RNC promotes great Obama initiatives

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Post courtesy of DailyKOS:

The GOP has an "Obama Spendometer" page that has listed a lot of fantastic Obama priorities.

So on National Security:

Obama Would Implement The Lugar-Obama Legislation To Crack Down On The Smuggling Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction.

You see, this is bad because it would cost $440 million per year, which is far worse than letting terrorists smuggle nuclear weapons. I suppose this means that the GOP is now objectively pro-smuggling of WMDs since they harp on it some more:
Obama Would "Lead A Global Effort To Secure All Nuclear Weapons And Material At Vulnerable Sites Within Four Years."

That's crazy talk! John McCain wouldn't waste your taxpayer dollars on securing nuclear weapons. Vote for him!
Obama Will Provide $2 Billion To Aid Iraqi Refugees.

Obama Would Add "65,000 Soldiers To The Army And 27,000 Marines," Which Would Cost Approximately $11.04 Billion Per Year, Equal To $44.16 Billion Over Four Years.

Obama Would Provide An Additional $1 Billion Per Year In Non-Military Assistance To Afghanistan, Equal To $4 Billion Over Four Years.

On Education:
Obama's Early Education And K-12 Package Will Cost $18 Billion A Year; Equal To $72 Billion Over Four Years.

Obama Would Assist High School Students With Obtaining Access To College-Level Courses.

Obama Would Provide $25 Million A Year For States To Develop Early Assessment Programs To Increase College Readiness; Equal To $100 Million Over Four Years.

Obama Would Provide $250 Million To "Bring Quality Teachers Back To The Gulf Region."

Obama Will Increase The Maximum Pell Grant To $5,400 And Ensure The Grant Keeps Pace With The Rising Cost Of College Inflation.

On Jobs:
Obama Would Double Funding For The Jobs Access And Reverse Commute (JARC) Program.

Obama Will Provide $1 Billion Over 5 Years For Transitional Jobs And Career Pathway Programs, Equal To $200 Million A Year And $800 Million Over Four Years.

Obama Has Proposed Creating "A National Network Of Public-Private Business Incubators" At A Cost Of $250 Million Per Year; Equal To $1 Billion Over Four Years.

Obama Would Extend Trade Adjustment Assistance To Service Industries.

Obama Would Expand Loan Programs For Small Businesses, As Specified In The Small Business Lending Reauthorization And Improvements Act He Co-Sponsored.

Obama Proposed Spending $90 Million A Year To Double The Manufacturing Extension Partnership; Equal To $360 Million Over Four Years.

On Family Values:
Obama Will Provide $1.5 Billion To Help States Adopt Paid-Leave Systems.

Obama Would Enact The Responsible Fatherhood And Healthy Families Act Which He Co-Sponsored.

Obama Would Spend $1 Billion A Year In Autism-Related Funding By The End Of His First Term.

On Consumer Protections:
Obama's Home Foreclosure Prevention Fund Will Cost $10 Billion.

Obama Has Proposed A Credit Card Rating System, To Be Implemented By The FTC.

Obama Proposes Doubling Funding For The Consumer Product Safety Commission.

On Health Care:
Obama's Health Care Plan Will Cost $150 Billion; Equal To $600 Billion Over Four Years.

Obama Would Close The "Doughnut Hole" In The Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Program.

Obama Would Increase PEPFAR Funding By $2 Billion.

This is Bush's AIDS program. They're attacking Obama for promising to continue one of Bush's programs.

On Veterans Care:

Obama Would Ensure Full Health Care Enrollment Of "Priority 8" Veterans.

On Disaster Preparedness:
Obama Supports Creating A National Catastrophe Fund, Similar To The One Passed By The House - Which Authorized $20 Million Per Year For The Fund; Equal To $80 Million Over Four Years.

Apparently, the GOP prefers more of the Katrina model...

On Community Services:

Obama Would Spend $500 Million A Year For Religious Organizations To Help The Disadvantaged; Equal To $2 Billion Over Four Years.

Yeah, faith-based initiatives are bad!
Obama Says He Will Restore Funding To The Community Development Block Grant Program.

