tagged w/ McCain Misfires
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The debate shouldn't be a chance to play gotcha. What the candidates know about the world is less important than how they think about it.
The debate shouldn't be a chance to play gotcha. What the candidates know about... more
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McCain-Palin camp is seeking to delay investigation until after election
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So now we learn that Sarah Palin did not go to visit troops in Iraq, as the McCain-Palin campaign originally claimed, nor did she visit Ireland, as a spokesman claimed – she went through Ireland only for a refueling stop. Good reporting by the Boston Globe got to the truth of the matter. The McCain- Palin campaign was forced to concede the facts, but only after being pressed.
There’s a pattern here, two patterns actually.
So now we learn that Sarah Palin did not go to visit troops in Iraq, as the... more
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I have a different reaction from Jonathan to Carly Fiorina, as much fun as she’s added to the campaign: Both candidates should declare a surrogate cease-fire. Surrogates are the loose nukes of political campaigns, except more likely to detonate. To be precise, more likely to detonate themselves. Campaigns are the collateral damage. The toxic fallout wafts over cable shows for days. Surrogates create an atmosphere of Mutually Assured Embarrassment -- without the deterrent effect.
Surrogates have always played a campaign role, but the 24/7 news cycle of cable TV amplified by the Internet has made them more ubiquitous, and therefore more dangerous, than ever. How many times during this race have candidates’ messages been forced off-track by a surrogate gone astray? As with weaponry, the question becomes: are they worth the risk? Can a rational campaign safely bet that its surrogates are more likely to hit the target than the other sides’?
The 2008 Surrogate Wars suggest not.
I have a different reaction from Jonathan to Carly Fiorina, as much fun as she’s... more
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John McCain has just demonstrated his vulnerability as a presidential candidate. Speaking from prepared remarks at an Iowa rally today, he said that he would fire Chris Cox, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. This outburst demonstrates McCain’s ignorance, his impetuousness and his vindictive streak. Not bad for one remark.
McCain blames Cox for creating open season for “short sellers,” speculators who bet that a stock may go down. It’s true that short sellers helped to sink financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, and that they are now attacking the stock prices of the two remaining big investment banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. It is also true that last year Cox made short selling easier. But McCain’s threat to fire the SEC chairman is still outrageous.
The most basic reason is that a presidential candidate should not go about publicly pressuring the chairman of a regulatory agency. Government agencies are supposed to be professional and technocratic. They are not supposed to be political footballs. The more politicians brow-beat agency bosses, the less their technocratic decisions will be respected. McCain is damaging the machinery of government, dragging it into the mire of partisan discord. This is not consistent with his image as a good-government crusader.
John McCain has just demonstrated his vulnerability as a presidential candidate.... more
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