McCain Supports Bush's Plans for Social Security

Bush's proposal to privatize Social Security is back. McCain told the Wall Street Journal that he favors Bubble-Boy's approach to "fixing" Social Security. This approach calls for privatizing Social Security and was so unpopular with the public that the Republican-controlled Congress wouldn't even have the legislation introduced.

This is from the Wall Street Journal article:

On Social Security, the Arizona senator says he still backs a system of private retirement accounts that President Bush pushed unsuccessfully, and disowned details of a Social Security proposal on his campaign Web site.

He also came out in favor of extending BB's reckless tax cuts to the rich and lowering the corporate tax rate. This means, of course, that the United States would face even more deficit spending. This is also from the WSJ article:

Behind the scenes, his campaign is searching for ways to pay for Sen. McCain's tax proposals. In addition to extending the Bush tax cuts, the 71-year-old candidate would slash the corporate income-tax rate from 35% to 25% at a cost to the Treasury of $100 billion a year, estimates Mr. Holtz-Eakin.

In all, his tax-cutting proposals could cost about $400 billion a year, according to estimates of the impact of different tax cuts by CBO and the McCain campaign. The cost will make it difficult for him to achieve his goal of balancing the budget by the end of his first term.

So let's see what the McCain record is:

1. Doesn't care if the U.S. is in Iraq for a 100 years;

2. Makes jokes about bombing Iran;

3. Has flip-flopped on Bubble-Boy's tax cuts, being against them in 2001 and now for them in 2008;

4. Wants to privatize Social Security; and

5. Wants to cut taxes for corporations.

Once Again Peggy Noonan Declares the End of the Clintons

For what has to be the one thousandth time, Peggy Noonan has declared the end of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Once again she is sure that everyone will see through the Clintons. She is sure that the Clintons, by running an aggressive campaign against Barack Obama will tear apart the Democratic Party and allow Republicans to swoop in and start getting black votes.

Of course she announced this in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, in the same column in which she blames Bush for tearing apart the Republican Party. It is obvious that Noonan isn't aiming her message at rank and file Democrats since most rank and file Democrats don't read the Wall Street Journal. No, she is aiming it at Republicans, assuring them that even if Bubble-Boy has seriously damaaged the prospects of the GOP, the damage is only temporary.

Part of the problem here is that Republicans have never accepted the legitimacy of the Clinton presidency. Therefore, the fact that the Clintons have electoral success amazes and confounds them. The same attitude is observed on the left among people who can't stand George W. Bush. A lot of Democrats see Bush as the beneficiary of the equilavent of a black-robed coup and then as the beneficiary of the 9-11 attacks on America. Just like Republicans convince themselves that if Ross Perot hadn't been on the ballot in 1992 and 1996 they would have won, Democrats believe that if the 9-11 attacks hadn't taken place, Bush would have been a one term president.

Of course, in politics, as in the world in general, it doesn't matter what could have happened, it only matters what did happen. Bill Clinton was president and George Bush did get re-elected. Conservative pundits can continue to act as if the Clintons are through politically and, while they do, the Clintons will continue to run campaigns, and will probably win a fair share of them.

Are Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney Too Managerial?

The Wall Street Journal has an article out about how Mitt Romney's campaign is being run by himself and his business partners. It is quite interesting. It points out that good and the bad aspects of such an approach. This is the opening paragraphs of the article:

MERRIMACK, N.H. -- To get a feel for why Mitt Romney took a drubbing in Iowa Thursday night, consider the reception he got from a little girl in the next battleground state, New Hampshire.

At a recent "Ask Mitt Anything" night here, a nine-year-old girl asked the Republican candidate what is the first thing he will do as president. "I will build the right team," Mr. Romney replied matter-of-factly. "I tend to be a person driven by data and analysis, not just what's political."

The girl looked at him blankly.

Note that there is no emotion in that answer and no passion. The article goes on to talk about Romney's reaction to the Bhutto assassination in Pakistan:

But his analytical approach isn't always what's needed on the campaign trail. Last week, when camera crews surrounded Mr. Romney for instant comments on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, he ducked into the kitchen of a diner to strategize quickly with his team. After being briefed on the event, he emerged outside the dinner where a crowd had gathered. "This points out again the extraordinary reality of global, violent, radical jihadism," he said.

"I didn't hear him say anything about how sad her death is," one bystander grumbled later. Mr. Romney corrected that omission at the next public event.