On Energy:
Obama's Energy Plan Will Cost $150 Billion Over 10 Years, Equal To $15 Billion Annually And $60 Billion Over Four Years.

On Rebuilding Our Crumbling Roads and Bridges:
Obama's National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank Will Cost $60 Billion Over Ten Years; Equal To $6 Billion A Year And $24 Billion Over Four Years.

Republicans want more bridges to collapse.

It's a bit shocking, and really hilarious, that the GOP thinks highlighting things like "Obama wants to secure loose nuclear weapons" and "Obama wants to fund veteran health care" are political winners.

And it rings hollow for Republicans to whine about $1.238 trillion in "new spending over one White House term" when we've just suffered through eight years of the freest-spending administration in US history. Whether it's hundreds of billions of annual dollars in wars and nation building, or $1 trillion bailing out the GOP's irresponsible friends on Wall Street, fact is, the GOP has no moral authority to talk about spending.

With no fanfare and little notice, the national debt has grown by more than $4 trillion during George W. Bush’s presidency.

It’s the biggest increase under any president in U.S history.

On the day President Bush took office, the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion. The latest number from the Treasury Department shows the national debt now stands at more than $9.849 trillion. That’s a 71.9 percent increase on Mr. Bush’s watch.


And that's not even including the cost of the bailout, which contrary to spin, will never pay for itself. It's time for an administration that 1) spends money on programs people want, and 2) increases revenues to pay for them and for the out-of-control spending of the Bush years.

Barbour: In a McCain administration,’ Palin will ‘not have much of a role in foreign policy.’

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During an interview with NPR this morning, John McCain said he routinely turns to Sarah Palin for foreign policy advice. “I’ve turned to her advice many times in the past,” McCain said in response to a question about whether Palin would be one of his foreign policy advisers. But McCain’s message was contradicted by one of his surrogates, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS):

Obviously in a McCain administration she would not have much of a role in foreign policy because of his depth of experience and the people around him. … But in a McCain administration, her role substantively is gonna be primarily – in my opinion – about energy.

Watch video of Barbour’s remarks here.

Was McCain's 'Suspending the Campaign' Stunt an Attempt at Palin Damage Control?

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Quoted from the Anonymous Liberal blog:

I'm serious. The more I look at what happened today, the more I think it was all an elaborate attempt to stem the fallout from the truly disastrous interview Sarah Palin taped this morning with Katie Couric. In that interview, Palin did two things that hurt the McCain campaign and, but for McCain's late afternoon shenanigans, would have garnered much more attention. First, buying into the premise of one of Couric's questions, she all but stated that if no bailout legislation is passed, we'll be headed into the next Great Depression. Even if true, that's not a very smart thing for a politician to say and, importantly, it all but foreclosed any possibility of McCain voting against the bailout.

Then she was asked a crucially important question about McCain's record on banking regulation, something she should have been prepped for:

For those of you who can't view videos, here's the exchange:

COURIC: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He's also known as the maverick, though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about — the need to reform government.

COURIC: I'm just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?

PALIN: I'll try to find you some, and I'll bring them to you.


That is not a good soundbite. Not only does it confirm that Palin is in way over her head, but every time the clip is played, viewers get to hear Couric point out that McCain has a 26 year record of not favoring regulations.

While there's certainly a lot going on right now, I'm pretty confident that if McCain hadn't engaged in his late afternoon theatrics, those two Palin clips would have been in heavy circulation tonight and tomorrow, especially in light of the mini-press corps revolt that everyone was talking about yesterday.

I think the McCain campaign knew the Couric interview would be a disaster as soon as it was done taping and spent much of the day frantically trying to think of a way to push it out of the headlines. The clincher for me is the fact that McCain cancelled his Letterman appearance at the last second and instead sat down for an impromptu interview with, of all people, Katie Couric. The hope was to bump the Palin interview even on the CBS Evening News, which otherwise would have hyped and teased the Palin interview all afternoon and used it to lead the broadcast. Instead, CBS devoted most of its coverage to McCain and played segments of the Palin interview almost as an afterthought. Mission accomplished.

