Could McCain be the First Bradley Effect President?

The race for president is getting to an interesting kind of point in relation to racial politics.

Barack Obama has pulled ahead by 5-8 points in the most recent tracking polls. Obama got a boost this week as a result of McCain's wretched gambits to "suspend his campaign," demand that the presidential debate be delayed, and interfere with negotiations on the bailout. But the trend toward Obama has been developing for about three weeks. Obama plowed ahead in his steadily charismatic kind of way, while John McCain lost his footing as persistent questions about the Palin nomination and his own misstatements about the prime minister of Spain and the financial meltdown put him on the defensive.

There's even more reason for Obama to be optimistic over the next week. Tracking polls like Rasmussen and Gallup have generally shown Obama as having less of a lead than ABC, CBS, the Los Angeles Times, and Newsweek. As TNR reports, it's reasonable to expect that polls will come out next week with Obama in double-digit leads.

Then there's the Bradley Effect.

The Bradley Effect is named after Tom Bradley, the African-American mayor of Los Angeles who lost to George Deukmejian in the governor's race despite having a substantial lead in the polls going into the election. In elections involving Bradley, Douglas Wilder, David Dinkins, and other black candidates, up to 10% of white voters will say that they're voting for African-American candidates to pollsters but still aren't willing to vote for them.

There is some argument that the Bradley Effect diminished in the 2006 election, but there's also a chance that the symbolic significance of electing the first black president might bring the Bradley Effect back into play. There's already reports that Obama might lose 6% of the total vote because white Democrats aren't willing to vote for a black person for president. What if other whites feel the same way but aren't willing to express those sentiments to pollsters.

Now that Barack Obama's lead is expected to climb into the 6-10 point range, he's entering the "Bradley Zone." This is where Obama could lose the election even though the polling showed him with a statistically significant lead (for example, Gallup's margin of error is 2%).

Let's say that Obama maintains a 6-8 point margin up to election time. That would set up a unique kind of choice for the American electorate. Either Barack Obama would become the first African-American president or John McCain would become the first "Bradley Effect" president.

Let McCain Be McCain

Conservative columnist Mona Charen writes that the McCain campaign should liberate Sarah Palin to be herself.

. . . the McCain team is roping her off from the press and surrounding her with Bushie advisors, which sounds like the third ring of hell. She’s a talented politician, Bill [Kristol] advises, so let her out to do what she is good at doing. I think Bill is mostly right.

I wholeheartedly agree that having "Bushie advisers" is like being in the third ring of hell. But wouldn't McCain's own Bushie advisors like Steve Schmidt have to free John McCain first?

Biden Should Worry About Himself

Over at Daily Kos, "risk communications specialists" Peter Sandman and Jody Lanard advise Joe Biden to openly discuss the ethical dilemnas posed by debating someone as uninformed as Sarah Palin.

Talk about disastrous.

What Biden should do is very clear. Most importantly, Biden should worry about his performance rather than Palin's. Biden should focus on making the Obama's campaign's points about the financial meltdown, Afghanistan, Iraq, and health care in as clear, distinct, and personable way as possible. That's his main job. If he wants to obsess over someone's weaknesses, Biden should obsess about his own tendencies to over-verbalize and get away from his main point.

Representing the lead candidate's views in an attractive way is the most important job of any vice-presidential candidate. Biden should focus on making sure he does that job well.

But what about Palin?

Well, what about Palin? Why should Biden focus on her at all? McCain's the guy running for president?

That's why Biden should focus primarily on McCain. When Biden's critical, his focus should be on being critical of McCain rather than Palin. When he disagrees with Palin, he should explain his disagreement as a disagreement with John McCain's policies. When he thinks Palin is saying something dangerous, Biden should explain why McCain would be such a dangerous president.

So what does Biden do when Palin has a huge flub that reveals her ignorance?

In most circumstances, nothing.

In other words, Biden shouldn't comment on the embarrassment at all. He should just express his opinion on the issue and outline his disagreement with Palin. If the circumstances do call for correcting Palin on facts, Biden should just correct her without trying to make her look worse.

If Palin is going to self-destruct, she won't need any help from Joe Biden.

Biden has other things he needs to worry about.

Creating an Office of New Markets

Newsweek has an informative article on the credit default swap market which started out as a new technique for allowing capital to be invested and ended up as the $62 trillion unregulated market--the "monster that ate Wall Street."

Some people never learn. Stanford economist Darrell Duffie responded to a question about outlawing credit default swaps by claiming that "the financial engineers will just come up with something else that gets around the regulation." Of course, this is the old conservative cliche that reform will never work because the corporations will always figure out new ways to shaft people.

But it might end up being pretty easy for the government to regulate capital markets.

All Congress would have to do is create an Office of New Markets in the Security and Exchange Commission or Federal Reserve Board that keeps an eye on new types of financial instruments and keeps Congress informed of the innovations--like credit default swaps--that threaten to destabilize the marketplace.

Obviously, there would be a lot of ways to try to get around that regulatory framework, but the connection of such an Office to Congress would make it possible to hold Congress responsible for markets that got out of hand.

That way, new regulations can be brought on-line as the impact of new financial strategies becomes clear.

Yet Another Bailout Agreement

There was yet another announcement of a bailout agreement last night.

Everybody wins.

The Bush administration got $700 billion to buy up bad debt.

The Democrats got their conditions for approving such a massive bailout. These include phasing in the money $350 billion at a time, getting options to purchase stock in companies, limitations on CEO salaries, and homeowner relief.

For House Republicans, a token "insurance provision was added as an alternative to having the government buy distressed securities."

The Bush administration and the Democrats thought the deal was important because it would avert a depression. The House Republicans wanted to show that they're still barely relevant. But caring more about their standing as a party then the economy is an indication that they deserve to become even less relevant to national policy-making.

And the House Republicans will be less relevant after the Republicans lose more seats in November.

But the person who probably was single-most driven to get a deal was Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

As a result of the financial crisis, McConnell's numbers have been sinking like a stone against his clueless opponent Bruce Lunsford. McConnell wanted a deal before years of representing the Republican Party rather than Kentucky finally caught up to him.

It would be overly generous to characterize Lunsford as a "potted plant" candidate who just kind of sits there doing nothing. Potted plants have more spirit and tenacity than Lunsford has been showing this fall.

But McConnell and Lunsford are now tied at 41% and it will be interesting to see if the bailout deal helps McConnell or not.

A Right-Wing Boycott of Google?

Today, Google came out with an ad opposing Proposition 8 that seeks to ban gay marriage in California.

While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 — we should not eliminate anyone’s fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.

That about sums it up. Homophobic bigotry shouldn't keep gay people from exercising their fundamental rights.

There isn't that much of a distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality as sexual orientations anyway. Developments among straight guys have been especially significant in blurring the line between heterosexual and homosexual. A lot of straight guys have a preference for male companionship and simulate gay sex so frequently that it's hard not to see their primary sexual orientation as being toward "homoeroticism." These guys might be having sex with females rather than males but they have one foot pretty firmly in the gay camp.

Likewise, the homoerotic sexual interests of gay males can be seen as comparable to the homoeroticism of many straight males. Thus, gay males should be seen as part of a homoerotic continuum rather than a strange "other" and gay marriage should be seen as part a standard continuum of marriage.

At least that's the way it looks with the college guys in my classes.

I guess somebody on the right could view this as "normalizing" homosexuality. And no doubt, Baptist leaders are drawing up their boycott plans even as I write. But all human beings are pretty strange. Why should gay people be seen as being any weirder than the rest of us.

The Tide is High at Alabama

Alabama is crushing Georgia 31-3 in the third quarter. It looks like the Crimson Tide is going to have a shot at a national title this year. Soon after that, Alabama will be making their inevitable return to probation.

Alabama's compulsive cheating makes them one of the major evils of college football--right up there with Oklahoma and Southern Cal. I'm not very high on the bullying arrogance of their boosters and fans either.

If there were any justice in the NCAA, Alabama would have been shut down for a couple of years the last time they were on probation for paying off Memphis high school coaches to steer their prospects to Tuscaloosa.

But since there is no justice, the Tide is high yet again.

Speaking of "The Tide is High," here's some Blondie to help them celebrate. One of the classic Steely Dan songs off Aja is Crimson Tide-related as well.

Indiana Might Not Want John

Being a blogger means that you don't have to worry too much about your biases. So, I won't hesitate to admit that I hate corn. I'm deathly allergic to corn and everything derived from corn, including corn on the cob, cream corn, pop corn, corn starch, and corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup is a special difficulty. I'm just as allergic all the crap that's sweetened with corn syrup and haven't had a Coke in 16 years now. Microwave pop corn is a particular problem microwaving projects corn smells into the air. Once I smell microwave pop corn, I have about five minutes to get out of the building before I have trouble breathing.

