Friday, September 19, 2008

NewsWatch 9.19.08

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Trends and Tremors
Here is the key quote I'm looking at today, from McCain's newly-unveiled plan for the economy:

McCain blamed the economic crisis on "corruption and manipulation of our home mortgage system." At the center of the problem, he said, were lobbyists, politicians, and bureaucrats who kept Congress and the Bush administration away from problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The problem is the same one I talked about yesterday: McCain keeps casting around blame without being specific and defining his position like Obama. McCain's playing policy vs. personality, a game policy wins in high-stakes elections. Why?

Notice how he shields congress (read: himself) and the Bush administration from the blame today, again centering his attack on lobbyists and bureaucrats (read: Wall Street insiders). The emerging trend is that despite his talk, McCain's policies reveal he is not a man who will take on Washington or his own party - and Obama needs to jump on that.

McCain's plan, as outlined in a speech in Wisconsin today that mostly focused on Obama, was more purely generic garbage. Six vague proposals in 10 paragraphs. Here's a good summary: an institute to prevent this kind of crisis, a transparency law, "clarity" (but no explanation of how to get it), "protection" (again, no explanation), real loan guarantees (a good idea, but the shortest paragraph of them all), and scaling back the Fed's bailout power.

That's not a plan, that's just taking all the adjectives in a speech about what's wrong with the economy and making them into nouns! Obama, meanwhile, is being coy. Instead of throwing out a new answer every day, he's followed the administration's efforts and offered conditional support for their solutions. A good move, as it turned out, because the markets loved them. His calm and patience is the mark of a good leader:
"You don't do it in a day. We've got to do it in an intelligent, systematic thoughtful fashion and you know I'm much less interested at this point in scoring political points, than I am in making sure we have a structure in place that is sound and that is actually going to work."
McCain's panicky, shallow responses, on the other hand, are the mark of a reactionary. And that's today's trend. Expect Obama to focus on those keywords over the weekend and into next week.

Ad-viser Wars
McCain lost yesterday's war over who had closer ties to bad economic advisers. So why do it again today?

The latest ad tries to link Obama to former Fannie CEO Jim Johnson, who was fired from the VP search committee after three days. Sounds like playing with fire given the McCain campaign's many links to "Frennie" (Fannie + Freddie).

If anything, the only thing McCain's ads are proving is that Obama's rapid-reaction team has its mid-primary mojo back.

Rearranging the Deck Chairs
From commenter 'AB' on this CNN article:
McCain = Titanic
Palin = Iceburg
The article brings up something interesting: a week ago, it would have been crazy to say that Palin didn't connect to voters because she didn't live in the real world up in Alaska - it was her connection to voters that was keeping McCain afloat (pun very intended). Now, people are looking at Alaska's $500 per head in earmarks, no state sales tax, and oil rebates...and it starts to look like she might come from a socialist paradise.

Okay, okay, science
So McCain submitted his answers to Science Debate 2008 questions a few days ago (Obama's came in August), and it's now cropping up in the headlines. The candidates have similar positions on cap-and-trade emissions, disease proliferation and genetics.

Oddly, when asked about (I assume, scientific) innovation, Obama talks about research grants in specific fields, whereas McCain brings up streamlined regulations and intellectual property rights law? That was the overall theme of answers. Obama: Specific, McCain: Not so much.

One for the weekend
Do we care that McCain's new Raines ad may have played the race card? Oh, the Sunday morning punditry! Here's one I hope doesn't boil over; I'm enjoying the increased focus on issues.

Today's Top Headline
Rothschild: I'm a middle-class girl from Jersey
CNN


Snicker. Sometimes headlines write themselves.

Comments (4)

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To me, McCain's answers to the Science Debate questions looked like they were written by staffers. And yes, I'm sure Obama's answers were written by staffers too (that's what happens with questionnaires like this), but they look like they were closely based on Obama's actual positions and statements. In other words, I bet McCain doesn't understand some of the issues he just "responded" to, while Obama does.
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On another site I frequent, someone posts "thoughts of the day." Today's thought was "Blame others so that you can get on with your life." It seemed to be the theme of McCain's speech today.

ON the more worrisome note, the planned bailout of the financial markets is beginning to scare me. I don't know if there is enough available capital in the world for us to borrow an additional $1 trillion in a 2-3 month time-frame. Even in our worst years, we have only borrowed half that amount in a 12 month period. I am seeing real bad inflation ahead. I can easily see the rest of the world deciding that the dollar is not strong enough to be the main currency for global exchange, especially of oil, which would be another major shock to the financial system.
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Karen Anne's avatar

Karen Anne · 860 weeks ago

I really have no idea what is going on financially, but I did not like the NYTimes article about the leaders of Congress getting a briefing that terrified them.

Meanwhile, about generic garbage, that is what McCain was producing in that tape of the Spanish head of state debacle. It's like he was a windup toy, push a button, and phrases come forth. I am beginning to think that if he won, we'd have not only issues idiots but actual idiots in both slots.

Is McCain actually mentally not at home?
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Welcome to the hell that Phil Gramm has created for us. All of our financial institutions which used to have firewalls protecting them from collapses in other parts of the economy are now interconnected. Thus, with the contagion from the subprime mortgage market spreading like wildfire, we are left with two choices -- let several major institutions collapse bringing the entire economy down with them or commit fiscal suicide bringing the entire economy down. Choose your poison, the economy is in trouble either way -- but the short-term political necessity is to do something even it causes major problems after the election rather than have major problems before the election.
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