Joho the Blog » mccain

Kick in an hour’s wages for some folks with a conscience?

davidw — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:36:14 +0000

[Tags: obama politics robo-calls mccain ]

Obama’s grandmother is younger than McCain’s mother

davidw — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:13:03 +0000

85 versus 95. And we all wish them both well.

[Tags: obama mccain politics ]

Powell makes the case

davidw — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:57:22 +0000

This 6.5 min video from DailyKos edits together Colin Powell’s argument in favor of Obama with brief supporting clips from the McCain campaign:

Send it to the fence-sitter in your family. (Here’s a link straight to the video. Ans Mike Wendell, in the comments, recommends this one, without the intercuts.)

[Tags: obama colin_powell mccain politics ]

Choice and “health”

davidw — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:41:53 +0000

This is some ad:

And here’s McCain trivializing women’s health, and equating consideration of women’s health with extremism:

[Tags: politics womens_rights abortion choice mccain obama palin rape ]

The post-debate ads

davidw — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:58:25 +0000

[Tags: obama politics mccain ]

This can’t be right

davidw — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:22:51 +0000

My reaction to the past three debates have exactly mirrored America’s reaction overall. This never happens. Usually, I’m convinced that my guy totally ruled, and the next day I find out that America couldn’t get past his sighs, his lock box, or his seeming complacency about the hypothetical rape of his wife.

I’m scared, too, kids*…

*Genuine Simpsons Referenceâ„¢

Remember what Bush said he was going to do internationally? Have a good, rueful laugh:

You might also enjoy this moment of Bush cowardice. But, of course, I’m, wrong about how America took it.

[Tags: politics obama mccain debate dukakis gore bush ]

Organizing up, down, and across

davidw — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:48:30 +0000

Zack Exley, who knows a thing or two about political organizing, writes about the Obama campaign’s use of top-down and lateral connectedness to get out the vote. And Patrick Ruffini, at The Next Right, is worried that Obama got it right. (Via Andrew Sullilvan)

[Tags: politics e-politics obama mccain ]

McCain (and Obama) on Net neutrality

davidw — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:38:31 +0000

To tell you the truth, after listening to this, I don’t know where he stands on Net neutrality. He does say he supports it, but I don’t get a warm feeling that he understands what he means.

For purposes of comparison:

I don’t know when either of these snippets were recorded.

[Tags: net_neutrality mccain obama ]

A leader’s first impulse

davidw — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:43:49 +0000

Yeah, it’s just great that McCain yesterday tried to tamp the fire of fear and hatred he’s still stoking:

When a woman referred to Obama yesterday as “an Arab,” McCain cut her off and seized the microphone from her hands. “No, ma’am,” he interjected. “He is a decent family man with whom I happen to have some disagreements.”

If the problem with that response isn’t clear, try replacing “Arab” with “Jew” or “Catholic.” “He’s not a Catholic. He’s decent!” Why hasn’t there been any notice of this, as far as I can tell?

[Tags: mccain obama politics ]

Obama on McCain on buying up bad mortgages

davidw — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:44:04 +0000

Here’s Obama’s response to McCain’s mortgage buy-back proposal:

Senator McCain and I had a chance to talk about this the other night in Nashville. Some of you may have seen it. In that debate, he offered what he said was a new idea to help deal with the financial crisis, and that was to have the government â€“ meaning taxpayers â€“ buy up bad mortgages in America.
Well, the idea wasn’t particularly new. The authority for the Secretary of Treasury to buy and renegotiate bad mortgages is part of the financial rescue plan we just passed. In fact, I proposed it myself because, if it’s properly done and limited in scope, such buybacks can be one tool to help innocent homeowners stay in their homes on terms they can afford.
But I also said at the time that this should not be a vehicle to reward banks and lending institutions that recklessly wrote bad loans. It should not be a bailout for the high-rolling real estate speculators who took those loans to make a quick buck.
We have to act to fix our broken economy and restore the credit markets. But taxpayers shouldn’t be asked to pick up the tab for the very folks who helped create this crisis.
And that’s the problem with Senator McCain’s risky idea. On Tuesday night, his campaign said that he would ask the banks to absorb some of the cost by selling the bad mortgages to the government at a discount. Then, by Wednesday morning, he’d changed his mind and was proposing to bail out banks and lenders with taxpayer money.
Senator McCain actually wants the government to pay the full face value of mortgages on the books, even though they’re not worth that much anymore. It’s a plan that would guarantee that American taxpayers lose by handing over $300 billion to underwrite the kind of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street that got us into this mess.
But it’s not just that the McCain bailout rewards irresponsible lenders, it’s that his bailout would make it more likely that those lenders keep up their bad behavior. Just yesterday, Countrywide, one of the nation’s largest lenders, reached an agreement to help homeowners refinance their mortgages. Under Senator McCain’s plan, lenders like Countrywide wouldn’t have any incentive to come forward and help homeowners â€“ because they could just wait for the government to bail them out.
Now, this is just the latest in a series of shifting positions that Senator McCain has taken on this issue. His first response to this crisis in March was that homeowners shouldn’t get any help at all. Then, a few weeks ago, he put out a plan that basically ignored homeowners. And now, in the course of 12 hours, he’s ended up with a plan that punishes taxpayers, rewards banks, and won’t solve our housing crisis.
Well, I don’t think we can afford that kind of erratic and uncertain leadership in these uncertain times.

The whole thing will be up here in a few days, I assume. [Tags: obama mccain mortgage ]