy bonafides.

ike/Quote of the Day

"Fox News accused me of fathering two African-American children in wedlock."

--Barack Obama

ike/Quote of the Day

"Gov. Palin and her husband were obsessed with Wooten the way Capt. Ahab was obsessed with the Great White Whale. No Wooten, no peace. Has Gov. Palin committed an impeachable offense? Hardly. Is what she did indictable? No. But it wasn't appropriate, especially for someone elected as an ethical reformer. And her Orwellian claims of "vindication" make this blemish on her record look even worse. You asked us to hold you accountable, Gov. Palin. Did you mean it?"

--The Anchorage Daily News

ike/Jumping Ship

Bye Bye.

ike/Quote of the Day

"Last week's so-called town hall event showed Sen. John McCain to be someone suffering from an increasingly obvious and embarrassing deficit, both cognitive and physical. And the only public events that have so far featured his absurd choice of running mate have shown her to be a deceiving and unscrupulous woman utterly unversed in any of the needful political discourses but easily trained to utter preposterous lies and to appeal to the basest element of her audience."

--Christopher Hitchens



The intellectual, conservative class continues its sprint away from John McCain.

ike/That Sound You Hear...

Is the Straight Talk Express jamming on the brakes and turning around.

ike/quote of the day

"And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission — because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission — by telling members of that class to go away. "

--David Brooks


While these are historic times economically, they are also historic times politically. We are watching the death of this version of the Republican Party, a party that has lost the coalition that elected and re-elected W. The GOP has become a caricature of itself, represented now only by its fringiest and most socially conservative elements. At least Sean Hannity is happy.

ike/Quote of the Day

"Last night, he (McCain) took that position on the housing issue of buying up everybody's mortgage. Conservatives are scratching their heads today and saying, ‘What happened?’ What on earth is that about? Then you got to ask, which houses? The condos in southern Florida, where people bought $500,000 homes as a second home and now can't pay for them? Are we buying those, too?”

--Mike Huckabee

I for one am perplexed and unsure of what McCain's base is at this point. I would say the social conservatives in the middle but they are Palin's base.

TDB | Quote of the Day

Alan Woolf, quoted on The New Republic's blog, The Plank:

Americans are denouncing Wall Street. But their hostility is too diffuse and incoherent to help them channel it constructively. The past eight years have seen the enactment of public policies that time after time rewarded lobbyists, increased the wealth and power of the already best off, and redistributed income away from ordinary Americans. Yet by and large Americans accepted all this without protest. Now, all of a sudden, they are speaking like Populists of old, attacking greed and calling for regulation. Their protest, alas, is more symbolic than concrete. As such, we are unlikely to witness blame assigned where it belongs; nor are we apt to see the passage of serious reforms dealing with long-term structural changes in the economy or any diminution of lobbyist influence. A scary economic moment will transform itself back to politics as usual in the blink of an eye.

ike/Quote of the Day

A"t a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama."

--The New Yorker

ike/McCain's No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Week

If I were teaching a class on political races, I would focus some serious class time on messaging. Messaging represents the overarching idea of a campaign and a candidate, the core rational to inspire a voter.

Often, candidates are described as being "on message" or "off message." Here's an example of Barack Obama being on message. Here's an example of Barack Obama being off message.

In the first clip, Obama is in his comfort zone, clearly "on message," underscoring his core message of change, highlighting his opponent's long-standing ties to a broken system and desperate attempts to use the same old divisive politics to attack him. Being "on message" also means being consistent, repeating refrains that reinforce what a candidate stands for.

In the second clip, Obama is "off message." He is discussing his church membership and the remarks of his controversial pastor. He is forced to talk about all of the issues he doesn't want to address: black militantism; fringe elements in his campaign; whether he shares these ideas with his former pastor.

I write these past paragraphs to give some context for what I'm about to say; I haven't seen a candidate have a worse week of messaging than the one John McCain has just endured. Let's review:

On September 15th, John McCain famously declared that the "fundamentals of the economy are strong," which allowed Barack Obama to get back to talking point number one, as seen here.

Well, how sound was the economy? It was so sound, that it caused John McCain to suspend his campaign until the crisis was solved.

So to DC traveled the knight in shining armor, a true leader and the apparent missing link to a bipartisan deal to save Wall Street and the credit markets. Except according to several reports, McCain's presence in Washington only made things worse.

Of course McCain then had to attend the first presidential debate last Friday even though Congress had not reached a deal on a financial rescue package for Wall Street — something that McCain previously said was a condition for his attendance.

Could it get worse? Sadly for McCain, the answer is yes. Minutes after the bailout bill was rejected in the House, with Republicans voting against it at a 2-1 clip, we found out that McCain press guru Steve Schmidt had actually touted McCain's contributions to the "agreement."

"What Senator McCain was able to do was to help bring all of the parties to the table, including the House Republicans, whose votes were needed to pass this," Schmidt said.

No wonder new polls are showing the McCain candidacy floundering. For John McCain, it truly was a no good, horrible, very bad week.

TDB | Obama (stupidly) starts the name game

I don't quite understand why the Obama campaign decided to link McCain to Rush Limbaugh. First of all, it was pretty clear to anyone paying attention as McCain closed in on the Republican nomination that Limbaugh was not happy. In fact, he was livid.

Moreover, Limbaugh is very, very well liked by the Republican base, which McCain has been courting since before he beat Romney. McCain has a fairly legitimate concern that, when the chips are down, 'conservatives' won't embrace him. They are more likely to now that Obama has essentially given McCain the 'genuine' Limbaugh endorsement that he's hitherto failed to get from the man himself (a normally enthusiastic Limbaugh has fallen well short of enthusiasm about nominee McCain).

But most importantly, by attacking McCain via Limbaugh, Obama opened up the guilt-by-association game, the one game that Obama does not want to play. He had all but avoided the issue of his very real ties to Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers, and of his less credible but still very real tie to Tony Rezko. Sure, these names have been mentioned by McCain surrogates; but a real attack along such lines has been (noticeably) lacking. Sadly, it will be an all-too-noticeable part of the campaign from now on.