September 30, 2008
Trying to get her out in more friendly venues, the McCain campaign had Sarah Palin do a short interview today with conservative national radio host -- and renowned Mitt Romney sycophant -- Hugh Hewitt. (Full transcript here.) In a typically hard-hitting question, Hewitt wondered whether Palin agreed with those who feel that Charles Gibson and Katie Couric asked her "sort of pop quizzes designed to embarass you as opposed to interviews."
Palin: Well, I have a degree in journalism also, so it surprises me that so much has changed since I received my education in journalistic ethics all those years ago.
Ouch! Score one for the U of Idaho J-school!
September 30, 2008
When the Wall Street bailout bill failed to pass the US House of Representatives Monday, sending the stock market crashing, it briefly appeared that those who voted no had sent the world economy into an abyss. It still might be the case. But that does not seem to be worrying the three no voters who hail from the Bay State: Bill Delahunt of Quincy, Steve Lynch of Boston, and John Tierney of Salem.
The Phoenix spoke today with Lynch and Tierney, both of whom defend their no votes, saying that despite dire warnings of a credit freeze, Congress has the time to make better legislation.
Lynch, who serves on the House Financial Services Committee -- under chair Barney Frank, who is spearheading the bailout legislation -- wants to see some of the cost of the bailout borne by the financial-services industry, rather than the taxpayer. "The matter of who pays is central to this," he says.
Tierney agrees. In addition, he wants the plan to authorize bankruptcy judges to rework mortgages to keep homeowners out of foreclosure.
Both would also like the bill to provide more guidance on how the Treasury Department will value and purchase mortgage-backed securities -- guidance that they believe can significantly lower the cost to the taxpayer, and make it more likely to successfully settle the markets.
"It's a very risky proposition -- people think that this is a silver bullet, and it isn't," Lynch says. He points out that the plan is to leverage $700 billion to settle out the problem of valuating some $17 trillion of mortgages and mortgage-based securities. If not done properly, Lynch says, it might end up a costly failure.
But what of those arguing that immediate action is needed to stave off imminent disaster? Massachusetts Treasurer Tim Cahill, for example, has reported difficulty obtaining credit to make the state's local-aid payments.
Neither is convinced that the peril is quite as close as some say. In fact, Tierney blames President George Bush for over-hyping the urgency. "I'm not sure that one day or two days will make the difference" in whether financial systems collapse, Tierney says, "and it could make the difference in doing it the right way -- and making sure that we don't create a worse problem down the road."
Both lawmakers say they are open-minded about future versions of the legislation that address their concerns. Lynch says that a new version of the bill might come to a vote as soon as Thursday: last night at 11:00, he received an email from Speaker Nancy Pelosi telling members to keep that day free on their schedules.
But a bill incorporating the changes that would please reluctant Democrats like Lynch and Tierney, would likely make it harder to bring in more Republican votes, not easier.
Pelosi has said, from the beginning, that this needs to have bipartisan support -- she and Frank initially insisted that it should have at least 100 votes from each party.
In the event, just a third of the GOP members voted in favor, well short of the 80 their leadership had promised that day, according to both Lynch and Tierney. Given the ideological resistance of many conservatives to the bailout, it would seem likely that the extra votes needed for passage will need to come from Democrats -- which might mean passing it on a predominantly partisan vote.
Tierney says he would have no problem, at this point, passing it without Republican help. "The opportunity to get 100 and 100 has gone out the window," he says.
Lynch disagrees. "It's not a Democratic bill. It's a Republican bill, from the Republican President, with concessions to the Democrats. If they [Republicans] can't do better than 65 votes, I don't think it will happen."
Changes to the bill would also make it harder for the bill to pass the Senate, where 40 opponents can block a vote, and even lose the support of President Bush. In fact, it now appears that the Senate is going to pre-empt the House changes by voting on their bailout bill Wednesday.
Tierney, speaking before that news came this evening, suspected it might be coming. It is the Senate's way of putting pressure on House Republicans to get on board with the bill, Tierney says -- and to prevent House Democrats from passing a bill with significant changes.
If the Senate does pass its bill Wednesday, it appears unlikely that Tierney or Lynch will vote in favor of it when it comes back to the House.
September 30, 2008
Amazing new numbers from Quinnipiac today, showing Obama with substantial leads -- and at or above 50% -- in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. If those numbers are accurate, the election is over.
But even if they overstate the situation, it's clear that those states are moving in Obama's direction. Meanwhile, a new Pew poll has nothing but good news for Obama, showing him up 7 points among registered and 6 points among likely voters. More importantly, in swing states the race has gone from a tie in mid-September to an incredible 52-39 lead after Friday's debate. The big change seems to have come among people age 30-64 earning $50,000 or more -- working people with families likely scared silly by the economic crisis of the past two weeks. The Pew study also finds voter's views of Obama getting more and more favorable, which will make it harder and harder for McCain to convince them not to vote for him.
McCain now has a very tough road to victory. He can't make up this ground without increasing Obama's negatives, but his best opportunities to drag Obama's image down on a national level are behind him: the nominating convention and the first debate. (The first debate is always the most-watched and most influential, but even moreso for McCain because it focussed on foreign policy, the area where he presumably has the best opportunity to scare people about Obama's unreadiness.)
McCain can pound away at Obama through advertising -- although he hasn't found an effective formula in two months of trying -- but he now appears to have too many battlegrounds.
If the election were held today, it seems clear that Obama would hold all the states Kerry won, with the exception of New Hampshire, and would add New Mexico, Iowa, and Colorado. That gets him to 269 electoral votes, for a tie that Obama would presumably win in the House of Representatives.
That means that McCain must win back at least one of those states -- so he needs to advertise heavily in some combination of Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
But at the same time, he needs to hold onto a string of states not included in that 269 calculation above, where McCain is now trailing or leading only slightly: Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Virginia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Indiana.
That list of close states may grow as new state polls come out, reflecting the recent shift seen in that Pew poll and elsewhere. Already we've seen a poll showing McCain's lead drop to single digits in Georgia, for example.
Unless Obama makes a major misstep, it seems to me that McCain needs to somehow seriously damage Obama in the final two debates. That will mean attacking hard and shamelessly -- a risk that, if it fails, will likely do more damage to McCain, and make his challenge even more difficult.
September 29, 2008
Barney Frank was the public face of the bailout bill, but three of his own delegation voted against him today. Delahunt, Lynch, and Tierney from Massachusetts all voted no. Capuano, Frank, Markey, McGovern, Neal, Olver, and Tsongas voted yes.
Both of New Hampshire's freshmen Democrats in Congress -- Hodes and Shea-Porter, both facing re-election challenges -- voted against the bailout bill.
Maine's two congressmen, both Democrats, split. Allen -- currently running for Senate -- voted yes, while Michaud voted no.
Rhode Island's two Democrats, Kennedy and Langevin, both voted yes.
Vermont's only congressman, Welch, voted no.
Connecticut was an interesting split, with New England's only Republican in the US House voting yes on the bailout -- he is in a heavily Manhattan-commuting area, remember -- along with Dems DeLaura, Larson, and Murphy. Courtney voted no.
Altogether, New England went 14-8 for the bailout bill, including 13-8 among the Democrats. That's about the same voting rate as Democrats in the House generally.
September 29, 2008
House Republican leaders gave a press conference this afternoon, in which they claimed that they had enough votes for passage -- but that 12 Republicans flipped after hearing Nancy Pelosi give a partisan speech during the House debate.
I had watched Pelosi's speech, and was a little surprised at how much she whipped on Bush and his administration -- clearly, it was her way of trying to frame the bailout in terms for the upcoming congressional elections.
But the House GOP leaders' claim was a stunning one, I thought. It would be, after all, an admission that they themselves could not hold their own members in line. But more importantly, it would mean that 12 congressmen who had been convinced of the need to pass this bill changed their minds at the last minute, and decided to vote against it and possibly plunge the economy into a deep recession because they felt insulted by a speech.
Talk about failing to put country first!
The Democratic leadership just did their press conference, and the first question was about that very claim from the Republican leadership. Our own Barney Frank eagerly stepped to the microphone. He said that it wasn't the case, but also expressed disbelief that party leaders would say such a horrible thing about their own members -- that he himself would never have impugned such a petty motive on fellow congressmen.
He added that if someone would provide him the names of 12 GOP members who changed their votes because Pelosi had hurt their feelings, he would pay them a personal visit and "I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them" to get their votes back.
September 29, 2008
After a series of often quite impassioned speeches on the House floor, the bailout bill just went to a vote, and has lost.
Leadership had hoped all week to get 100 yes votes from each side of the aisle. It looks like only 60+ Republicans will end up voting for; they are running 2-to-1 against. Democrats couldn't make up the whole difference.
Big question now, whether they can salvage something quickly for another try today; otherwise the effects will be swift and harsh -- the Dow is already plunging.
Update: The Democrats are holding open the voting (one member not casting a vote yet), desperately trying to get members to switch. They would need 11 to flip, I believe.
September 26, 2008
Am I crazy, or did we just see a substantive discussion in which the two candidates laid out their differences on a number of serious policy and priority items? Haven't these two guys been paying any attention to what their campaigns are all about?
I thought that the debate mostly came across as two equals debating their different views, which is exactly the hurdle Obama needed to get over. So, while McCain did quite well for the most part -- and certainly avoided the train wreck that could very easily have capped off this week for him -- the net effect should be to keep Obama's momentum going.
A few specific comments:
--McCain clearly wanted to diminish Obama by lecturing him as someone who "doesn't understand" and is "naive." But he couldn't look at Obama when he did it. The effect was more pouty than confident -- if you want to project your superiority over a guy, rule number one is to look him in the eye and get him to look away.
--I think the Iraq discussions were bad for McCain. I think a lot of people have come to think that, with the situation there now relatively under control, both candidates intend to gradually withdraw our troops from Iraq; after tonight they may think that McCain wants to keep them in indefinitely. Also, many may be surprised to hear that McCain does not think there were lessons to learn from Iraq about when to invade a foreign country.
--I also think Obama bested McCain on Afghanistan, and even seemed to be lecturing McCain about taking his eye off the ball, and saying we could "muddle through" there.
--I think McCain's best moments, from the perspective of a swing voter, came talking about the horrible evil badness of Iran; but I think he was ill-served by getting sidetracked into a prolonged pissing match over "preconditions" versus "preparation," which mostly puts McCain into the "continuing Bush policy" box that he wants to stay out of.
September 26, 2008
--Which is more to blame for the public's antipathy toward the bailout: President Bush's total lack of credibility, or the media's total failure to explain the fiscal crisis?
--Has anyone heard anything about those examples of McCain's business-regulation attempts, that Sarah Palin promised to get back to Katie Couric with the other day?
--Is Sam Yoon "considering" running against Menino kind of like how I'm "considering" fixing the porch this weekend?
--Do you think Sonia Chang-Diaz had any idea what she was getting into?
--If McCain had really skipped the debate, how would he have spent those 90 minutes?
--If McCain had really skipped the debate, would he have still done the ABC "This Week" townhall meeting he has scheduled for Sunday?
--Will Yoon/Flaherty/whoever proclaim that Menino is "pulling a McCain" every time the mayor declines a debate offer?
September 26, 2008
WaPo's Chris Cillizza has this screen shot from the Wall Street Journal web site this morning -- with an ad from the McCain campaign declaring victory in the debate that hasn't happened yet. That he wasn't planning to attend at the time. A time when, in fact, his campaign was suspended. Including not advertising.
Victory is contagious!
September 26, 2008
As you know, John McCain announced on Wednesday that he absolutely could not possibly attend tonight's debate -- or indeed participate in any campaign activity -- until a bill to rescue the economy got done.
It certainly hasn't looked good; last night -- 10 days into the negotiations -- House Republicans suddenly introduced a completely different scheme from the one everybody had been working on, and refused to discuss it.
Yet minutes ago, the McCain campaign announced that their man is ready to debate. Why?
He is optimistic that there has been significant progress toward a bipartisan agreement now that there is a framework for all parties to be represented in negotiations.
Hooray! A framework for negotiations -- why, I'll bet the markets jump for joy at that alone!
Read the entire BS-filled announcement here.
September 24, 2008
As of this morning, the McCain campaign was adamantly denying that John McCain would necessarily vote for the Wall Street bailout bill that emerges from the current negotiations on the Hill.
Then his VP sat down to tape her third interview since being picked, and pretty much said that voting against a bailout would be disastrous.
Couric asks the vice presidential nominee if Congress failing to act on the
financial bailout that the Bush administration is proposing could risk another
Great Depression.
"If this doesn't pass, do you think there's a risk of another Great
Depression?'' the CBS anchor asks the candidate in an interview airing on the
CBS Evening News.
"Unfortunately, that is the road that America may find itself on,'' Palin
replied.
So..... you're either for the bailout, or for a depression. Pretty much boxes McCain into a corner, no?
There is another option, of course: dismiss it as a stupid response from Palin, or an "inartfully phrased" statement, as the Obama camp might say. They've been getting plenty of practice, repudiating some new Biden gaffe every day.
But Biden publicly answers a thousand questions a week, so it's no big deal for him to screw up one or two. Palin, on the other hand, is so shut off from the press that each Q&A takes on the import of some Greek oracle pronouncement. The campaign can't afford to add to her plummeting public opinion by suggesting she said something wrong.
In any event, McCain sure has made up his mind since this morning: Reuters is reporting that John McCain "will suspend [his] campaign" in order to rush to Washington and help negotiate the bailout bill. (I assume that it really means "suspend campaign appearances," because I seriously doubt they're shutting down operations in any significant way.)
Maybe McCain's sudden decisiveness has nothing to do with Palin's statement. Perhaps he's just trying to get out of Friday's debate. But it does sort of suggest that whatever Palin says, McCain has to go along with rather than publicly admit that he disagrees with it.
Kind of raises the stakes for her debate next week, don't you think?
September 24, 2008
Rasmussen today says McCain leads in NH, 49%-47%.
Marist today says no, Obama leads 51%-45%.
UNH yesterday said yeah, McCain leads, 47%-45%.
UNH recently said Shaheen has a slim lead, 48%-44%, over Sununu for US Senate.
ARG recently said no, Shaheen has a big lead, 52%-40% over Sununu for US Senate.
You people up in New Hampshire aren't just messing with these pollsters, are you?
September 24, 2008
Phoenix colleague Chris Faraone has posted a report from last night's Dianne Wilkerson announcement.
September 23, 2008
Chris Faraone reports from a packed press conference in Grove Hall tonight that state senator Dianne Wilkerson will run as a write-in candidate in the general election, if Sonia Chang-Diaz remains the Democratic nominee following a recount.
Wilkerson has mobilized black ministers and community leaders to help her defend her seat through a sticker campaign, Faraone reports.
Wilkerson will have the advantage, in the November election, of an expected large turnout of African-American voters for Barack Obama's Presidential election.
September 23, 2008
Gov. Patrick has posted on BlueMassGroup about the bailout proposal.
