Freeing McCain
“It’s time for John McCain to fire his campaign,” William Kristol writes in the New York Times.
“He has nothing to lose. His campaign is totally overmatched by Obama’s. The Obama team is well organized, flush with resources, and the candidate and the campaign are in sync. The McCain campaign, once merely problematic, is now close to being out-and-out dysfunctional. Its combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic. If the race continues over the next three weeks to be a conventional one, McCain is doomed,” Mr. Kristol said.
“He may be anyway. Bush is unpopular. The media is hostile. The financial meltdown has made things tougher. Maybe the situation is hopeless - and if it is, then nothing McCain or his campaign does matters.
“But I’m not convinced by such claims of inevitability. McCain isn’t Bush. The media isn’t all-powerful. And the economic crisis still presents an opportunity to show leadership.
“The 2008 campaign is now about something very big - both our future prosperity and our national security. Yet the McCain campaign has become smaller.
“What McCain needs to do is junk the whole thing and start over. Shut down the rapid responses, end the frantic e-mails, bench the spinning surrogates, stop putting up new TV and Internet ads every minute. In fact, pull all the ads - they’re doing no good anyway. Use that money for televised town halls and half-hour addresses in prime time.
“And let McCain go back to what he’s been good at in the past - running as a cheerful, open and accessible candidate. Palin should follow suit. The two of them are attractive and competent politicians. They’re happy warriors and good campaigners. Set them free.”
That ’tax cut’
“One of Barack Obama’s most potent campaign claims is that he’ll cut taxes for no less than 95 percent of ’working families.’ He’s even promising to cut taxes enough that the government’s tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2 percent - which is lower than it is today,” the Wall Street Journal said Monday in an editorial.
“It’s a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he’s also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5 percent. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of ’tax cut,’ ” the newspaper said.
“For the Obama Democrats, a tax cut is no longer letting you keep more of what you earn. In their lexicon, a tax cut includes tens of billions of dollars in government handouts that are disguised by the phrase ’tax credit.’ Mr. Obama is proposing to create or expand no fewer than seven such credits for individuals:
• “A $500 tax credit ($1,000 a couple) to ’make work pay’ that phases out at income of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 per couple.
• “A $4,000 tax credit for college tuition.
• “A 10 percent mortgage interest tax credit (on top of the existing mortgage-interest deduction and other housing subsidies).
• A “savings” tax credit of 50 percent up to $1,000.
• An expansion of the earned-income tax credit that would allow single workers to receive as much as $555 a year, up from $175 now, and give these workers up to $1,110 if they are paying child support.
• A child care credit of 50 percent up to $6,000 of expenses a year.
• A ’clean car’ tax credit of up to $7,000 on the purchase of certain vehicles.
“Here’s the political catch. All but the clean car credit would be ’refundable,’ which is Washington-speak for the fact that you can receive these checks even if you have no income-tax liability. In other words, they are an income transfer - a federal check - from taxpayers to nontaxpayers. Once upon a time we called this ’welfare,’ or in George McGovern’s 1972 campaign a ’Demogrant.’ Mr. Obama’s genius is to call it a tax cut.”
Charges dropped
Conservative columnist Mark Steyn had “hate” charges against him dismissed in Canada last week, reports Pete Vere, a stringer for The Washington Times.
A complaint had been made to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal by several Canadian Muslim groups, who claimed Mr. Steyn had exposed them to hate.
But the quasi-judicial tribunal ruled Friday that while the passages from Mr. Steyn’s best-seller “America Alone,” which the Canadian newsweekly Maclean’s had excerpted, negatively portrayed Muslims, it was not intended to promote hate.
Canada’s human rights tribunals have come under criticism over the past year for investigations of several high-profile Canadian writers and religious figures. Critics charge that the tribunals are censoring freedom of the press and religion, noting also that the basis for some of the complaints was speech that occurred in the United States.
Three cheers
“No fewer than three stars of ’80s sitcom ’Cheers’ were campaigning for the presidential race yesterday,” reporter Christina Bellantoni writes from Little Rock, Ark., in a blog at www.washingtontimes.com.
“Ted Danson was here to campaign for Sen. Barack Obama alongside Sen. Hillary Clinton. He’s best known for his role as Boston bar owner Sam Malone,” Ms. Bellantoni said.
“Also on the trail were Kelsey Grammer and John Ratzenberger, campaigning in Nevada on behalf of Republican nominee Sen. John McCain.
“Grammer, who played Frasier Crane, and Ratzenberger, who played postman Cliff Clavin, appeared in Henderson, Nev., and Las Vegas.
“No word yet on who George Wendt, who played Norm, is backing for the Nov. 4 contest.”
Mistaken identity
Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin accidentally mistook some of her own fans for protesters Monday.
A massive crowd of at least 20,000 spread across the parking lot of Richmond International Raceway in Virginia. Many on the outer periphery, more than 100 yards from the stage, couldn’t hear, the Associated Press reports.
They started chanting, “Louder! Louder!” Mrs. Palin thought they were protesters, looked toward them and said, “I hope those protesters have the courage and honor to give veterans thanks for their right to protest.”
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.