The Two Withdrawals

I find the most interesting aspect of the withdrawal from- technically, suspension of- the presidential campaign of John Edwards to be the distinction between the former North Carolina senator and the former New York City mayor.
When Rudolph Giuliani on January 30, 2008 ended his bid to become the Repub presidential nominee, he said little of interest and nothing of importance, other than to take the politically safe course of endorsing John McCain, who had the evening before become the overwhelming favorite to capture the nomination. Not surprising, though, because Rudolph became the poster boy for expediency. Once a mayor who was partial to abortion rights, gay rights, and gun control, Giuliani as a presidential candidate stood for nothing of the sort, and instead promoted what he claimed would be the largest tax increase in American history, a sure vote-getter in a Repub primary, dominated by those most fortunate and not coincidentally most likely to benefit from a further drop in income tax rates. (Still an easy position to take in a Repub primary- note John McCain never missing an opportunity to tout his born-again support for making permanent the Bush give a leg up to the rich tax cuts.)
And John Edwards? He leaves the race on 1/30/08 saying Senators Clinton and Obama "both pledged to me and, more importantly, through me to America, that they will make ending poverty central to their campaign for the presidency. This is the cause of my life, and I now have their commitment to engage in this cause." And to those who might have doubted Edwards' sincerity during his run, consider the statements of both Obama and Clinton upon Edwards' suspension. (Clinton: "John Edwards ended his campaign today in the same way he started it - by standing with the people who are too often left behind and nearly always left out of our national debate;" Obama: "John Edwards has spent a lifetime fighting to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the struggling, even when it wasn’t popular to do or covered in the news.") All point to the former candidate's emphasis on ending poverty, a concern rarely voiced by any politician on the national level (or, probably, on any other level) for, oh, probably the last couple of decades. (Robert Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey are dead.)
So whom are we left with? Two candidates right on most issues, with relatively little difference between them, one emphasizing her gender, the other emphasizing generational differences. If this distinction and appeal sound somewhat inimical to the idea of real, progressive, change, you've been paying attention.

Saint McCain- No. 4

"Well, you show a lot of courage out there, Senator."

-MSNBC's Chris Matthews at the end of an interview of John McCain following the State of the Union message on 1/28/09

The Republican Media- No. 10

On January 26, 2008 CNN presented live a portion of a speech of Rudolph Giuliani to an assemblage in Florida. As he is wont to do, Giuliani was promoting his plan for increasing the concentration of the nation's wealth in the hands of the privileged few to the detriment of the middle class. CNN cheerfully went along with the caption "Giuliani Wants To Do Away With The Death Tax."

Now, I'm no accountant, so I figured I would perform a Google Search on "death tax, Internal Revenue Service." Just as I expected, up popped an IRS page entitled "Estate and Gift Taxes," which explained "the estate tax is a tax on your right to transfer property at your death. It consists of an accounting of everything you own or have certain interests in at the date of death." And oh, the first $2,000,000 (that's two million dollars) of the value of the estate is excluded.

If you have property thus subject to the estate tax, or what Giuliani and CNN like to call the "death tax," please call me. We'll talk.

Saint McCain- No. 3

"Now we know where McCain gets all his straight talk comes from- it comes from his mother."

-CNN pundit Gloria Borger on 1/27/08, following a clip of John McCain's mother giving her son a rather lukewarm endorsement

(Not only is John McCain a "straight talker"- he listens to his mom!)

"Straight Talk" about Iraq?

Asked by the editor of The St. Petersburg Times at the 1/24/08 Repub presidential debate in Boca Raton, Florida, about the military and economic costs of leaving U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely (as he has said is acceptable), Senator John McCain stated "I know of no military leader, including General Petraeus, who says we can't sustain our effort in Iraq. So you're wrong."

The Christian Science Monitor (at csmonitor.com) reported on December 24, 2007 "'we're deploying at unsustainable rates,' (Army Chief of Staff) General Casey said three weeks ago during remarks to an audience at the Brookings Institution in Washington."

And as for General Petraeus? In an interview with National Public Radio, Petraeus "acknowledges that the so-called troop 'surge' has placed an 'enormous strain' on U.S. combat forces. He says troop levels will have to be further reduced after mid-2008, when they are expected to return to pre-'surge' levels of about 130,000. "

It is one thing to lie (The great military expert from Arizona must have known aabout General Casey.) But asserting boldly to Tim Russert "so you're wrong"? Dishonest and arrogant- a twofer for Saint McCain.

Early to the Game

This from bloomberg.com:

The federal government should help fund new light-rail lines, parking lots near mass-transit stations and other energy-efficient transportation projects that can get under way in 90 days as a way to stimulate the economy, John Edwards said today..... (he) called on Congress to approve a $25 billion package of investments in clean energy, job training and unemployment benefits. He said lawmakers should be prepared to allocate another $75 billion in the event of a recession.

``Hard-working families across America are already struggling to make ends meet,'' Edwards said. ``Before things get worse, I urge Congress to take action immediately to strengthen our economy and create new jobs."

But here is the point: this is from a December 22, 2007 report- several weeks before the rest of Washington figured it out.

"Straight Talk" from John McCain


During the Repub presidential debate on January 24, 2008 in Boca Raton Florida, Tim Russert asked "is it a problem for your campaign that the economy is now the most important issue, one that, by your own acknowledgement, you are not well versed on?Senator McCain responded, "actually, I don't know where you got that quote from. I'm very well versed in economics."

Unfortunately, Russert didn't have the Senator's quotes at hand then but here he is three days later during McCain's appearance on Meet the Press:

I will show you where I got the quote from. I got it from John McCain, and here it is. "McCain is refreshingly blunt when he tells me I'm going to be honest, I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." Wall Street Journal, November 26th, 2005. You repeated it to the Boston Globe in December of '07. You said it.

Russert (or his producer) deserves credit for digging the quote up. However, perhaps McCain didn't actually lie in the first sentence- maybe he didn't in fact know where the NBC Washington Bureau Chief had gotten the quote. But he certainly does know he isn't very well versed in economics.