In a way, Hillary Clinton and Romney have the same problem. One of the biggest complaints that voters have about Clinton is that she is "too programmed", and seems to lack authenticity. Both of them are acting as if voters make rational decisions, not emotional decisions.

Mark Shields, the liberal news commentator who appears on Jim Lehrer's News Hour, once said that voting for president is the most emotional vote that Americans cast. Americans want to feel connected to their leaders. They want to feel that their leaders understand their problems. Such feelings are not cultivated by a managerial approach to politics.

Contrast the Romney/Clinton style to the Huckabee/Obama style, which is much more emotional. Huckabee and Obama seem to emotionally connect to their supporters. They seem to be making people who perceive themselves as powerless, evangelicals and young people, feel powerful. They are, in a lot of ways, the stylistic opposites of Romney and Clinton.

Interestingly, John McCain, who is Romney's chief rival in New Hampshire, is also a politician who seems to connect emotionally to his supporters. For that matter, so does John Edwards. It will be very interesting to see what happens to Romney and Clinton if it gets down to a two person race. One that pits each of them against just one opponent who is high in emotional i.q.

Will Clinton be a Drag on Down Ballot Dems?

The Wall Street Journal, in conjunction with NBC, released a new poll today that shows while the public prefers a Democrat to a Republican for president by 50% to 35%, when the choice is between Clinton and Guiliani, the result is 46% for Clinton and 45% for Guiliani. This means that Clinton underperforms the generic Democrat by 4% while Giuliani overperforms the generic Republican by 10%.

Of course, it is possible to win the presidency and lose the popular vote as we saw in 2000. The question is, though, whether Clinton will be a drag on down ballot Dems in Republican leaning areas like Medina County and other parts of Ohio? Will her presence on the ticket energize Republicans to get out and vote and, while they are voting, lead to other Republicans getting votes they might not otherwise have gotten?

One way that the top of the ticket helps or hurts down ballot races is by being in a tough race. If you are a down ballot Dem and the top of the ticket is blowing out the Republican in polls right before the election, you are a happy camper. Why? Because there is not a lot of motivation for voters who lean Republican but are not real partisans to come out and vote. If, however, the pre-election polls show a tight race, then that is a whole different story.

On the one hand Democratic leaning voters will be motivated, but so will Republican leaning voters. The number of voters turning out, and more importantly, whose voters they are, can impact tremendously on down ballot races. An election between Clinton and Giuliani could result in a Democrat president but Democrats losing down ballot races.

Thoughts About Household Incomes, Peggy Noonan and Hillary Clinton

Peggy Noonan had a column in the Wall Street Journal attacking Hillary Clinton. That, of course, is nothing new. There are two recurring themes that dominate Noonan's work. The first is the deification of Ronald Reagan and the second is how evil the Clintons are, especially as compared to the sainted, aforementioned Ronnie.

This column, though, has the following quote about how Hillary Clinton can be defeated in her quest for the presidency:

For a few years now I've thought the problem for the Democrats in general but for Mrs. Clinton in particular is not that America is against tax increases. They've seen eight years of big spending, of wars, of spiraling entitlements. They've driven by the mansions of the megarich and have no sympathy for hedge fund/movie producer/cosmetics empire heirs. They sense the system is rigged toward the heavily protected. They sense this because they're not stupid.

The problem for Mrs. Clinton is not that people sense she will raise taxes. It's that they don't think she'll raise them on the real and truly rich. The rich are her friends. They contribute to her, dine with her, have access to her. They have an army of accountants. They're protected even from her.

But she can stick it to others, and in the way of modern liberalism for roughly half a century now, one suspects she'll define affluence down. That she would hike taxes on people who make $150,000 a year.

But those "rich" -- people who make $200,000 and have two kids and a mortgage and pay local and state taxes in, say, New Jersey -- they don't see themselves as rich. Because they're not. They're already carrying too much of the freight.

The interesting thing about the above quote is that people who make $200,000 a year are actually in the top 2.67% of all households in the United States, according to this article in Wikipedia. In fact, households with annual income up to $75,000 make up over 73% of the total households in the United States.

If you look at the dynamics of where Clinton draws a lot of her support, it is from voters who live in households making less than $75,000 a year. This is one reason why she is making "income inequality" a theme of her campaign. So while Noonan make not agree with her approach, our guess is that voters who back Clinton don't really care if she raises taxes on families making $200,000 a year or more.