Taxes!

Having watched the Obama campaign for the last six weeks, I can tell you two things for certain about this election:

First, Issue #1 for the Obama campaign is the economy. Duh.

Second, Issue #1 for the majority of the electorate is also the economy. Duh.

Why then does the McCain camp seem so intent on dodging the subject; forever trying to make this election about military/foreign policy experience (probably a bad idea) and the Iraq war ?

I think I have a few ideas:

Those signs are all over Ohio right now. So are these:

Americans are feeling the sting of this economic downturn. Gas prices are increasingly unbearable, the housing situation remains dire, lending institutions are hanging on by a government financed thread; things are not going well. Besides the fact that McCain is not so well versed in economics, what does he have to fear from whiny American voters?

Well, his tax policy.

This spiffy graphic comes from the Washington Post, based on data from a study done at the Tax Policy Center. The juicy entirety of the findings can be found here, and they are actually interesting even to those of us not well versed in economics.

If I were an economist, I could make all sorts of informed inferences about what this graph and the full study means. Maybe Kevin can help us out with that. For now, all I want to do is to point out some very clear points:

While both candidates aim to mostly reduce taxes, McCain’s most drastic decreases are on the top 1% of Americans, while Obama’s only increases affect the same people. The difference between them tops $1 million.

Stances on taxing the rich are a rather fundamental element of most voters’ political psyche and are not likely to change over the course of one debate. McCain wants to drastically lessen the progressive nature of our tax code, while Obama wants to deepen it at the highest tiers. It is pretty simple and I’ll leave the merits of either stance to our readers to debate. The point is that this dichotomy is pretty typical of a Presidential race. Republican wants to tax the rich less, Democrat more. Whoopee.

The next point is the big one: After you account for the richest 1% of Americans, every other bracket would actually see a tax reduction in Obama’s plan. This goes against conventional wisdom for 99% of Americans that Democrat=higher taxes. This brings me back to the signs in Ohio. With Obama’s plan, 95% of Ohioans would see at least a $1,000 decrease in their taxes. I daresay that helps out average Americans with spending, fuel consumption and other life expenses more than any relief package (of which Obama believes we need another, by the way).

I won’t go into whether or not one tax plan is actually better than the other, because again, I’m not an economist. However, I’ll venture a guess as to what most Americans are interested in hearing about. As you move down the income scale, Obama’s tax cuts are more substantial than McCain’s. As you move down the income scale, the number of American’s fitting into the bracket is much higher as well. And I’ll tell you what, with the breadth and effectiveness of the Obama campaign’s voter registration and get out the vote efforts, this is something for the McCain camp to seriously worry about. People are listening.

Fewer taxes is always a welcome element to any politician’s platform in the eyes of most voters. However, when you are coming into office during an economic downturn, during a long term war investment and one of the most serious national debt situations in the nation’s history, the government has to make money somewhere, doesn’t it? China already holds over $1 trillion in reserve, I don’t think they want much more of our debt. I’m not so sure the gold standard is the answer yet either, but maybe Dr. Paul can sell me on that one on Sept. 2nd.

I don’t have answers, but I think its pretty clear why McCain isn’t keen on discussing the economy. Obama is driving the issue hard, and has the policies to actually compete and really out do McCain on an issue that is traditionally a strength of the Republicans. “It’s the economy, stupid” isn’t enough for the Obama camp. They are pointing that slogan at their rival and backing it up with some real ideas. We’ll see how that works out for them.

Meanwhile, hold on to your hats kids, the economy is going to be it this year.

AP's Washington Bureau Chief, Ron Fournier, exposed as a McCain shill

On Tuesday Michael Calderone at Politico produced definitive evidence of Ron Fournier's bias in favor of John McCain. He did it by linking the Associated Press Washington Bureau chief directly to the McCain presidential campaign. Over a period of several months during 2006, Fournier discussed taking a high-level communications job with the McCain campaign. Apparently Fournier turned down the job offer in the end.

I say 'apparently' because often it is difficult to tell from the reporting produced by Fournier and his Bureau whether or not he views himself as a campaign operative.