Needless to say, corn doesn't make my day.

So, I didn't particular mind when John McCain said that he would eliminate ethanol subsidies for corn growers. Being so allergic to corn, I can't help but wonder if I'll be able to breath at all if corn-based ethanol becomes a pervasive substitute or additive for gasoline.

But if I were John McCain, I would have explained my opposition to ethanol subsidies a lot more than McCain ended up doing. That's because the corn belt agricultural area extends from Ohio to Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota, and South Dakota. McCain can't win Illinois, but he can't afford to lose Ohio, Indiana, or Missouri and he'd like to have a good shot in Minnesota as well.

Indiana is a special case. It's a big Republican state that hasn't voted for a Democratic candidate since 1964 (at least). If McCain loses Indiana, he's doomed. So is the Republican Party.

But McCain's only a couple of points ahead in the recent polling and Indiana is now rated as either a weak Republican state or a toss-up. I've seen reports that the root of McCain's problem in Indiana is his opposition to ethanol and I imagine that the McCain campaign has seen the same reports.

As a result, McCain should have taken some pains to explain his opposition to ethanol. Otherwise, Indiana might want John for something other than the presidency.

That reminds me of the lyrics to the R. Dean Taylor song--"Indiana Wants Me, but I can't go back there."

The Debate as a Brown/Bengals game

Tonight's debate between Barack Obama and John McCain was your typical Browns-Bengals game--not much in the way of a coherent game plan, lots of missed opportunities, and fumbles, penalties, and turnovers galore. Josh Marshall of TPM says that both candidates brought their "A" game. Sure, but they brought Derek Anderson's "A"game instead of Peyton Manning's.

The presidential debate didn't develop any kind of early rhythm because both candidates failed to answer questions about whether they would vote for the bailout legislation and what plans they would cut, delay, or reduce as a result of the financial crisis.

It was embarrassing. This debate was for a lot higher stakes than Rick Warren's Saddleback forum and Lehrer was asking genuinely important questions. But he just couldn't get straight answers from the candidates. He tried to get an answer on which programs would be cut four times before getting anything from McCain. Obama never did say what he would cut or delay which was bizarre because he's talked about delaying some of his proposed spending on infrastructure while on the stump.

I was more annoyed with Obama because I support him and expect to see him do well. But Obama began his first couple of answers by reciting principles rather than getting to specifics. I've been on television a couple of times and I know it's hard to be one's normal clever self in front of television cameras. But impromptu televsion performance is a fundamental task of American politicians and Obama should be doing better.

There! Now I sound like I'm telling my students that they're underachieving.

Actually, Obama did surprisingly well on issues like Georgia and Afghanistan. However, he couldn't seem to get his mind around his own withdrawal plan for Iraq and didn't even mention that the Iraqi leadership and people fully support his plan. Like a football team that hasn't played together very much, Obama just couldn't get himself in sync on Iraq or the federal budget. McCain didn't do that great either, but McCain was more confident and aggressive in his mediocrity.

Fortunately for Obama, McCain wasn't nearly good enough to recover from the widespread disgust over his gamesmanship in "suspending his campaign." In fact, I could see where viewers and the media would have been found reasons to confirm their developing contempt for McCain. That's especially because McCain had a tic where he refused to look at Obama while he was talking. Arrogance and condescension don't look good during presidential debates. They especially don't look good when the candidate is developing a reputation for being a jerk as McCain is right now. McCain's refusal to look at Obama looked bad and part of the reason for that is that McCain had a smug smirk on his face while he was looking down. That in itself might have killed McCain for this debate. America has had enough of George Bush's smirking over the last eight years.

In the final analysis, I view McCain as winning on debate points because he took the initiative and was more aggressive and more into it. But I can also see the debate as confirming the media and many undecided voters in the thought that John McCain should not be president.

Live Blogging the Presidential Debate

9:01. They should be holding the debate in Morehead, KY. What a great night! An unbelievable warm wind is blowing through town. There's a beauty in the air.

9:03. First question is on the financial recovery plan as an element in national security. Obama begins with "we are in a defining moment . . ." Obama starts like the French post-structuralist Michel Foucault with about 20 questions in a row. Then elaborates principles and doesn't really get to any point. Frustrating.

9:06. Now it's McCain's turn. What an awful red and white tie. He looks like a candy-striper. McCain starts better with bipartisan testimonial and emphasis on problems of everyday people. But now he's dribbling off about the House Republicans and ends up sounding like Sarah Palin.

9:08. Lehrer brings both candidates back to the question about the plan. Obama goes back to fundamentals yet again. Too much process. Too much history. Too many principles. Why not just say what he thinks about the plan as he knows it?

9:10. McCain doesn't want to deal with the plan either. Now McCain's talking about Dwight David Eisenhower on the eve of D-Day. Maybe he could throw in something about George Washington before he crossed the Delaware.

Ugh! This reminds me of my adviser Paul Kress who told me once that the questions on Ph.D. comprehensive exams could vary, but the answers were always the same. That's what Obama and McCain are doing, giving their rote answer whatever the question.

9:13. My prediction that this debate would be pretty mediocre looks like it's going to pan out. Maybe neither of them wants to say they want to support a $700 billion bailout. But I am glad to know that John McCain has "a fundamental belief in the United States of America."

9:14. Poor Jim Lehrer. He's asking decent questions like how McCain would lead the country if he was President. McCain's talking about the mating habits of bears in Montana instead. If McCain wants to get into bears, why doesn't he discuss what they do to fertilize the woods.

9:16. Obama finally gets in a decent point about McCain's proposal for reducing tax cuts for the wealthy. He also talks about cutting taxes for 95% of Americans but would have done better to focus on his principles here. Blogger are never satisfied.

9:18. McCain goes on about earmarks and finally gets to a point about low taxes and cutting spending.

9:20 Obama is starting to bore into McCain's tax cuts for corporate taxes. McCain responds by comparing Ireland favorably to U. S. because it has a low corporate tax. Then its back to earmarks. Freud was right about the compulsion to repeat.

9:21. McCain moves to his health care proposals. That makes him a sitting duck because McCain wants to tax health care benefits. Obama catched McCain on tax loopholes for the rich instead.

Finally, Obama moves to health care but he doesn't do it particularly well.

9:24. McCain goes back to earmarks yet again, but I have to admit that the repetition has its effect. It looks like McCain has a strategy for piling up proposals to distract the debate. It has an effect to muddle up the whole exchange. More mediocrity.

9:26. Question about what Obama would give up in relation to the financial bailout. Obama starts with his priorities again--energy independence, health care, science and technology, education, and college. But what would he cut?

Of course, Obama was hurt in the Saddleback Forum because he did answer the questions. I guess he can't win either way.

9:28, What would McCain cut--Obama's liberal voting record? McCain does mention ethanol subsidies, cost-plus contracts in defense spending. It's better to be more specific. Then he talks about examining every agency in government.

9:31, Obama now dithering in his answer--he needs to give examples of what he would delay. He does on the stump. Why not now?

9:32, Lehrer tries for a third time and McCain offers an across the board spending free. But Obama doesn't have an effective answer.

9:34, McCain's now doing better than Obama.

9:34, Lehrer makes a fourth attempt to get an answer to the question. Obama still doesn't offer anything specific. Democrats all over the country feel like wringing his scrawny neck. Obama says he has to make tough decisions but he doesn't say what tough decisions he would make.

9:36, McCain talks about cutting spending. It's better than discussing priorities, but it's still vague. It's nice to know that we owe the Chinese $500 billion.

9:38, Obama does now get to McCain's connections with Bush. McCain responds by mentioning that he's a maverick but not Miss Congeniality.

9:39, Lehrer runs up the white flag and asks a question about Iraq. McCain blames the failure in Iraq on George Bush, congratulates himself on Petraeus but doesn't mention the general's name at first. Now McCain is undercutting himself with his fantasies about stable democracy and a strong ally.

9:40, Now Obama gets a chance to reply about opposing the invasion in the first place. But he should just say the invasion was wrong and stupid. Obama's beginning to hesitate a fair amount even though he's doing fairly well on Iraq. Why doesn't he get to his withdrawal plan.

Obama's tying himself up and is falling a little further behind.

9:43, McCain's not exactly covering himself with glory . . . or coherence as he moves to criticize Obama.

9:45, Obama is driving me crazy. Why not discuss his withdrawal plan? Now McCain moves to a moment of military sentimentalism.

9:46, McCain is talking about bringing "peace and prosperity" to Iraq and he looks smug doing it. A little premature I think.

9:48, Finally, Obama gets to his plan to end the war in Iraq. He should just be more emphatic about that.

