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July 7, 2008, 6:33 am
Political Wisdom: McCain, Not Shy on the Economy
Here’s a summary of the smartest new political analysis on the Web:
by Sara Murray and Gerald F. Seib
Sen. John McCain, hardly shying from the tough ones on the economic front, plans to promise both to balance the budget and to overhaul Social Security, says Mike Allen of Politico. Opening a week in which both candidates plan to take on the economy–“the top issue in poll after poll as voters struggle to keep their jobs and fill their gas tanks”–McCain will vow to “balance the federal budget by the end of his first term by curbing wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs, including Social Security, his advisers told Politico. The vow to take on Social Security puts McCain in a political danger zone that thwarted President Bush after he named it the top domestic priority of his second term.”
Sen. John McCain isn’t shying away from discussing the economy, but he isn’t offering any new plans either. (AP Photo)
The pledge to balance the budget after just one term “is a return to an earlier position he’d later backed away from,” Allen reports. Overall, he says, the economic package McCain will offer “is a repackaging of previous policies, without dramatic new initiatives. Some Democratic officials had thought McCain might try to make a splash by proposing a bold middle-class tax cut.”
Andrew Malcolm of LATimes.com takes a look at the deeper meaning of the McCain campaign’s decision to name as its new political director Mike DuHaime, “whose job will be to provide…nonstop relevant focus.” DuHaime’s most recent job “was to lead the one-time frontrunning GOP presidential campaign of ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani” who, it will remember, crashed “in flames somewhere in the Florida swamps.”
Don’t be fooled by the Giuliani demise, though, Malcolm writes: “Does anyone remember Giuliani’s relentless 9/11 message of last fall? While ultimately unsuccessful in Republican primaries due to a variety of reasons, there was no doubt what Giuliani’s message was. And DuHaime ran that effort.” The DuHaime appointment is “an early sign of the firm, more centralized and pragmatic approach” that new daily campaign director Steve Schmidt has imposed, “hard to believe, fully 18 months into this presidential campaign and less than four months out from the November election, but DuHaime actually replaces no one on the McCain staff.”
The Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne considers Sen. Barack Obama’s stance on the war in Iraq and notes that Republicans are setting a trap for him that he’s not quite sure how to avoid. Dionne quotes New York Times reporters Michael Cooper and Jeff Zeleny for describing it best, saying “Republicans want to place Obama ‘in the political equivalent of a double bind: painting him as impervious to the changing reality on the ground if he sticks to his plan, and as a flip-flopper if he alters it to reflect changing circumstances.’” But Obama’s “high ground on Iraq” is one of his strengths, Dionne writes. “Because Obama’s strongest argument for himself on foreign policy rests on his sound judgment in opposing the war from the beginning, any appearance of waffling on the issue is especially dangerous…At the moment, voters know that John McCain is far more likely than Barack Obama to continue the war in Iraq indefinitely. Obama would be foolish to blur that distinction.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/politicalperceptions/2008/07/07/political-wisdom-mccain-not-shy-on-the-economy/
Political Wisdom: McCain, Not Shy on the Economy
Here’s a summary of the smartest new political analysis on the Web:
by Sara Murray and Gerald F. Seib
Sen. John McCain, hardly shying from the tough ones on the economic front, plans to promise both to balance the budget and to overhaul Social Security, says Mike Allen of Politico. Opening a week in which both candidates plan to take on the economy–“the top issue in poll after poll as voters struggle to keep their jobs and fill their gas tanks”–McCain will vow to “balance the federal budget by the end of his first term by curbing wasteful spending and overhauling entitlement programs, including Social Security, his advisers told Politico. The vow to take on Social Security puts McCain in a political danger zone that thwarted President Bush after he named it the top domestic priority of his second term.”
Sen. John McCain isn’t shying away from discussing the economy, but he isn’t offering any new plans either. (AP Photo)
The pledge to balance the budget after just one term “is a return to an earlier position he’d later backed away from,” Allen reports. Overall, he says, the economic package McCain will offer “is a repackaging of previous policies, without dramatic new initiatives. Some Democratic officials had thought McCain might try to make a splash by proposing a bold middle-class tax cut.”
Andrew Malcolm of LATimes.com takes a look at the deeper meaning of the McCain campaign’s decision to name as its new political director Mike DuHaime, “whose job will be to provide…nonstop relevant focus.” DuHaime’s most recent job “was to lead the one-time frontrunning GOP presidential campaign of ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani” who, it will remember, crashed “in flames somewhere in the Florida swamps.”
Don’t be fooled by the Giuliani demise, though, Malcolm writes: “Does anyone remember Giuliani’s relentless 9/11 message of last fall? While ultimately unsuccessful in Republican primaries due to a variety of reasons, there was no doubt what Giuliani’s message was. And DuHaime ran that effort.” The DuHaime appointment is “an early sign of the firm, more centralized and pragmatic approach” that new daily campaign director Steve Schmidt has imposed, “hard to believe, fully 18 months into this presidential campaign and less than four months out from the November election, but DuHaime actually replaces no one on the McCain staff.”
The Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne considers Sen. Barack Obama’s stance on the war in Iraq and notes that Republicans are setting a trap for him that he’s not quite sure how to avoid. Dionne quotes New York Times reporters Michael Cooper and Jeff Zeleny for describing it best, saying “Republicans want to place Obama ‘in the political equivalent of a double bind: painting him as impervious to the changing reality on the ground if he sticks to his plan, and as a flip-flopper if he alters it to reflect changing circumstances.’” But Obama’s “high ground on Iraq” is one of his strengths, Dionne writes. “Because Obama’s strongest argument for himself on foreign policy rests on his sound judgment in opposing the war from the beginning, any appearance of waffling on the issue is especially dangerous…At the moment, voters know that John McCain is far more likely than Barack Obama to continue the war in Iraq indefinitely. Obama would be foolish to blur that distinction.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/politicalperceptions/2008/07/07/political-wisdom-mccain-not-shy-on-the-economy/
and the 
continued to lap it up and this is what you get!