Now the McCain campaign is trying to reschedule the Vice Presidential debate. Undoubtedly they'd like to move it back as far as possible to give Palin more time to prepare. And it wouldn't shock me if they tried to cancel it all together or at least move it to a date where it can only dominate one or two new cycles before being eclipsed by other events (like a presidential debate).

Palin's favorability ratings have been sinking rapidly over the last two weeks and she is increasingly becoming a liability to McCain among independent voters. I think the campaign was worried that her performance today--if the media chose to dwell on it--could have done real lasting harm to McCain. And so they came up with this stunt, this idea of McCain "suspending" his candidacy, as a distraction. I'm sure that's not the only reason they did this, but I think it was one of the primary reasons. I'm hopeful that people will see this as the gimmick that it is. But regardless, it did succeed in dominating the news cycle and minimizing the attention that was paid to Palin's interview.

UPDATE: Okay, here's the full segment. It's cringe-inducing throughout. As you're watching it, try to picture McCain's aides standing in the background panicking.

The Biggest Story of the Campaign: John McCain Might Have To Fire His Campaign Manager

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Mark this day down. Today – last night, actually – the New York Times and Roll Call reported (it's hard to see who was first) what may be the biggest political story of the campaign. How big? John McCain might have to fire his campaign manager. Big enough?

The story is this. The lobbying firm of Rick Davis, the manager, was being paid $15,000 a month by Freddie Mac until last month. That fact is a direct contradiction of words McCain had spoken Sunday night. At that time, responding to a Times story being prepared for Monday's paper revealing that Davis had been the head of a lobbying consortium led by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae until 2005, McCain said Davis had done no further work for either mortgage giant.

Someone's lying – either Davis to McCain, or McCain to the public. I trust you see the problem here.

The stories are here, by David Kirkpatrick (whose reporting on this topic has been leading the way) and Jackie Calmes of the Times, and here, by Tory Newmeyer of Roll Call. You should definitely read every word of both. I think after you do you'll agree that, depending on how big the pick-up is today and how hard the Obama camp presses this, it's pretty difficult to see how Davis can stay on as campaign manager.

The revelations are devastating for two reasons. First, as I noted above, either Davis lied to McCain or McCain lied to the voters. From the Times story:

On Sunday, in an interview with CNBC and The Times, Mr. McCain responded to a question about that tie between Mr. Davis and the two mortgage companies by saying that he "has had nothing to do with it since, and I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it."

Who lied to whom? This is the kind of thing we might not know for a while, or maybe never. My hunch would be that Davis concealed it from McCain and that McCain, as is his wont, just winged it Sunday night, without really caring whether it was true, because that's what he does. But let me clearly label that a hunch. I don't know. But it doesn't really matter.

The second reason this is devastating is maybe even bigger than the question of the Sunday lie, which is limited in scope after all to a sort of narrow legal question. The second reason is that McCain has been going around putting lobbyists, specifically for F & F, at the heart of the whole problem. This is from the Roll Call piece:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac emerged as issues in the presidential race last week because of turmoil in the financial markets. In a radio address from Green Bay, Wis., on Saturday, McCain blamed the companies and their political clout for creating the housing mess now roiling Wall Street. "At the center of the problem were the lobbyists, politicians and bureaucrats who succeeded in persuading Congress and the administration to ignore the festering problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,'' he said. "Using money and influence, they prevented reforms that would have curbed their power and limited their ability to damage our economy. And now, as ever, the American taxpayers are left to pay the price for Washington's failure.''

I just can't picture any way of wiggling out of that. He is talking in those sentences about his own campaign manager! And he's going to be able to keep him on? Strange things happen all the time, but I have trouble seeing it.

Oh and by the way: No wonder Steve Schmidt, another top McCain strategist, said on a Monday conference call with reporters that "Whatever The New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization." He obviously knew that more was coming and was trying to lay some discrediting groundwork.

This is a terrible, terrible story for McCain, and yes, the biggest political story of the general-election campaign so far.