9:49, "Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory--" Obama lets McCain get away with this.

9:50, Obama doesn't have a good rhythm for debating. He needs to cut and thrust first, then explain.

9:51, Obama shouldn't cite so many authorities. He just needs to say what he wants to do.

9:52, Obama's not doing that bad in explaining his Afghanistan policy though.

9:52, McCain goofs by referring back to Afghanistan in 1989. McCain disagrees with announcing his administration's policy toward Pakistan. He refers to Waziristan and calls for a surge in Afghanistan even though the generals have already said that was a dumb idea. McCain is more coherent than Obama but not exactly the coherence king.

9:54, Obama isn't bad on cross-border attacks on American troops from Pakistan. This is Obama at his best.

9:57, McCain says that Obama doesn't understand and talks about Ronald Reagan in Lebanon. This doesn't make much sense. McCain's constant appeals to military sentimentality don't work in the context of a debate.

9:58, McCain's now congratulating himself on the number of interventions that he's backed. I don't know if that's a good record. McCain's getting a little fired up about Obama claiming that he talks recklessly. Now Obama has to get fired up as well.

9:59, Obama has his own sentimental story about a mother who doesn't want to see more soldiers die in Iraq. Not bad as Obama segwe's back to Afghanistan. Funny that Obama's strongest point is Afghanistan.

10:02 I'm not sure that McCain's that effective

10:03, Hopefully, Lehrer is going to take a break. Darn, I could really stand a blogging break.

10:04, McCain responds to the issue of Iran with his "League of Democracies" idea. That's weird, especially because American neo-cons are the only people outside the comic book world who believe in the League of Democracies.

10:05, Obama pretty good on the invasion of Iraq resulting in the strengthening of Iran. Now, he moves to his intolerance for a nuclear Iran. Obama is sounding pretty good on Iran.

10:08, Now they're getting into the question of talking with Iranian leaders "without conditions." McCain sounding weird about "legitimizing" Iranian leadership.

10:09, It's interesting that McCain refuses to look at Obama while Obama is talking.

10:10, Obama is pretty good on talking with the Iranians and is effective in using North Korea as an example of how bad isolation is as a policy

10:12, Obama is catching up, but McCain responds by saying that talking is "dangerous."

10:13, Now McCain is criticizing the idea of talking with the North Koreans. I think the media is going to hop on McCain here.

10:14, We're getting higher quality debate now. McCain's getting more fired up.

10:16, Now it's onto Russia where Obama is fairly weak compared to McCain. Obama is starting off pretty well but McCain has several knives that he can use in response. Obama wants Georgia to be able to join NATO. I don't like that at all. Georgia's government is basically the Caucasus version of Bush and McCain.

10:18, McCain pulls out his first knife in saying that Obama was naive in equating Russia and Georgia. McCain is gaining confidence now and the confidence makes him look more effective.

10:19, Now McCain is undercutting himself by going into a long-winded explanation of his approach to Georgia.

10:20, McCain could have had an advantage here, but his long-windedness is undermining him. He's talking a lot about countries and leaders that no one cares about and no one should care about. One of the students leaves to have a couple of beers.

10:21, Both McCain and Obama are positive about Shakashvili who is a real idiot. Obama's pretty effective about the whole Georgia issue.

10:23, Obama is moving onto energy again. He's not very good about his plans because he insists so much getting out his principles first. McCain is looking really smug while Obama is talking. One more permutation and McCain's going to display his "horrible smile."

10:24, Was Nunn-Lugar the whole Yucca Mountain mess?

10:26, Lehrer brings out the big gun of the likelihood of a 9-11 attack. McCain responds with the commission to investigate 9-11. Yet another distraction. Finally, he gets to the point that the U. S. is safer today.

10:28, Waiting for McCain to stop blathering so Obama can finish up. Obama thinks we're safer in some ways and actually gets some facts in. Obama sounds better here because he's being specific. I wouldn't say that Obama's developing a lot of momentum, but he is evening things up at the end as he talks about chasing down al-Qaida.

10:30, Obama talking about how little the U. S. is respected in the world.

10:30, McCain moves to Iraq. Obama should have done a lot better on Iraq.

10:32, What about the poor live bloggers? I thought this debate was going to have a break. But enough whining. Obama is talking about how the Iraq war has weakened this country.

10:33, Obama's not doing too bad on the need to de-prioritize Iraq. Not bad.

10:34, McCain emphasizing that he is more experienced than Iraq. McCain testifies that he "will take care of" veterans without being specific. Sentimentality doesn't work here.

10:35. Obama is making a closing point. Now Obama is moving onto his general vision. He wants to "keep America safe" through issues of "how ordinary people are going to live out their dreams."

10:36. McCain goes to his hole card--being a POW.

Next week on October 2, the two VP candidates.

Is McCain Out of Debate Shape?

As an unofficial Obama water-carrying site, we here at RSI used to be worried about the presidential debates. Obama's not that great of a debater and isn't that good in spontaneous give and take with the media either.

But I'm not so worried tonight. John McCain used to be be a very good debater and was once great in the daily cut and thrust with the media.

But since McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt decided to shut down the Straight Talk Express, McCain is just as tightly controlled as the average political candidate. He hasn't talked off the cuff with reporters for six weeks. McCain still does plenty of town hall meetings but my guess is that McCain's not in as great a shape as a debater as he was back in the presidential primaries.

As a result, I'm a lot less nervous. Tonight's debate might be a rather dull showdown between Obama as a less than average debater and McCain as an out of condition debater.

But I'll take dull.

The Obama/McCain Debate's at Nine

Where the Action Is. Barack Obama and John McCain are going to debate tonight at 9:00 eastern standard time. I'll be live-blogging with a packed crowd of faculty, students, and friends in Rader Hall on the campus of Morehead State University in Morehead, KY.

The McCain Set-Up. If John McCain and his campaign were merely smart, they would view this first debate more as an opportunity to slow down the bleeding than anything else. McCain is getting hammered in the press for his "suspend the campaign" stunt and hammered even more because it looks like he torpedoed an emerging agreement to focus attention on himself. McCain has also lost ground in the polling with several surveys showing Obama stretching out to a 5-6 point lead over the last three days. The best strategy for McCain would be to thank god the debate's on foreign policy, hope Jim Lehrer doesn't switch topics to the economy, and persistently advocate his ideas without trying to be overly challenging or showy. That way, the McCain campaign could look for the bleeding to stop before launching more aggressive attacks on Obama next week.

But it's likely that McCain and his campaign team think they're too smart for patience and that McCain will pull off some sort of stunt to make Obama look bad on foreign policy. Maybe McCain will come out with a provocative statement about Russia, Iran, or North Korea. There's always a chance that some kind of campaign will work, but the chances are that the media and the television audience will be pretty skeptical.

One tip: If Jim Lehrer asks McCain about Sarah Palin's foreign policy experience, McCain is doomed. That might be an exaggeration, but, Palin's taking even more of a drubbing in the media than McCain as she comes off her disastrous CBS interview. McCain would be in a very tough spot if Lehrer decides to stick it to him by asking a Palin question.

The Obama Set-Up. Obama's in a great situation. He's leading and McCain's been knocked off his aggressive game by the events of this week. Obama's natural instinct would be to be cautious, take few risks, and let the debate be a boring draw. But the Obama campaign has gotten more aggressive since the Democratic convention and he has two big hammers with him. First, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki now agrees with Obama's time-table plan. Moreover, the Bush administration and John McCain have come to agree with Obama's insistence that Afghanistan is the primary threat in the war on terror. McCain will probably come at Obama with Obama's failure to support the surge in Iraq. But Obama shouldn't have much of a problem dealing with that.

Prediction: I've been horrible at predictions this election, but I think Obama will come out of the debate looking like "the leading candidate for president." He could emerge even better than that if McCain continues to self-destruct, but looking like the leading candidate is pretty damn good.

McCain/GOP on the High Wire

It doesn't take a weatherman to know that there are so many political cross-currents right now that nobody knows much of anything. Nobody in the media knows where the negotiations on Paulson's Big $700 Billion Bailout stand. But I'm not sure the negotiators know either. The main unknowable is whether John McCain or the House Republicans actually want a settlement. One of the reasons House Republicans rejected the understanding between the Dems and the Bush administration was that they didn't want an agreement until after John McCain got back to Washington. An aide to House Republican leader John Boehner "said Republicans revolted, in part, because they were chafing at what they saw as an attempt by Democrats to jam through an agreement on the bailout early Thursday and deny Mr. McCain an opportunity to participate in the agreement." Now McCain is returning the favor to the House GOP by indicating that he might not like the settlement either. But nobody knows what either McCain or the House Republicans want because they're both focused more on presidential politics than on solving the problem. The House Republicans didn't even show up for an evening meeting at the White House.

A secondary matter is that no one realy knows whether there will be a presidential debate Friday night or not. And I haven't even seen any guesses on what all the political manuevering means for the presidential election.

Finally, there's the big question about whether the credit markets are going to completely ground to a halt if there's no big bailout deal by Monday. House Republicans might not care (". . . some House Republicans are saying privately that they’d rather “let the markets crash” than sign on to a massive bailout.) but Sept. 29 might be remembered as the Black Monday of the next big depression.

To paraphrase Karen Carpenter, "Rainy Days and Black Mondays always get me down."

But the fact that nobody knows anything doesn't mean that there aren't important things to say.

The Dems Should Roll the House Republicans. The current hold-up for Paulson's Big Bailout is the House Republicans. The House Republicans are proposing some of the dumbest ideas in the history of American government and they're willing to hold their breath and withhold their votes until everyone else agrees with them. They want to provide insurance guarantees for the private parties buying up the bad financial debt. The House Republicans didn't come up with this idea until Thursday and there's reason to believe that they're mostly engaged in political posturing so that John McCain can look like the guy who's brokering a "compromise." But Secretary of Treasury Paulson declared it unworkable as soon as he heard of it.

I don't see how this proposal would work either. If private parties purchased the debt and it started losing value again, the Republicans want them to be insured for their losses. Perhaps I'm mistaken but my understanding is that investors in capitalist economies are interested in earning profits rather than breaking even by having investments insured. But why would this mechanism give investors confidence in relation to the extremely bad debt they already hold.

Even worse, the Republican plan incorporates more tax breaks for private investors than they already have and deregulates financial markets even further.

Yeah, that's the ticket--more tax breaks and even less structure and coherence for the financial markets than they have now.

Without House Republican support, the Democrats aren't going to go along with any bailout either. The Democratic leadership insists that any bailout legislation gets 100 House Republican votes. I can see the point. The bailout looks unpopular on Main Street and the Democratic leaders want political insurance against GOP attack ads.

But here Nancy Pelosi is mistaken. The Democrats should have more faith in the rightness of their own position and they be running their own ads about how the Republicans are responding to the national crisis with even more tax cuts for the wealthy and even more deregulation to reinforce reckless behavior on Wall Street. Nobody likes bailing out the irresponsible pseudo-geniuses of the financial sector, but Republican proposals are just as irresponsible as the original sub-prime loans. Ultimately, the Democratic leadership should be prepared to pass the bailout legislation with Democratic votes alone. They should also be using their financial advantage to start attacking the conservative Republicans who are rejecting bipartisan compromise in favor of ideological nonsense.

The Debate Tomorrow. The Obama/McCain debate looked like it was on when the Democratic negotiators were declaring that an agreement had been reached. However McCain has pledged to only do the debate if an agreement has been reached and it doesn't look like McCain is particularly interested in reaching agreement unless he gets to broker that agreement himself. Something tells me the Democrats aren't going to buy into that. So it's doubtful that McCain will do the debate.

But what's it all mean for the election. Nobody knows. McCain has gotten a lot of attention for "suspending his campaign," flying into Washington, and doing interviews with CBS, ABC, and NBC. That will probably keep him from slipping further, but I don't see public opinion as coalescing in relation to McCain's latest manuevers. As a result, the meaning of McCain's campaign suspension stunt will be determined more by future events than what's happening in the short term.

But we're seeing what a McCain presidency would look like. McCain talks a bi-partisan game, but what that means is that he would play the Democrats and conservative Republicans against each other in order to make himself look good. As a result, a McCain presidency would involve a constant helping of high-wire political posturing where a President McCain would try to focus maximum attention on himself. That's McCain's character. He a "me, me, me" kind of guy who likes to take big risks without being organized or thinking things through. It's also McCain's political position. McCain doesn't have a big constitutency in the Republican Party and would be facing Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate. Given that he's essentially a politicqal loner, McCain would alway have to be working out new ways to focus attention on himself. That makes for a daily high wire act.

John McCain not only likes to be irresponsible, it's his only option.

Cracking Republican Foundations

Political discussion is being dominated by the McCain campaign's call for postponing Friday night's debate with Barack Obama.

But the most important development of the day involves the Republican Party in the House and the Senate. It appears that the Bush administration's plan to hand $700 billion to Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson for the purpose of buying up bad debt isn't flying with rank and file Republicans at all.

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky emerged from deep obscurity to proclaim that “This massive bailout is not a solution. It is financial socialism and it's un-American.”

It didn't set too well with House Republicans either:

“Just because God created the world in seven days doesn't mean we have to pass
this bill in seven days,” said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas.

Added Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., “I am emphatically against it.”

And a visit by Dick Cheney and Josh Bolton made things even worse.

The problem for the Republicans is this. If they follow their conservative instincts and oppose the bailout on principle, Republicans risk a moment of truth in which they look like the irresponsible ideologues they are.

But they're also creating a huge problem for the McCain campaign and the Bush administration which is trying to help the McCain campaign. If Congressional Republicans oppose Paulson's Big Bailout on principle, then the only chance to pass anything is to seek Democratic support. The Bush administration has recognized this. As a result, Bush have acceded to Democratic demands for items like Congressional oversight, protection for mortgage holders, and severe limitations on CEO salaries. The Bush administration has long been successful in stiffing the Congressional Democrats because of theunanimous support they were getting from the Republican caucus. Without that, the Bush administration has had to give into the Democrats on every point except the Democratic insistence on exchanging debt relief for equity in financial companies.

So has John McCain.

In this way, the Bush bailout proposal has cracked the foundation of the Republican Party in lockstep support for Bush administration positions. That's a great deal of what's underlying McCain's stunt proposal to bring the presidential campaigns back to Washington. If the bailout proposal becomes a largely Democratic initiative, the Republican Party will look irrelevant on the biggest issue of our time just as the country is moving into an election.

It's a deadly combination for a Republican candidate like McCain. So he decided to pull a big stunt on Obama and suspend his campaign.

Quack, Quack McCain

I knew that McCain was going to do something big in relation to the Friday debate. He doesn't have any traction on the bailout issue at all and is starting to fall farther behind.

But I didn't realize that McCain's big move would be ducking the debate altogether.

The Way the Wind Blows

The die is cast. An ABC/Washington Post poll has Obama up by 9. That means that McCain's going to come out swinging in Friday night's debate. My personal bet is that we're going to hear a lot about Obama's connections to William Ayres, the ex-Weatherman radical.

Bank Lobbyists like Paulson's Big Bailout

NPR has an interview with a bank lobbyist who is much happier with the Bush administration's bailout plan than Democratic ideas of limiting CEO pay and setting up an oversight mechanism. There's just something about getting $700 billion with no strings attached that seems appealing.

McCain: The Road to Nowhere

Last week, there was an announcement that construction was finished on the $25 million road to the place where the Bridge to Nowhere was supposed to be built. With all McCain's pandering, flip flops, and lies, it's becoming obvious that a McCain administration would be the ultimate "Road to Nowhere."

Thomas Friedman--Idiot

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has a column in the Herald-Leader about rating presidential candidates by how much they challenge their "base." That's too clever by half. How about rating candidates on what their policies and leadership would do for the country as a whole?

Four Corners: The Politics of the Bailout

The outline of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's massive bailout plan is clear. But only the outline is clear because the proposed bill is a two-page outline that doesn't fill in any of the details.

Paulson wants Congress to appropriate $700 billion for the purpose of buying up the bad debt of financial institutions. The money is intended solely to purchase bad debt ("cash for trash" according to Paul Krugman). Paulson doesn't want any authority to regulate, manage, purchase, or punish the corporate managements that made all the bad decisions. In other words, the proposal is designed in such a way that the federal bailout has no impact on the management prerogative of financial instititutions.

Paulson is also trying to ensure that no other federal institution can interfere with his authority to distribute the money in any way he sees fit. He demands that there not be any kind of regulatory supervision, legally mandated process, or recourse to the courts in relation to the purchase of bad debt. Much as Paulson is seeking to ensure that corporate managements can do whatever they want, he is also trying to insulate himself from any oversight that would prevent him from doing whatever he wants.

Some people criticize the money. Others don't like the preservation of corporate autonomy, and others object to the dictatorial powers Paulson seeks for himself.

But nobody thinks this is a good deal.

Liberal Democrats object to Paulson's efforts to shield failing financial institution from further oversight, consequences for their recklessness, or quid pro quos. Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd has filed a proposal that empowers the federal government to acquire equity in financial companies in exchange for the purchase of bad debt. Barney Frank is pushing for a Congressional Oversight Board to oversee the use of the $700 billion. Other Dems want CEO salaries kept under $500,000 while liberal bloggers like Matthew Yglesias would like to see a lot of CEO's fired as punishment for their reckless investments.

Thinking about these objections makes it possible to better understand the logic of Paulson's proposal. Paulson essentially wants to use the $700 billion to re-establish as much of the status quo ante in the financial markets as possible. He wants financial companies to go back to a state where they are fundamentally solvent, free to invest company funds (and reward executives) in the way they see fit, and "unburdened" by much federal regulation. That's why Paulson asks nothing from the companies in return for the $700 billion and is adamant that he have total control over the money. Paulson doesn't want to create any more regulatory structures that could exercise control over the market.

But Democrat counter-arguments have validity. For the Dems, the huge salaries and bonuses, disregard for basics, and reckless plays in the derivative markets were all signs that the financial markets were fundamentally disordered before the bust. Consequently, the Dems believe that the failure to enact new kinds of regulation will only be inviting another orgy of bank excess and a future financial crisis. For the Dems, putting new regulatory structures in place would create a new status quo that is more stable than what Bernanke is trying to protect.

The real action in terms of addressing the financial crisis is between the Bush administration and Congressional Democrats. If Paulson and the Democratic leadership can work out a compromise (the main issue of contention would be Dodd's idea of a cash for equity swap), there will be some plan that preserves the $700 billion bailout but also enacts some of the controls over the market called for by the Demcrats.

If not, the Bush administration and the Dems will be playing their usual game of chicken in order to see who blinks first with the economy on the verge of depression.

At the same time, some conservative Republicans are mounting an interesting sideshow. Some Republicans like Patrick Ruffini of The Next Right think that the Paulson bailout is a perfect time to assert conservative principles in a way that works for the McCain campaign.

Let this be the political establishment (Bush Republicans in the White House + Democrats in Congress) saddling the taxpayers with hundreds of billions in debt (more than the Iraq War, conjured up in a single weekend, and enabled by Pelosi,
btw), while principled Republicans say "No" and go to the country with a stinging indictment of the majority in Congress.

For activists like Ruffini and "rock-ribbed" (love that phrase) conservative politicians like Jim Bunning of Kentucky, enduring a depression is not nearly as bad as enduring more government control over the economy.

For ideological conservatives, any government control is "socialism" and Paulson's bailout is "the end of free enterprise as we know it." Compared to that ideological catastrophe, a depression isn't such a bad thing.

But Republican leaders like John McCain live in a world where an economic depression is seen as one of the ultimate traumas on a par with a large-scale terrorist attack or military action on the scale of WWII.

If McCain's campaign talks about a "huge bailout" in a way that seems blase about a depression, they'll lose. But defending the Bush administration's bailout as it is doesn't look like a winner either.

Consequently, McCain is sounding a lot like the Democrats in calling for greater oversight and protection for householders facing huge mortgage payments.

. . . the GOP presidential hopeful nonetheless called for a bipartisan oversight board to supervise the proposed bailout, to be led by Warren Buffett or another widely respected business leader . . .

The Arizona senator also called on Congress to move quickly and work with the Bush administration to restore stability to the troubled financial sector. But he said the goal of any action must be to allow homeowners to stay in their homes and prevent Wall Street executives from profiting from a taxpayer bailout.

It's the worst of all worlds for McCain. Because his solutions sound lso much ike Democratic solutions, the McCain campaign was reduced to futile sniping at the New York Times and the Politico for not accepting any of their brand new distortions of Obama's background and record.

All that accomplished was getting McCain a little more bad press.

Right now, the four-corner politics of Paulson's Big Bailout is working for the Democrats. That will give Obama a little momentum leading into Friday's debate.

Paulson on the Bailout: A Trillion Here, A Trillion Now

The Bush administration has asked for $700 billion over the next two years to buy up the bad debt of the many regular banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and other entities who have goofed up the economy. I wouldn't be surprised if that turned into a trillion before everything is done.

Of course, everybody on the left, right, and in the middle recognizes the need for some form of system remedy for the crisis that's enveloped the financial sector. Whites get it. Blacks get it. So do Republicans and Democrats, the young and old, and rich and poor. Everybody gets it. I think I even hear one of the Caric family cats meowing about "comprehensive solutions."

America has achieved the kind of consensus that hasn't been seen since 9-11.

But the Bush administration is still managing to turn the Wall Street Rescue Plan into a partisan exercise.

That's because they insist on just handing over $700 billion to Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson to spend as he sees fit. The three page bill defines the Secretary of Treasury's breathtaking new powers in two brief little clauses.

Sec. 2. Purchases of Mortgage-Related Assets

(a) Authority to Purchase.--The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by
the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its
headquarters in the United States.

(b) Necessary Actions.--The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation:

That's it. There's no oversight, no process for evaluation and dispersement of money, no requirements to meet for the companies that get the money. The Secretary of Treasury has complete discretion from which there is no appeal of any sort.

Sec. 8. Review.

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

In other words, the Secretary of Treasury wants to be able to play with $700 billion without any kind of checks and balances.

And the Secretary doesn't want his authority tainted by any measures that the Democrats would want that would create oversight structures, help homebuyers or hold the financial executives who created the crisis.

As the Bush administration puts it, they want a "clean bill" that only includes what they want.

And they want it now.

Perhaps they should try this slogan--"A Trillion Here, A Trillion Now."

But Why Isn't Obama Further Over 50?

There are a couple of polls out today (Gallup, Research 2000) that have Obama at 50%. Maybe Obama will be able to build on this. Maybe not. But if Obama does sneak over 50, it won't be long before pundits start asking why he isn't further over 50% than he is.

The Financial Meltdown: A Five-Step Primer

One of my problems as a blogger is discussing the economic mess without writing another version of my dissertation.

But it turns out that the whole financial crisis and upcoming government intervention boils down to five easy steps.

Liberal blogger Atrios hits three of these in one sentence.

Again, the problem is that [1] lots of bad loans were made, [2] lots of people made highly leveraged investments in those bad loans, and [3] still more people bet on those loans by insuring them.

That's exactly right.

There are two other steps as well.

[4] The banks and money-market funds covered their butts by beginning to shut down the economy.

[5] The Bush administration wants to prevent total economic collapse by buying the whole load of bad debt from everybody involved.

That's the whole story in a nutshell and readers can stop here if they like.

But, because I'm an academic, I feel an obsessive urge to explain the nutshell further.

First. The "really smart guys" at mortgage banks like IndyMac and Countrywide Financial made billions of dollars of "really dumb" sub-prime mortgage loans that large numbers of people were unlikely to pay back.

Second. The "really smart guys" then sold those loans to the Wizards of Wall Street who inflated a derivatives market with a dazzling array of financial instruments rooted in bad mortgage debt. At this point, lenders like Countrywide Financial, investment banks like Merrill Lynch, and supposedly safe money-market funds were heavily invested in the bad mortgage debt and in all the derivatives from the debt as well. So were all of the stockholders in these companies and everybody with money in the money market funds.

That's not good.

Third. Companies like AIG wrote insurance contracts for the sub-prime loans. It also appears that there was a market for the insurance contracts. AIG lost more than $100 billion over the last six months, but there might be a lot of other entities on the hook for the insurance contracts as well.

A Reality Interlude. At this point in September 2008, the first waves of sub-prime loans have gone bad (there will be more), several of the major players have collapsed under the weight of bad debt, and the spectre of bankruptcy hangs over everybody playing in the sub-prime mortgage, derivatives, and credit default swaps markets.

Here's where we move to step four.

Fourth. Financial companies started to cover their butts by bringing the economy to a halt. According to the Wall Street Journal that's what Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson saw on Wednesday. Worried about their obligations from the derivatives market, banks had stopped making the short-term loans that allow American companies to function on a daily basis. Money market funds were also hoarding cash to cover their butts as large numbers of people began withdrawing money from their accounts. In other words, the financial wheels were grinding to a halt.

Fifth. The Federal Government was forced to change its policy from addressing one company at a time to resolving the problems of the whole financial system. As a result, they've decided to buy up the bad debt that's hanging over the marketplace and give all the players in the financial system a new beginning. The details haven't been fleshed out yet, but the "bad debt" probably includes the sub-prime loans, the complex obligations entailed by derivatives instruments, and the bad insurance contracts.

The current price-tag being floated around is $700 billion. My own non-expert and extremely humble opinion is that we'll get off lightly if the final cost is only twice that.

As Atrios and others on the right and left point out, the banks, insurance companies, money-market funds, and other entities don't deserve the massive bailout they're getting.

What really needs to happen is that the "financial game" needs to be reformed and redefined in a much more highly regulated way.

Given that it's all about "depression prevention" in the short term, Congress would do best to build structural remedies into the short-term legislation.

Specifically, the banks, insurance companies, investment companies, and insurance companies should be forced to meet a series of conditions to be eligible to have their debt assumed by the federal government. It's especially imperative that banks resume "normal lending" for business operations and home mortgages as William Greider suggests in The Nation. That would loosen up the short-term credit crunch that was threatening the economy. There should also be a demand for tight caps on top executive salaries, bonuses, and stock options, limits on the amount of debt that can be accumulated in merger transactions, and some sort of federal oversight on risk management.

Given that the Bush administration is proposing to wipe away so much of the "debit" side of financial sector balance sheets, the players will now be operating with government money under government protection.

They should pay a high price for that.

Sympathy for Joey Harrington

Quarterback Joey Harrington signed yesterday with the New Orleans Saints to back up Drew Brees and Mark Brunell. I should have said "purportedly" there because I don't think the Saints brought in Harrington strictly as a third team quarterback. Backup quarterback Mark Brunell's been on his last legs as an NFL player for three or four years now. I bet the Saints signed Harrington in the hope that he would be an upgrade.

Joey Harrington has been a media punching bag ever since he was drafted third in 2003. But Harrington never deserved the abuse. The team that originally drafted Harrington, the Detroit Lions, is the single worst organization in professional sports. Harrington has also played for Miami and Atlanta in terrible situations that were getting worse while he was there.

But as bad as things were in all three of these jobs, Harrington didn't complain, didn't whine, and didn't make himself into yet another problem for dysfunctional organizations.

I give Joey Harrington a lot of credit for that. I'm sure I wouldn't have done nearly that well myself.

Obviously, Joey Harrington is not a Tom Brady/Peyton Manning talent. But who knows. He might turn out to be a Matt Hasselback type who can be a plus for a good team.

Here's hoping that he gets the chance.

Is Palin a Rock or a Rocket?

The nomination of Sarah Palin galvanized conservative support for John McCain. McCain's drawing bigger crowds and his numbers are going up dramatically in rural red states like Alaska, Montana, and the Dakotas.

But what about the rest of the voting public?

The final answer on the effect of the Palin nomination isn't in yet, but the St. Petersburg Times in Florida finds that a panel of independent voters and some moderate Republicans are so offended by the Palin nomination that they have moved off the fence and have started supporting Obama.

Five weeks ago, the St. Petersburg Times convened a group of Tampa Bay voters who were undecided about the presidential election. Their strong distrust of Barack Obama suggested it was a group ripe for John McCain to win over.

Not anymore. The group has swung dramatically, if unenthusiastically, toward Democrat Obama. Most of them this week cited the same reason: Sarah Palin.

"The one thing that frightens me more than anything else are the ideologues. We've seen too many," said 80-year-old Air Force veteran Donn Spegal, a lifelong Republican from St. Petersburg, who sees McCain's new running mate as the kind of "wedge issue" social conservative that has made him disenchanted with his party.

Although the Palin nomination has created conservative enthusiasm for the McCain campaign, it has also created a number of problems for McCain. Perhaps the most immediate difficulty is that the "questions" surrounding Palin have put McCain on the defensive with the media. Distaste for Palin's mocking demeanor and strident social conservatism has also helped Obama's fundraising (bias alert: I sent $50 to the Obama campaign the day after Palin's acceptance speech) and probably solidified support for Obama among Democrats.

If the Palin nomination is starting to push swing voters away from McCain in important states like Florida, Palin might be the rock that gradually drags the McCain campaign under.

Homophobic Bigotry Losing Ground in California?

A Field poll finds that California's Proposition 8 to ban gay marriage is losing ground in California, with support falling from 42% to 38% in June.

That's good news.

Marriage is a civil rights issue and gay activists should be complimented on the enormous progress they've made on marriage issues since the ugly gay-baiting election of 2004.

It should be emphasized that polling on an issue gay marriage probably isn't that reliable because of the volatility of the pool of those likely to vote on the issue and possibility of a "Bradley Effect" where people lie to pollsters in order to hide their prejudices.

Still, good news is good news.

If Indiana Goes Blue . . .

Today's Rassmussen and ARG polling has McCain only 2-3 points ahead in Indiana. My understanding is that Obama is running strong in the Indianapolis area with McCain leading in the rest of the state. But the fact that Obama is running so well means that Indiana is like Virginia and Colorado in being a red state now turning purple.

But the Republicans are doomed for a long time if Obama wins Indiana. Indiana would be the last of the New England, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwestern states to go Democratic. Indiana going Democratic would have a significant symbolic resonance in that it would tend to make the Republican Party a regional party of the South and rural areas.

Sarah Palin posed herself as the candidate of small town America. It might not be that long before small towns, farm areas, and the old Confederacy might be all the America the Republicans have left.

Endorsing Bruce Lunsford: The Only Way McCain Can Save His Campaign

The worm has turned on the John McCain presidential campaign. Obama's back ahead in the RealClearPolitics poll average while the Gallup tracking poll has shown either Obama gaining or stayed the same for at least the last eight days. McCain also finds himself on the defensive as he has to cover up his gaffes about "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" and defend Sara Palin against accusations that she's abused power and systematically lied about her record.

Moreover, McCain falling flat in his attempts to articulate a populist stand in relation to the Wall Street financial crisis. Few people believe McCain when he says that failed companies like Lehman Brothers were greedy and that he would fire the chairman of the SEC. But why does McCain have so little credibility? Much of McCain's problem is that the "McCain Maverick" brand has been tarnished with dishonesty as McCain and Palin have continued to push the false claim that Palin stopped the infamous "bridge to nowhere" project. Given the widespread belief that McCain is lying about one of his central advertising points, voters and pundits are right to doubt that he's being honest in his denunciations of Wall Street.

So, how does McCain re-establish the "Maverick" brand that would give him more credibility as he attacks "the Establishment" on economic issues?

The best thing McCain could do would be to endorse Bruce Lunsford over incumbent Republican Mitch McConnell in the Kentucky Senate race.

Endorsing Lunsford over McConnell would bring John McCain's populist slogans to life.

The McCain/Palin ticket wants to "shake things up" in Washington. Nothing would shake things up more than a Republican presidential candidate endorsing the Democratic candidate over the Senate Republican leader.

McCain wants to attack what Palin calls "the old boys network." Mitch McConnell is the hub of the old boys network in the Republican Party. In fact, McConnell has driven the driving force in the Senate Republican fundraising apparatus for years. According to the Lexington, KY Herald-Leader.

McConnell's rise to the top of Congress is testament to the power of money in modern politics. He has raised nearly $220 million over his Senate career; he spent the majority not on his own campaigns but on those of his GOP colleagues, who have rewarded him with power.

John McCain should have personal knowledge of that because McConnell has usually been the most determined opponent of McCain's efforts to limit the influence of money in politics.

A leader in the field of tapping the wealthy for campaign cash, McConnell also led the opposition against efforts to rein in such donations through campaign-finance reform -- a fight that has taken him to the U.S. Supreme Court and put him toe-to-toe against another emerging Republican leader, presidential hopeful McCain.

McCain also says he wants to get beyond partisan gridlock. Certainly, there's nobody who is more dedicated to Republican partisanship and Washington gridlock than Mitch McConnell. McConnell even refers to himself as "a proud guardian of gridlock." Even worse, McConnell has set new records for obstructive filibustering in the Senate since he became Republican leader.

Even better, McCain can claim that he's putting "country first" over friendship by talking about how he's endorsing McConnell's opponent despite twenty-four years of serving in the Senate with Mitch McConnell.

If McCain wants to reclaim his "inner maverick," he'll endorse Bruce Lunsford over Mitch McConnell as soon as possible.

McCain's Lost Ground Overall

It looks like the Palin nomination is going to be a significant negative for McCain. After a couple of weeks of Palin criticism from the media and liberal blogs, Obama is back in front in two out of the three daily tracking polls. True, Obama still hasn't regained the 3 point aggregate lead he had going into the Democratic convention. But the ultimate outcome of the Palin nomination is that McCain's now on the defensive and not very comfortable with that. In fact, McCain seems to have completely lost his footing in relation to Palin, the Wall Street meltdown, and yesterday's huge gaffe about Spain being an enemy.

Hacking Sarah Palin's e-mail

Hacking Sarah Palin's e-mail was illegal, morally wrong, and nastily malicious. I can't see where it was anything other than an electonic form of break and entering and burglary. I'm not big on throwing people in jail for this kind of thing, but I do believe that the perpetrators owe Palin a few years worth of their income.

The Road to Socialism Runs Through Deregulation

Today's 85 billion government bailout of the giant insurer AIG means that the Bush administration now owns Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the country's largest insurance company.

As liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias notes, it's almost like the Bush administration has achieved "socialism in our time."

But the financial mess also leaves American economic and political elites with a significant choice--economic regulation or socialism.

If the U. S. continues down the road of laissez-faire deregulation recommended by the Republicans and the right, we'll end up with a semi-socialist economy in which the government owns the financial sector. That's because the lure of high profits will continually lead investors to assume that high-risk strategies are "sure things." In the current crisis, everybody involved thought that sub-prime mortgages were a route to big profits even though it was always highly unlikely that homeowners would pay off the mortgages. As a result, banks, mortgage lending businesses, and financial companies invested heavily in the mortgages and then packaged them as securities and sold them to other companies.

AIG's was heavily invested in all aspects of the sub-prime morgage pyramid scam, and so far, it's cost AIG more than $100 billion and taxpayers are now on the hook for $85 billion of that.

Of course, a loyal free-marketer would just say to let AIG default. But smaller banks and money-market funds are heavily invested in AIG's financial instruments. As a result, an AIG failure would destroy a significant chunk of working capital and have heavy ripple effects through the economy. Consequently, the Fed concluded that AIG was too deeply integrated into the economy as a whole to allow to fail and decided to make an $85 billion bridge loan in exchange for 79% of the company.

In other words, the laissez-faire policies of the Republican Party are a prescription for socialism. Indeed, the Bush administration took 100% of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The other route is for the federal government to more actively regulate the financial sector in a way that's generally advocated by the Democrats. Stricter forms of regulation would discourage the development of extremely risky strategies like making sub-prime loans, bundling those loans into securities and seemingly flooding the market with those securities. Thus, they would function to stabilize the financial markets. Of courese, going the regulation route would suppress short-term financial sector profit and marginally lowering short-term economic growth as a whole. But the financial sector and the economy as a whole would be more stable in the long-run.

In this sense, Democratic approaches to regulation would preserve capitalism against the massive shifts toward government ownership that result from Republican policies.

Save American capitalism, vote for Barack Obama.

The War with Matthew Yglesias Continues

Today, I got my post about Sara Palin's tanning bed up HOURS before Matthew Yglesias finally said something about this all-consuming topic on his Think Progress blog.

Great minds think alike, but I'm a lot happier when I post on my great ideas before Yglesias.

Here's Yglesias:

Nothing says “just folks” working class credibility like owning your own tanning bed. My understanding is that this is fairly common among reasonably prosperous Alaskans — in the wintertime, of course, there’s very little sun. A tanning bed can help make you feel better during those long, dark months. And nothing says “I own a tanning bed” quite like walking around with a tan in the Alaskan winter.

But that’s all pretty weird. Normal Americans don’t live in Alaska, don’t experience 22 straight hours of darkness ever, and don’t own personal tanning beds. Long story short, tanning beds are about as all-American as moose stew, which is not to say not all-American at all but rather idiosyncratic elements of the culture of an odd state located northwest of Canada.

But in fact, obsessive tanning is American to the extreme. After all, all those actors and singers don't look so bronzed because they spend a great deal of time outside.

Tanning is especially American in Eastern Kentucky. Here's my crushing reply to Yglesias:

Matt really needs to get out into the country some. Tanning is ubiquitous in rural America. I live in a town of 8,000 in rural Kentucky (and yes, our mayor IS thinking about a run for the presidency in 2012) and there are tanning beds everywhere. There’s a least five or six businesses in town devoted entirely to tanning. Then, there’s the several gas stations/convenience stores which have tanning sidelines. I think there are a bunch of home tanning parlors as well.

The trick is that tanning is a business with heavy demand and low start-up costs.

The population here is 98-99% white and white men and white women both do a lot of tanning. It's not like tanning helps much in this area. With a very fair-skinned Scots-Irish population, Kentucky tanning usually creates a yellowish color. But tanning is as American in Eastern Kentucky as shooting hoops, growing marijuana, and going to church on Wednesday.

Well, maybe not as American as growing marijuana.

Sleeping in Palin's Tanning Bed

Liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias and other sources report that Sarah Palin had a tanning bed installed in the Governor's Mansion in Juneau, Alaska after she became governor. There was nothing unethical about the purchase. Palin paid up to $35,000 for the tanning bed herself.

Of course, there are critical types who might think that Palin's buying her own tanning bed is a sign of an unusually high level of vanity. But there are other possible explanations. Perhaps Palin was using the tanning bed as a medical treatment for seasonal depression. Winters in Alaska don't feature a lot of sun. Come to think of it, Alaska winters don't feature any sun at all. Maybe Palin just needed some extra light in her life.

There's also the chance that Palin made the tanning bed the center of her social life in the same way that West Coast types use jacuzzis. Palin hired former Wasilla High classmates like Franci Havemeister into high profile Alaska state jobs after she became governor. There wasn't anything unethical about Havermeister's appointment to a $95,000 director's job in the Alaska Agriculture Department either. After all, Havermeister did list her love of cows as a qualification for the job.

Anyway, maybe she invited some of her grateful friends over for late-night tanning parties.

Palin might also be training for tanning competitions like Zonker in Doonesbury. As seen in the picture above, Palin's yellowish look indicates that she would be early in her training. But Palin might be working her way up to the kind of "Waikiki Brown" needed for championship tanning. Husband Tod Palin is a championship snowmobile racer. Maybe Sarah decided to take up an adult sport of her own.

Of course, it could be vanity after all.

Scrutiny, Truth, and the McCain Campaign

The presidential election has entered a fluid stage with McCain holding about a 1-2 average edge in the polls. Given that Obama was ahead by 3 points going into the Democratic Convention, McCain not only wiped out Obama's convention bump but gained 5 points overall by the time the conventions were over. McCain even reached 50% in yesterday's Rasmussen tracking poll.

That gain was almost entirely a result of his nomination of Sarah Palin for vice-president.

But the downside of the Palin nomination is also coming into focus.

The first effect is that the furor over the Palin nomination has taken the steam out of McCain's advertising. Despite being slightly behind through most of July, McCain seized the initiative through his campaign's attack ads on Barack Obama's "celebrity" status. Winning most of the battles for the short-term "media cycle," McCain could have reasonably hoped that the Palin nomination would build on that success and he would take a significant lead.

But it's not working out that way.

Investigative reports and pundit debates have focused so much on Palin that McCain's current attack ads on Obama's support for early sex education and Obama's "fading star" aren't getting any traction.

As a result, the McCain campaign has not been able to keep Obama on the defensive.

That's a problem for the McCain campaign.

Obama has tremendous charisma, more people trust the Democrats, and Obama has had success in tying McCain to the Bush presidency. It also looks like Obama is going to have a significant financial advantage over McCain. If the McCain campaign can't keep Obama on the defensive, they leave the door open for Obama's "structural" advantages to start having more of an effect on voters.

In fact, the Palin nomination has put the McCain campaign itself on the defensive. Much of what the McCain campaign has been doing over the last week is mounting a defense against charges that Palin has no foreign policy experience, knows little about domestic policy, and has used her power to pursue an ugly vendetta against a former brother-in-law. Because they've been forced to defend Palin to such an extent, the McCain campaign is now stuck in defense mode.

And as the Obama campaign could tell them, that's not a good place to be.

In fact, the defensive mode may turn out to be a dangerous place because the McCain campaign put such emphasis on Palin's opposition to the Bridge to Nowhere pork-barrel project in Alaska as a symbol of her effectiveness as a "reformer." It emerged that Palin was a strong supporter of the bridge project while she was running for governor in 2006 and only came to oppose the project after it was clear that it was doomed in Congress. As a result, the liberal blogs and the Obama campaign are beginning to use the McCain's campaign's efforts to pose Palin as a determined opponent of the bridge as a symbol of the McCain campaign's willingness to be systematically dishonest in order to get elected.

This could be dangerous to McCain. A variety of media sources are now questioning McCain's honesty about the Palin nomination and are raising issues concerning McCain's basic integrity as a public figure. This could be especially dangerous for McCain because he changed his position on a number of important issues like the Bush tax cuts and immigration in order to win the Republican nomination. If the Obama campaign and the media are able to establish McCain's flip-flopping and distorted statements concerning Sarah Palin as symbols of McCain's general dishonesty, the McCain campaign will be in for a rough ride.

Not that they don't deserve it.

Curse You, Matthew Yglesias

I was going to write a post about how Sarah Palin's cronyistic hiring of her high school classmates reminded me of George Bush's disastrous hiring of Mike Brown as director of FEMA.

But Matthew Yglesias beat me to the point.

That's the second time in two days that Yglesias has posted one of my ideas before I could.

He must be stopped.

Palin Knows Even Less Than Krauthammer Thinks

The propogandists of the right-wing are generally a highly skilled and relatively unsentimental bunch of people. They have to be. Hardly any of them can stand John McCain but they're all carrying his water with the enthusiasm and brio of Adam Sandler's character in The WaterBoy.

But sometimes they goof up. Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer thinks that he's making Sarah Palin look better by pointing out that Charles Gibson only referred to one of the four versions of the Bush doctrine in his question to Palin.

There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration -- and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.

Besides meaning that Bush claims the right to pre-emptively attack countries like Iraq, there are three other Bush Doctrines.

According to Krauthammer, the Bush doctrine also refers to "going it alone" in foreign affairs, the division of the world into those who were "for us" and those who were "against us," and the doctrine of exporting freedom to all the countries of the Middle East.

Certainly Krauthammer's right about all the Bush doctrines, but that makes Palin look even worse than she does already.

In fact, Palin isn't just unaware of one Bush doctrine, she's unaware of all four of the Bush doctrines. Palin didn't know any of the four Bush doctrines when asked. In fact, she didn't even recognize the term "Bush doctrine" as having any particular meaning.

That makes the score the Bush Doctrine-5, Sarah Palin-0.

Update--Perhaps Palin could hire one of her high school classmates to give her tutoring in foreign policy.

And Again--Matthew Yglesias and Rich Lowry discussed the same point earlier in the day.

We're Doomed! Doomed!

The workload for Mrs. RSI's nurse practitioner program isn't too heavy yet. As a result, Mrs. RSI isn't as exhausted as she used to be on Friday and Saturday night and she has the energy to go out and rent her favorite movies.

Unfortunately, her favorite movies are primo chick flicks like Shirley Valentine.

Mrs. RSI not only got to watch Shirley Valentine, but she got some highly valued privacy because the two girls and I scattered to our rooms as soon as it came on. Even at the ages of 11 and 14, Miss Tween RSI and Miss Teen RSI instinctually recognize the soul-destroying qualites of films like Shirley Valentine, When Harry Met Sally, and Sleepless in Seattle.

So they ran for their lives.

If Mrs. RSI's professors don't assign her some real work soon, our family is doomed! Doomed I tell you!

Doomed!

Palin Fills the Tub with Talking Points

Robert Packwood, a long-time Republican senator, once said that politicians need to regularly fill up and empty the "tub" of knowledge. Politicians need to "fill the tub" with facts, arguments, and talking points on topics like Iraq when they are the center of national debate. But they also need to be able to "empty the tub" on that topic and fill it with another topic like "energy" when the debate moves on.

In her interview with Charlie Gibson tonight, Sarah Palin showed that she's "filled up the tub" with McCain campaign talking points and was able to stick to those points. She didn't know much in the way of facts and didn't have much of an idea of the arguments on issues like relations with Russia, the situation in Georgia, the Iranian nuclear program, and Israel. But she didn't often let herself be thrown off the talking points she had been given by the McCain campaign either.

No doubt the McCain campaign was relieved.

Here's an example. Palin made a comment about Russia bordering on Alaska. So media patsy Charlie Gibson gently prodded her on why that mattered:

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?
PALIN: They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.
GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they're doing in Georgia?
PALIN: Well, I'm giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relation with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it's in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

We cannot repeat the Cold War. We are thankful that, under Reagan, we won the Cold War, without a shot fired, also. We've learned lessons from that in our relationship with Russia, previously the Soviet Union.

We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it's in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

Here, you can see where Palin's a skilled politician. Gibson asks her about what insight she has into Russia. Palin doesn't have any facts or arguments to answer that question, but she has the self-possession to ignore the question and recite her talking point about being able to "actually see Russia from land here in Alaska."

When the truth makes you look bad, maintaining a deceptive appearance is all you can do.

Gibson then "oh so gently" follows up with a question about the insight Palin has about Georgia from her close proximity to Russia. Not having any insight into Georgia either, Palin again seizes an opportunity to get in several talking points blather about "how small the world is" and how we're not going to have "another cold war" and "good relationships with allies."

There were a couple of points where Palin did trip up. She said something about the possibility of war with Russia and didn't have any idea what the "Bush doctrine" was.

These points will get some play in the liberal blogs, but Palin deployed her tub full of talking points in a way that achieved her overall goal of talking somewhat tough about foreign policy without seeming like a bullying wacko.

That's not bad considering that she really knows very little about the world and is unprepared to talk foreign policy on even the simplest level.

The Propping Up McCain Campaign

It looks like Sarah Palin is going to be spending a lot of time on the road with McCain. According to MSNBC, this will allow McCain's campaign staff to keep Palin on a short leash and shield her from the media.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will spend much of the next few weeks campaigning with Sen. John McCain, a move that not only capitalizes on the Republican enthusiasm for the vice presidential nominee but also limits her exposure to the news media . . .

McCain and Palin traveling together limits her exposure to reporters and gives McCain's top aides more control of her. Palin has not done interviews since the first and only one she gave to People magazine on the day McCain introduced her as his vice presidential choice.

There's a way I can see this. The McCain campaign keeps John McCain tightly controlled. Therefore, it's no surprise that they would want to keep a close watch over Palin as well.

But I still don't think that's the main reason why Palin's going to travel with McCain.

The media and the rest of America has to face the facts.

John McCain's just not that much of a presidential candidate. McCain is so gaffe-prone that his campaign staff has had to hide him from the media. Likewise, McCain is so volatile that he has to have buddies Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham with him as "minders" to keep him on an even keel.

And now, McCain is so far overshadowed by his "instant celebrity" vice-presidential candidate that he needs to have her with him to have any kind of enthusiasm on the stump.

If the Republican presidential campaign is all about propping up John McCain, Sarah Palin's celebrity status makes her the most important of McCain's campaign props. In other words, MCain needs Palin a lot more than Palin needs McCain.

There's also the fact that Republicans want Sarah Palin to be president far more than they want John McCain.

And that leads me to a final thought.

If John McCain wins the election, he'll be the first president in American history who was a lame duck even before he was elected.

The Zen of Not Umming

Today, I was interviewd for half an hour on "Front Page," a radio program hosted by Chuck Mraz on MSPR in Morehead. Without going into the details, I was much less nervous and had fewer "umms" and "uh's" than I had in my one television program last summer.

My mother-in-law thought it was better as well.

The Waiting for McCain to Die Party

It looks like the election is boiling down to a battle between the Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama and John McCain, the candidate of the "Waiting for John McCain to Die" Party.

Housing Socialism in America

Over the weekend, the federal government announced that it was taking over mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, meaning that “effectively, the federal government has now become the nation’s mortgage lender.”

In other words, mortgage lending has become a form of socialist enterprise in the United States.

Who's to blame?

Obviously, it's the conservatives have taken their eye off the advance of American socialism.

Obsessed with preventing "socialized medicine" in the form of the federal government mandates for private health insurance, conservatives didn't notice that socialism had advanced so far in the housing business.

Originally founded as government agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had become semi-public businesses that "guaranteed" up to 80% of private housing loans by buying those loans up and reselling them on the market. Thus, the federal government was providing the same kind of guarantee in housing that Hillary Clinton and other health reformers wanted to provide for health insurance.

Where were Harry and Louise of the famous anti-HillaryCare ads when this happened. From a conservative point of view of keeping government out of the economy as much as possible, "socialized housing" had arrived.

With the federal government's takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government's role in the housing market has advanced even further. Of course, there was no realistic choice. If private housing markets were going to function adequately, the federal government had to step in and directly guarantee private mortgage lending. Otherwise, a large percentage of houses wouldn't be built, builders would go unemployed, and building supply companies like Lowe's would not be able to remain in their current businesses.

That's why the sphere of "socialism" has been expanded in the housing market. The private markets need some sort of principle of "social management" in order to function adequate.

And that's why the sphere of "socialism" needs to expand in health care. American health care is enormously expensive and does a poor job of promoting health. The only way that things are going to improve is if the federal government finally takes a role in guaranteeing private health insurance and then begins to re-organize the relationship between government and private health markets in a way that better serves the common good.

Charlie Gibson: Winner of the McCain Media Patsy Prize

The McCain Campaign has just voted Charles Gibson of ABC News as the easiest touch in the mainstream media.

That's why they agreed to let Gibson be the first media figure to interview Sarah Palin.

Congratulations to Charlie Gibson.

The McCain Media Patsy Prize is certainly a prestigious prize and Gibson beat out a lot of tough competition to emerge as top patsy.

Postscript: Liberal bloggers Glenn Greenwald and Digby think that Palin will do just fine during the interview. I'm not so sure that's the case. Palin's certainly a smart politician, but media members can trip even the smartest politicians on small inconsequential points if they want to. The late and overly lamented Tim Russert's question to Hillary Clinton about driver's licenses for illegal aliens is a case in point.