The most striking thing about this story is what is absent. Although he oversees reporting on the presidential race for the purportedly unbiased and nonpartisan AP, Fournier has never disclosed to the public his close contacts with the McCain campaign. And though he doesn't deny the contacts, when asked about them Fournier declined to discuss the matter and referred Politico to an AP spokesman (who issued a bland statement). If Fournier has had nothing to hide, then why the secrecy and evasiveness? Who would argue that the public does not have a right to know that the AP Washington Bureau chief considered working for a presidential candidate?

Here are details from Politico:

In October 2006, the McCain team approached Fournier about joining the fledgling operation, according to a source with knowledge of the talks. In the months that followed, said a source, Fournier spoke about the job possibility with members of McCain’s inner circle, including political aides Mark Salter, John Weaver and Rick Davis.

Salter, who remains a top McCain adviser, said in an e-mail to Politico that Fournier was considered for "a senior advisory role" in communications.

"He did us the courtesy of considering the offer before politely declining it," Salter said.

Discussions with McCain's top aides lasting months don't constitute a mere 'courtesy' no matter how Salter tries to spin it. If Fournier had not been interested, he would have rejected McCain's advances at the outset.

After entertaining this job offer, Fournier should not have been covering the presidential campaign, certainly not while keeping his contacts with McCain secret. That's not a hard call, ethically.

This is just the latest in a series of controversies surrounding Fournier, from his unseemly attention to John McCain's donut-gustation at an interview, to his eager embrace of Republican talking points, to the extraordinary changes he introduced at AP encouraging the freer expression of opinion in news stories. His predecessor at the AP Washington Bureau, Sandy Johnson, sees Fournier's policies as a threat to it.

"I just hope he doesn’t destroy it."

Fournier's ties to the Republican establishment were exposed garishly earlier this month by a House Oversight and Government Reform report. Discussing the Bush administration's political response to Pat Tillman's death in 2004, it cited emails sent to the WH offering political advice. This exchange stood out.

Karl Rove exchanged e-mails about Pat Tillman with Associated Press reporter Ron Fournier, under the subject line "H-E-R-O." In response to Mr. Fournier's e-mail, Mr. Rove asked, "How does our country continue to produce men and women like this," to which Mr. Fournier replied, "The Lord creates men and women like this all over the world. But only the great and free countries allow them to flourish. Keep up the fight."

Fournier tried to explain away his seemingly cozy relationship with Karl Rove.

"I was an AP political reporter at the time of the 2004 e-mail exchange, and was interacting with a source, a top aide to the president, in the course of following an important and compelling story. I regret the breezy nature of the correspondence."

However he convinced almost none of his critics that his Rovian correspondence was appropriate. For one thing, Fournier has never written about Tillman. So what was the need to contact Rove in the first place? The episode gives the impression that Fournier was just worshipping at Rove's altar.

Even before that email correspondence came to light (almost accidentally), Fournier had long been notorious both for carrying water for John McCain in particular, and for savaging McCain's rivals. Among other things, under Fournier's leadership AP reporting this year has consistently downplayed or suppressed information about McCain's many contradictory, false, and otherwise embarrassing statements. Last week at Media Matters Eric Boehlert surveyed Fournier's long and tawdry record of partisanship:

In two "Analysis" pieces and a column, Fournier questioned whether John Edwards was a "phony," announced the Clintons suffered from "utter self-absorption," and claimed that Barack Obama was "bordering on arrogance." That's the right of a pundit. But at the same time, Fournier avoided raising any doubts about Sen. John McCain, and in fact rushed to his aid in print during the senator's time of campaign need.

That ethos seems to have been adopted by the larger AP political team, which, honestly, writes as if it's completely in the tank for McCain...

Fournier wrote those pieces in which he routinely unloaded on the leading Democratic candidates -- Edwards, Clinton, and Obama -- while thoroughly questioning their motives and their character.

Yet I have searched in vain for a single example from the primary season in which Fournier raised a column's worth of uncomfortable questions about McCain's motives and his character...

In fact, one of the few times that Fournier dedicated a column to the Republican primary battle was following the Michigan contest, which McCain lost to Mitt Romney. The win presented Romney with his one brief window of opportunity to knock McCain from his front-runner perch. Fournier unleashed a wild column targeting Romney and practically threw his body in front of McCain to protect his beloved candidate.

Boehlert highlighted a series of reports and columns in which Fournier has advanced unfounded assertions and used flagrantly biased language to promote McCain or belittle his rivals. He concluded, as many others had already, that Fournier has a man-crush on McCain.

The fact is, Fournier's McCain love runs deep and goes back years.

The Associated Press desperately needs to find a new Washington Bureau chief.

Intersection Of Freedom’s Watch And McCain? All Roads Lead To Rove

When you think about the biggest skunk in the Grand Ole Party, does Karl Rove's eau de turdblossom spring to mind? It should:

We have recently learned that Rove has signed a mid-six figure consulting deal with billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson to oversee the activities of the right-wing shadow group Freedom's Watch. With the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) underfunded and in disarray this cycle, it has outsourced its work to Freedom's Watch, a shady soft money group with ties to President Bush and Senator John McCain.

If you ever wondered what the Bush political team is up to this campaign season, you need look no farther than the team behind Freedom's Watch. Rove, along with former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, former White House Political Director Tony Feather, and a slew of Bush cronies have teamed up with the third richest man in the country, Freedom's Watch's sugar daddy Sheldon Adelson - to form this unprecedented swift-boat operation. Their goal is clear -- to preserve Bush's legacy by delivering a third Bush term....

Please take a moment to visit www.TheRealFreedomsWatch.org and sign our petition demanding the National Republican Congressional Committee and Republican campaigns nationwide denounce Karl Rove's new attack shop....

Funny thing about Rove: he's been writing regular op-ed columns for the WSJ and Newsweek, and doing regular political commentary for Faux News. He also works both for Freedom's Watch AND for the McCain Campaign. All at the same time. All with no regular public disclosure of his rampant conflicts of interest nor with much if any oversight of his pivotal role between McCain's presidential campaign and Freedom's Watch which, as a 501(c)(4), is supposed to have no coordination with McCain's camp or any political campaign.   And yet:

“Karl is up to his eyeballs in this,” says one prominent GOP consultant who has met with Rove a few times this year. “They’re trying to figure out who is going to do the presidential, who is going to do the Senate and who is going to do the House. They’re trying to assign resources to maximize the dollars and minimize duplication. Karl has taken it over.”

Anyone else getting that inevitable whiff of GOP corruption and flouting of the rules?

I'm sure Rove protege Steve Schmidt, newly installed at the McCain campaign's helm, is shocked...shocked, I say...to learn his mentor Karl Rove might be involved in a rule-flouting scheme to game the 2008 election.  Especially when you consider the timely roll-out of prior Freedom's Watch campaigns which just happened to coincide directly with the McCain messaging roll-out of the week?  (And with Congressional campaign strategy, which Blue America has already been fighting.)

Why is it that when we talk Republican corruption, all roads inevitably lead to Rove? And shouldn't we all be asking if Grover Norquist is up to his old launder the Republican money and take a cut tricks again? Is this yet another "follow the money" scheme? Inquiring minds and all...given that after Jackie Boy Abramoff, none of these people ever again get the benefit of any doubt.

Federal Judge Rules White House Aides Can Be Subpoenaed

In June, after White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers refused to comply with congressional investigations into the U.S. Attorneys scandal, the Justice Department claimed “that senior presidential advisers are absolutely immune from congressional subpoenas.” But today, a federal judge has ruled that “there’s no legal support for that stance” and “aides can be subpoenaed.” Federal Judge John Bates stated that Bolten and Miers must comply with Congress:

U.S. District Judge John Bates disagreed. He said there’s no legal basis for that argument. He said that Miers must appear before Congress and, if she wants to refuse to testify, she must do so in person.

“Harriet Miers is not immune from compelled congressional process; she is legally required to testify pursuant to a duly issued congressional subpoena,” Bates wrote.

He said that both Bolten and Miers must give Congress all non-privileged documents related to the firings.

Update: Bates was appointed by President George W. Bush in December 2001 and was appointed to the FISA court by Justice John Roberts in 2006. On many previous occasions, his rulings have helped cover-up for the administration's wrongdoings.

Update: Read Bates' summary judgment here.

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Another Obama "Problem" Group Proves to be Unproblematic

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin today:

Women voters aren't warming to 'cool' Obama

July 30, 2008

BY CAROL MARIN Sun-Times Columnist

The Obama campaign has a woman problem. How big? How small? It's not clear, but in a close election, small can be big.

Terrific lede! Except ... Obama's polling among women actually IS quite clear, according to a Research 2000 poll released three days ago:

QUESTION: If the election for President were held today, who would you vote for if the choices were between Barack Obama, the Democrat, John McCain, the Republican, Bob Barr, the Libertarian, or Ralph Nader, an Independent?

OBAMA  MCCAIN  BARR  NADER  OTHER  UND

ALL     51%    39%    3%     2%     1%     4%

MEN     45%    45%    4%     2%     1%     3%
WOMEN   56%    34% 2%     2%     1%     5%

That's a 22-point lead among women overall, Ms. Marin.

But don't let a little thing like empirical evidence mess with the premise of the day's "Obama's got a [fill in the day's demographic] problem!" story. Especially when you have a whole lot of anectodotal crap to cram into a column somewhere, like how Michelle Obama pleaded for support in a roomful of well-off, well-dressed women who seemed disposed to vote for her husband, but hey ...there is still a woman problem, damn it, because the writer has to shoehorn in a little "human interest" crapola to justify her columninizing existence. Enter ... Sarah, angry McCain-supporter news junkie who thinks Obama is "like the organic chicken at lunch. Sleek, elegant, beautifully prepared. Too cool."

But the women Obama needs right now are the ones who do not dine downtown. They're the ones who can't afford organic anything, forced to choose between a gallon of gas and a gallon of milk because they can't buy both on the same day.

Women like Sarah.

What's particularly irritating about this column is that near the end, Marin actually does cite a poll ("The July 15 Quinnipiac University poll shows women overall backed Obama over McCain 55 percent to 36 percent.") ... yet we're delivered the stupid lede and premise anyway. So it's not even the case that she's unaware of how Obama is polling among women overall.

Yeah, Obama might have a woman problem, all right. It just might be Carol Marin.

Update by kos: For more context, check out the 2004 exit polls. Kerry won the female vote 51-48. So while Kerry won that vote by just three points, Obama leads that demographic by 22.

A real problem for Obama, yes.

Washington Post Fans Outrage After Misquoting Obama

Washington Post reporters Dana Milbank and Jonathan Weisman gave the McCain campaign a nipple-stiffening moment today after they picked up a statement by Barack Obama, and used it, apparently, entirely out of context, presenting it for the consumption of Post readers in a way that made it look like Obama was being arrogant.

For Milbank's part, it was all because he wanted to wedge the statement into his preferred frame: "Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee." I believe it was Oscar Wilde who cautioned: "Reality is a MADE thing."

And, as it turns out, Milbank's "reality" is something of a deconstruction. Milbank's remake reads:

"This is the moment . . . that the world is waiting for," adding: "I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions."

According to a Democratic leadership aide in attendance, the full quote from Obama is:

It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.

(For what it's worth, before Milbank's column was published, we received a separate eye-witness account of Obama's meeting with House Dems that mirrored the full context quote above.)

So, in actuality, Obama was attempting to diminish his own importance, not place himself on a pedestal. It was an attempt at humility, not arrogance.

And speaking of arrogance, really - Milbank is a fine one to be speaking on the subject. Via Wonkette, we present to you this video of a slurring Milbank, pompously declaring, "I will not read blogs, I'm sorry...If something is important enough, it will be brought to my attention."