Loan Titans Paid McCain Campaign Manager Nearly $2 Million

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Senator John McCain’s campaign manager was paid more than $30,000 a month for five years as president of an advocacy group set up by the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations, current and former officials say.

Mr. McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has recently begun campaigning as a critic of the two companies and the lobbying army that helped them evade greater regulation as they began buying riskier mortgages with implicit federal backing. He and his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, have donors and advisers who are tied to the companies.

But last week the McCain campaign stepped up a running battle of guilt by association when it began broadcasting commercials trying to link Mr. Obama directly to the government bailout of the mortgage giants this month by charging that he takes advice from Fannie Mae’s former chief executive, Franklin Raines, an assertion both Mr. Raines and the Obama campaign dispute.

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.

“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.

Mr. Davis’s role with the group has bubbled up as an issue in the campaign, but the extent of his compensation and the details of his role have not been reported previously.

Mr. McCain was never a leading critic or defender of the mortgage giants, although several former executives of the companies said Mr. Davis did draw Mr. McCain to a 2004 awards banquet that the companies’ Homeownership Alliance held in a Senate office building. The organization printed a photograph of Mr. McCain at the event in its 2004 annual report, bolstering its clout and credibility. The event honored several other elected officials, including at least two Democrats, Gov. Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania and Representative Artur Davis of Alabama.

In an interview Sunday night with CNBC and The New York Times, Mr. McCain noted that Mr. Davis was no longer working on behalf of the mortgage giants. He said Mr. Davis “has had nothing to do with it since, and I’ll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.”

Asked about the reports of Mr. Davis’s role, a spokesman for Mr. McCain said that during the time when Mr. Davis ran the Homeownership Alliance, the senator had backed legislation to increase oversight of the mortgage companies’ accounting and executive compensation. The legislation, however, did not seek to change their anomalous structure as private companies with federal support.

The spokesman, Tucker Bounds, also noted that the Homeownership Alliance included nonprofit organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the Urban League. “It’s not controversial to promote homeownership and minority homeownership,” Mr. Bounds said. More than a half-dozen current and former executives, however, said the Homeownership Alliance was set up mainly to defend Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by promoting their role in the housing market, and the two companies paid almost the entire cost of the group’s operations.

“They were financed largely, possibly exclusively, by Fannie and Freddie,” said William R. Maloni, a Democrat who is a former head of industry relations for Fannie Mae. “We thought it would be helpful to have someone who was a broadly recognized Republican to be the face of the organization, and that person became Rick Davis.” Mr. Maloni added, “Rick, for that purpose, turned out to be quite good.” (Several executives said Mr. Davis’s compensation was not unusual for the companies’ well-connected consultants.)

The federal bailout of the two mortgage giants has become an emblem of what critics say is the outdated or inadequate regulatory system that allowed the financial system to slide into crisis this summer.

At the time that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recruited Mr. Davis to run the Homeownership Alliance in 2000, they were under new pressure from private industry rivals and deregulation-minded Republicans who argued that the two companies’ federal sponsorship gave them an unfair advantage and put taxpayers at risk. Critics of the companies had formed their own Washington-based advocacy group, FM Watch. They were pushing for regulations that would deter the companies from expanding into new areas, including riskier and more profitable mortgages.

Mr. Davis had recently returned to his lobbying firm from running Mr. McCain’s unexpectedly strong 2000 Republican primary campaign, which elevated Mr. McCain’s profile as a legislator and Mr. Davis’s as a lobbyist.

“You can say what you want about free-market distortions, but people like the system because it gets them into houses cheap,” Mr. Davis said to Institutional Investor magazine in 2000, adding that he would run the advocacy group out of his Alexandria, Va., lobbying firm.

The organization also hired Public Strategies, a communications firm that included former Bush adviser Mark McKinnon. Mr. Davis wrote letters and gave speeches for the group. In April 2001, he sent out a press release headlined, “It’s Tax Day — Do You Know Where Your Deductions Are? For Most Americans, They’re in Your Home.”

But by the end of 2005, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were recovering from accounting problems and re-examining costs, former executives said. The companies decided the Homeownership Alliance had outlived its usefulness, and it disappeared.

Update: