Category: Politics & Elections

Using McCain math

Using the same methodology the McCain campaign has used to claim Obama has voted 94 times for tax increases, The Washington Monthly reports that the Obama campaign finds McCain likes taxes even more.

The results were interesting, to put it mildly. According to McCain, Obama voted 94 tax increases since 2005. Using the same methodology, McCain voted for 105 tax increases since 2005. The Republican ticket has some trouble with math, but the last time I checked, 105 is a bigger number than 94.

What’s more, taking this one step further, McCain, using his own standard, has voted for 477 tax increases over the course his lengthy congressional career.

Who he is

I’ve noticed throughout this campaign, by the way, that there are two kinds of Obama supporters: those who have read “Dreams From My Father” and those who haven’t. The ones who have read it tend to be impatient with certain of the stock observations made by nonreaders of all political persuasions—comments like “We don’t know all that much about him” or “I’m not sure who he is, really.” Who he is is right there on the page. Or on the CD: I’ve also noticed that those who have absorbed “Dreams” via the audiobook version, read by the author (who reproduces his characters’ accents), are the most fervent of all.

Hendrik Hertzberg

Debate moderators

Talk about going to the same well.

2008: Jim Lehrer, Tom Brokaw, Bob Schieffer, Gwen Ifill (VP)

2004: Jim Lehrer, Charles Gibson, Bob Schieffer, Gwen Ifill (VP)

2000: Jim Lehrer (3), Bernard Shaw (VP)

1996: Jim Lehrer (2 and VP)

1992: Jim Lehrer (2), Carole Simpson, Hal Bruno (VP)

1988: Jim Lehrer, Bernard Shaw, Judy Woodruff & Panel (VP)

The three white guys are old. Jim Lehrer is 74. Tom Brokaw is 68. Bob Schieffer is 71.

Gwen Ifill is 53.

But It’s not journalism, it’s infotainment

For several days, it was made increasingly apparent that the Republican Party has nominated for vice-president a person who is manifestly unqualified to teach middle-school history. (Hint: the default answer, always, is, “Dred Scott v. Sanford, Katie.” The Civil War was, like, a bad thing.) And yet, through the entire run-up to the debate, it was argued by serious people who analyze serious politics and make a serious living doing it that Sarah Palin could reveal herself to be non-dim by putting on the correct puppet show for the media in her debate against Joe Biden. Make no mistake. That’s what the punditocracy was arguing. Give us a reason, please, not to have to write what we all know to be true, what has been self-evidently true to the entire country since you walked off the podium in St. Paul. No rational person can possibly believe that she got smarter, or better informed, or more curious in the time that elapsed between when she talked with Ms. Couric and last night’s debate. What we were being asked to judge was purely how well she had refined her performance skills in the interim. . . . Journalists should not be in the business of perception-is-reality. It is our job to hammer the reality until the perception conforms to it.

Charles Pierce

Does praying she’s back in Alaska soon count?

Whoever would like to make a commitment to pray for Sarah Palin can go to www.prayforsarahpalin.com and enter their zip code. A marker will automatically be placed on the prayer coverage map, which can be viewed live in Google maps. There are approximately 43,000 zip codes in the United States. Our goal is to have people praying for Sarah Palin in every zip code. I believe prayer changes things.

PrayForSarahPalin via MoJo Blog

Good point

MODERATORS FOR FUTURE DEBATES:  I AM OUTRAGED, AND DEMAND TWO QUESTIONS.  ONE. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF GUANTANAMO BAY AND WHAT THE CONTINUED USE OF THIS PRISON CAMP SAYS TO THE WORLD ABOUT AMERICA’S SUPPOSED EXCEPTIONALISM?  TWO. WHERE DO YOU STAND ON HABEAS CORPUS, AND THE CURRENT INTERPRETATIONS AND ALTERATIONS THEREOF?  I WANT TO HEAR THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS DIRECTLY FROM THE MOUTHS OF THESE CANDIDATES.

Dangerousmeta!

The vice presidency explained

“Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president’s agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we’ll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation.”

Sarah Palin

33 days

“Today, Barack Obama has 269 electoral votes outside the battleground zone. That is, if you only give Obama the states he is projected to win by more than five points, that is enough to get him an Electoral College tie, which is essentially the same as a win.”

FiveThirtyEight.com (the best source for polling information and forecasts).

Obama gets 269 even if the margin is upped to six points. New Mexico (+9.3%) and Colorado (+6.1%) are included in the 269.

In addition, FiveThirtyEight.com says “[W]e project Obama victories in Virginia (4.4%), New Hampshire (3.4%), Ohio (2.4%), Florida (2.4%), and Nevada (2.1%), with Indiana a tie.”

That’s 338.

But anything can happen.

Debate preview

1. A constitutional right to privacy, which Palin says we have, and Antonin Scalia, for one, says we don’t, is the very underpinning of Roe v. Wade. Palin’s answer undermines 35 years of “right to life” talking points.

2. If a right is constitutional, then under the 14th amendment states cannot abridge that right — “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Palin says the right is constitutional but up to the states. Sorry Governor, not since 1868.

The right to privacy was recognized by the Supreme Court in 1965 in Griswold v. Connecticut, a case where the Court found a Connecticut law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to be unconstitutional.