New School Politics

With the exception of Richard Nixon’s “checkers” speech, I could say of no Vice President or Vice Presidential Candidate’s speech that is of historical note or great political significance.

For that reason, among others, it is very possible that Wednesday night we witnessed a speech that will be of political lore for time to come. Alternatively, Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech at the 2008 RNC could merely be a footnote to one of history’s electoral accidents. Certainly, though, truth will not lie somewhere in between.

Although the final verdict will largely depend on how Palin fares for the next two months–and, with success, the next four years–the convention speech was her first impression on a curious, eager electorate, and the Governor left them enormously impressed.

So lets deal with what we know. Wednesday night’s performance was as expertly executed as it could have possibly been. Not only were Sarah Palin and speechwriter Matthew Scully effective, but they were also so deft as to mute the convention’s mismanagement of time, lack of a transition from Rudy Giuliani’s (also superb, yet overshadowed) speech, and the (exaggerated) teleprompter malfunctions

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Oh, if only I could have been on the receiving end

The speech touched on four themes, all successfully. First, Palin introduced herself and her family, sentimentalizing her roll as a working mother, with a son going to Iraq and another with down syndrome. Second, Palin spoke on her record as a direct reformer and nature as a Washington outsider to her core. Third, she chided and prodded Barack Obama in both coy and serious tones. And fourth, she opened and closed her speech by saluting John McCain for his honor and bravery, and speaking to his record of reform.

Perhaps no politician in modern history has been catapulted to such a prominent stage so suddenly. Understandably, a myriad of questions surround the westerner, and Wednesday, Palin replied in as sweeping and thorough a manner as possible. She answered them not just with substance, but with style and tone as well.

Governor Palin was beautiful and put-together. She was composed for a seasoned veteran of national politics, never mind a 44-year-old female mayor of a town of 9,000. She spoke clearly and articulately–slipping up perhaps only once. She spoke to the audience, yielding to their exuberance, rather than trying to speak over them. She berated Obama sarcastically and humorously, reducing him from an icon to a caricature. She demonstrated a record and vision of reform. She had gravitas. She showed graceful toughness, striking a happy medium that Hillary Clinton would kill for. And, perhaps most importantly, Sarah Palin connected with women, family men, and the great silent majority of Americans that often elude Democrats.

In one fowl swoop, she compounded the excitement of conservatives, attracted independents, claimed the mantle of reform, and reduced the other ticket to a punch line. Graceful, indeed.

Palin’s addition to the Republican ticket has lifted McCain. Her speech nearly made him an afterthought. In all his infinite oratorical mediocrity, McCain’s largest applause line the night after, reporters noted, was on mention of his new running mate. In less than 24 hours after Palin’s speech the campaign had raised $10 million in fundraising that could only be called Obama-esque.

In 2004, Barack Obama’s keynote address at the DNC introduced him to America and won him a throngs of loyal followers. Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech was like that on amphetamines. It was different in tone than vintage Obama, but it also played to her strengths and, to borrow a term, carried the “fierce urgency of now” like the Illinois Senator could not imagine. It combined the introductory nature of Obama’s speech with the red meat of traditionally great keynote addresses, and it packed pressure like few speeches in modern campaign history.

Palin’s speech Wednesday night was dripping with one liners. However, for it to be memorable, it must be remembered for a theme. Aside from being the Governor’s first impression on the country, it cast her as a tough Washington outsider on par with millions of everyday Americans and their families. Probably the simplest way to describe it is the way she described herself: a pitbull with lipstick. Not just for that quip, but for the tone of the address, I will remember it as the “hockeymom” speech.

Of course, John McCain needs more than just a hockeymom in the coming sprint to the finish line. In the next two months we will see what the mystery woman from Alaska is really made of. Her first test was passed with flying colors. Her biggest test, will be in St. Louis on October 7th when she faces down a fearsome master of Senate debate. After seeing her son off to Iraq, she will spend the better part of three weeks in policy boot camp and needs to come out a formidably versed wonk.

By all means she seems to have the smarts to do it, expectations–like that before the speech–will also be fairly low. But there will be a lot of chances for the Alaskan mother of five to slip up, and to truly become the Republican hero that she could actually be, it will require more than just clearing the bar.

My own inclination, by virtue Palin’s sweeping success in Alaska, impressive debut, and the awesome fanfare surrounding her, is that she will clear the bar with ease. My greatest hope is that she will be a different breed–a rational reformer who will humble the Republican party and reduce the size of government. My greatest fear is that she will be Bush in stilettos–she’ll keep trying to save the world, keep trying to save people from themselves, and clear the bar in populist fashion.

Regardless, we are witnessing history. For the time being, it appears that a rock star has been born. And its a girl.

UPDATE (October): I was wrong.

Popularity: 48% [?]

The evidence.

Including 2008, since 1976 every presidential election has featured a lefty at the top of the ticket except for 2004 (which did include a lefty at the bottom of the Democratic ticket in John Edwards).

Save for Carter and the second Bush, every president since Gerald Ford has been left handed, and the next president will be left hand dominant as well (because both McCain and Obama are lefties), which will make five of seven left-handed presidents.

Meanwhile, only about one in nine of the total population are southpaws. The linked article tries to explain this seemingly unexplainable trend.

Regardless, I never cease to be amazed by how awesome we lefties are…

Popularity: 49% [?]

Step Two: Insert foot.

In response to a survey during the primary asking, “If you are nominated for President in 2008 and your major opponents agree to forgo private funding in the general election campaign, will you participate in the presidential public financing system?” Senator Obama checked “Yes.” He elaborated:

I have been a long-time advocate for public financing of campaigns…If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.

Clearly, John McCain’s reaction indicated that there was no effort from Barack Obama “pursuing an agreement” on public financing so to keep it in place.

The Senator has had little trouble finding spare change

But of course things have changed since February of this year–Obama discovered he hasn’t the age-old Democrat’s fundraising handicap. Nay, he’s actually got quite the knack for raising money. So much so that he expects a cash flow great enough to able him to spend more than the $84.1 million limit that public financing mandates.

Money talks. And apparently what it says is more trustworthy than what flimsy pols like Barack Obama say. David Brooks hit the nail on the head–as he often does–with his column entitled, “The Two Obamas.”

But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes.

This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.

Senator Obama has made a career out of commanding oratory and the image of a new and different and transcending and trustworthy politician. But everywhere we look, he has not fulfilled his own prophecy.

As Brooks notes, Senator Obama could “no more disown” the derisive Reverend Jeremiah Wright than his own grandmother–so he claimed. But when political circumstances changed, he dropped Wright like a sack of potatoes after their noted 20 year history.

Obama could have accepted Senator McCain’s proposal for 10 one-on-one town hall meetings–an unprompted, candid discussion with his opponent and the American people that screams born-again politics–but he has not, and will not take such a strategic risk.

The Senator could have cast legislative votes in the same non-partisan manner that he espouses on the stump, but his voting record indicates he is one of the least, if not the least, likely to step out of the party line.

The Senator could have taken tough stances on votes in the Illinois State Senate or taken the initiative to use his keen political skills to lead on certain vital legislative issues, but he has done neither.

The issue of campaign financing is only more evidence that Barack Obama is anything but the messianic public figure that him, his campaign, and his supporters (including many in the press) have made him out to be. While I wouldn’t usually waste my time blogging about a seeming textbook flip-flop, let’s remember who is making it. This is the man who was supposed to restore public confidence to the political system. This is the man who was supposed to change the way politics is done in Washington. But it is only style, not substance, that would indicate that.

ADDENDUM: The above news came the same week that John McCain himself flopped on the issue of federal offshore drilling moratoriums. And before I get criticized for only rebuking Obama, let it be know that I am not turning a blind eye to the GOP’s nominee.

The difference as I see it however is that Barack Obama choses to ride a far higher horse, which makes his reversal more noteworthy. Moreover, now that he has gone with the wind, at least John McCain has the right position on the issue of drilling. Regardless of how much he pandered to get to his stance, what this means is that if the Arizona Senator gets his way the government will reduce its restrictions on energy production in this country, and thats a good thing.

Popularity: 66% [?]

Senator Obama has offered little, if anything, remnant of an independent streak in Congress. He has practically been toeing the Democratic Party line for the entire three weeks (or three years–I can’t remember) he’s represented Illinois. Despite cries to the contrary, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise why the National Journal ranked Senator Obama the most liberal Senator in 2007, and one of the most liberal in the body over his short career. Nor does he have any notable legislative accomplishments (to the extent of my knowledge and research), but that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

Now, there is nothing necessarily wrong with Obama being a partisan and/or left-winger if that is what he truly believes. But, if that is the case, the problem is that he is trying to mask it. He has run on the idea that he will transcend the politics of the past; that he is the reformer–the breath of fresh air who is immune to partisanship. At the same time, as a Senator he has been the Democratic Party Platform manifest, even before he started running. So while he is (incorrectly) claiming that McCain is running for Bush’s third term, he, himself, is running for little more than Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi’s ascension to the White House.

To be sure, John McCain still shares many of George Bush’s policy stances (and has strangely–and by strangely, I mean politically conveniently–shared an increasing number of those positions at least since 2001/02), but he has also demonstrated a long-standing streak of thinking for himself. Not only has McCain dissented from his party in his career (perhaps) as many times as Barack Obama has casted votes in the Senate, but he has shown a far greater tendency to be an independently minded politician than the Jr. Senator from IL.

In light of the facts, it is clear that the rolls are the reverse of what Sen. Obama would have many think. For better or for worse, John McCain has been his own man for much of his career in DC, while, in his short time in Congress, Barack Obama has been playing something along the lines of “follow the leader” with Democratic Party Leadership.

In Economic news, a notable panel of economists, including five Nobel Laureates, were put to task discussing various, global economic policy proposals. They assessed 40 different ideas and prioritized them, in utilitarian fasion, in order of how much good they would do for the welfare of the world’s population. The top of the list included relatively cheap nutrition and immunization for third world youth (tens of millions), which would yield hundreds of millions to billions of productivity in the future.

The top also included global expansion of free trade coming out of the Doha trade talks, which, according to studies by present economists could produce as much as $113 trillion in new wealth in the 21st century at a maximum opportunity cost of $420 billion from displaced industries.

What was perhaps most notable however was that Global Warming mitigation (as well as research and development to that end) came in at 39 and 40–the very bottom of the list. The explanation was that the costs of proposed policies to economic production and growing dynamism of the world economy will be very great, while the reasons and benefits for such overhauls have been speculative, and in some cases minimal.

Also of note: an opinion piece in today’s WSJ reminds us of the daily, yet revolutionary change that the market has offered America–and the world–over the course of history as well as in modern times. This sort of change, which coincides with unprecedented growth in standard of living, in the US and around the world, is produced by innovation and free trade both within and between nations–another sobering fact to those partial to a different type of change.

Popularity: 67% [?]

In his column today, Mark Steyn quotes from Obama’s victory speech on Tuesday:

I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people … . I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal … . This was the moment – this was the time – when we came together to remake this great nation.

The contradiction in Obama’s message is pretty stark, and it’s not as if its unprecedented in this campaign either. How could any candidate not be laughed at for his obtuse sense of self-importance when he begins his train of thought by saying how humble he is and ends it by telling how he is going to save the world?

Somehow, apparently, because at every rally/rock concert of his, throngs clamor at such talk. Now that Obama has clinched the nomination, we are likely to see Obamamania reach new heights of pandemonium. This became apparent Tuesday, when Obama surpassed his career high, sending 47 nauseous and/or fainting fanatics to the hospital during his victory speech.

Yes, they were serious

It was also clear when Jesse Jackson Jr., sitting US Congressmen and namesake of his Reverend father, said of his nomination on Tuesday:

What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history. … The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.

Apparently, I am more ignorant of American history than I previously thought. And I’m not even going to touch the religious reference.

Still, others chose to manifest their romance in song–y en español tambien. Certain sycophants in the press are probably feeling that “furrowing up their leg” as intensely as ever. But, of course, I’ve written about these sorts of things before.

Ultimately, I agree with the point of Mr. Steyn’s column: the scariest part is that Obama wants to change the world. And it should be no secret how he will attempt to change it either. Caked underneath all those layers of fluffy rhetoric, all Obama is really proposing is layers of more government.

Comb closely for the sporadic remnants of substance in his speeches. When he promises providing healthcare, jobs, and saving the planet from mankind, how do you think he is going to do it? Of course, the answer is government. And not just any old dosage, programs like cap-and-trade and universal healthcare will unequivocally coincide with massive, new bureaucracy and government power over individuals.

…or else?

Then again, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise coming from the Senator who has been swankily espousing an altruistic and collectivist ethic since as long as he’s been in the limelight. Its hard not to cringe when he’s delivering the Gospel according to Barack with the young and stupid:

There’s no community service requirement in the outside world — no one forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy. You can choose to narrow your concerns and live your life in a way that tries to keep your story separate from America’s. But I hope you don’t.

Why does he feel the need to demean private, hard-working–or even greedy–Americans, who chose to keep to themselves, perhaps not lending their time to community service, but harming no one? Why do we need a president to tell us the best way to live our lives? Has he been graced with any special wisdom that somehow escapes us common folk? I balk at the idea that our country would be better off if we all passed up productive work to become “community organizers” (whatever the hell that means).

Regardless, it is clear that Obama can attribute his exceptional support more to his oratorical prowess and his kindler, gentler liberal post-partisanship than his specific legislative agenda. For all the clamoring about how Obama is going to deliver change, “real change”, the “change we can believe in”, his platform is absurdly similar to that of his previous Democratic rivals for the presidency. I mean, honestly, he voted for last month’s $300 billion atrocity of a farm bill. How can he say that he is going to change the fabric of Washington politics and then vote for a bill loaded with wasteful, excessive subsidies to rich farmers, an important political lobby, and a sector whose commodity prices have skyrocketed in the past few years?

Obama would be hard-pressed to explain how such a bloated bill could give any remnant of hope to our political process–indeed the bill typifies everything wrong with Washington. But, he has not, now will he likely be made to explain–for the bill received the support of a large majority of Congress and the all-powerful agricultural lobby. (Oh well, at least McCain had the integrity to vote against it).

The funny thing is that when you do peel back the pristine facad, what you get from Obama is mundane and unexceptional. While he may couch it in nicer terms than others, the only changing of the world that the Senator is setting out to do is augment the roll of the government in the same way that America has condoned since the New Deal. While many have and will either be oblivious or not care, this campaign will largely be about knocking Obama back to earth in the eyes of the public and revealing his gospel as the same, stale literature that politicians have pandered from for ages.

Let’s hope John McCain–in all his infinite mediocrity–can do it.

Popularity: 74% [?]

In light of the Cap-and-Trade bill, recently defeated in the Senate, I thought it proper to post on a recent scientific studies on future warming trends.

First, published in early May, a study published in Nature Magazine contends that, contrary to what is supposed to be scientific consensus, there will be no global warming until at least and possibly as late as 2020. The study found that the earth’s temperature will actually drop from the present to 2015. And since we have already witnessed a global temperature decline since 1998 (again, you do not hear about this very often in the news, do you?), this means that by the end of the next decade, there will have actually been a drop in global temperatures for two whole decades.

No, you did not read that wrong. In an era of globalization, rising human greenhouse gas emissions, Inconvenient Truths, and Nobel Peace Prizes for environmentalists, we are in the midst of two decades of no global warming.

Here is a review of the study in the NYT.

What makes this finding even more amusing is that it flies in the face of the Nobel-laureate IPCC which has predicted a .3 degree centigrade increase in temperature over the next decade. As a matter of fact, in their predictions, the IPCC uses a grand total of 0 climate models that have predicted any “lull” in warming over the next 7 years, such as the above study found.

And let us also remember that even despite its model-based estimates of global warming, the IPCC still only predicts a rise in sea levels between 7 inches and (at most) 23 inches over the course of the entire 21st century.

One has to wonder if this is the sort of imminant and emminant global warming that Barack Obama thinks warrents an 80% cut in GHGs by 2050.

Popularity: 59% [?]

From the AP this morning:

Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a global warming bill that would have required major reductions in greenhouse gases, after a bitter debate over its economic costs and whether it would substantially raise gasoline and other energy prices.

Democratic leaders fell a dozen votes short of getting the 60 needed to end a Republican filibuster on the measure and bring the bill up for a vote. The 48-36 vote failed to reach even a majority, a disappointment to the bill’s supporters.

Although few expected this bill to actually go very far, the fact that it was shot down so quickly is a good sign for now.

The Climate Security Act (co-sponsored by John Warner (R-VA) and Joe Lieberman (confused-CT)) calls for limiting emissions to 2005 levels by 2012, 30% below 2005 leves by 2030, and finally reducing emissions by 74% by 2050. With present population growth accounted for, that would mean that by 2050, per capita greenhouse gas emissions would be more than 90% less than what they are presently, which–according to one commentator who I unfortunately cannot recall in order to cite at this point–would reduce per capita emissions to a level not seen since around the time Thomas Jefferson was president.

The economic costs of the central planning will obviously be imense. Low-end estimates like that of the Energy Information Administration estimate the costs to economic output at somewhere between $1 and 2 trillion by 2030 (in 2000 dollars) while other estimates, like that of the Heritage Foundation, expect losses up to $4.8 trillion (in 2006 dollars) by 2030.

This cannot even account for the potential deadweight losses and stifled innovation that will result from the massive politicization and bureaucratization of economic planning. Its a wonder how an economy that runs on 85% fossil fuel could cope with such massive overhaul.

While it is a positive to see these massive regulations thwarted, the real battle will come in the next four years when we know we will have a president who supports a Cap-and-Trade scheme. And with a Congress that will likely have even greater Democratic majorities there should be a real worry for those who actually value the idea of economic freedom and remotely limited government. The coming years will really test whether Congressional Republicans (as few as they are) and the American people are willing to go the distance to prevent what the minority leader, I think, correctly calls “the largest restructuring of the American economy since the New Deal.”

Popularity: 41% [?]

It’s hard not to admire Hillary Clinton, even in times like these. As a Barack Obama supporter, I have every reason to be angry at her refusal to concede the nomination. For one thing, she’s stopping the unification of the party. Barack Obama’s victory speech Tuesday night, at once a call for unification and a beautiful complement to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, provided the perfect exit for her. Saying that “our party and our country are better off because of her,” Obama couldn’t have made a better speech, except for one little omission. Were Hillary on the stage with him, endorsing the victory he had uncontestably and mathematically achieved, it would have been symbolic. Not quite a dream ticket, but still nothing short of magical.

It’s that kind of support that Hillary now needs to lend to the Obama campaign. The Republicans have already gotten their propaganda machine rolling, and it’s clear that they intend to do exactly what many Democrats feared - use Hillary Clinton’s attacks on Barack as their own. While she intended to make her case to voters as to why they should vote for her, she’s now convincing voters to vote against Obama. An appearance and a speech Tuesday night could have quelled those fears.

Her failures notwithstanding, there’s still time to assemble some sort of coalition to revive and unify the Democratic Party. In an election once thought to be impossible to lose, the Democratic Party now faces an uphill battle against John McCain. News has emerged today that Clinton does indeed hope to cave to the party’s wishes and concede the election at an event on Saturday. She and her campaign director, Howard Wolfson, have also turned down thoughts of a Clinton Vice Presidency. As Dick Morris says, a Clinton VP would be creating a White House menagé-a-trois. That’s not something we want a new President to have to put up with. Still, independent backers like Lanny Davis, the creator of Black Entertainment Television, persist in attempting to foist a “dream ticket” on to Obama.

Obama’s victory is a symbolic moment for African Americans, and for the country. The pity in all of this is that there are several key figures, and many Clinton voters, who refuse to recognize this. The disappearence of a woman from the race has now led dozens of Clinton supporters, including some commenters on the NYT’s The Caucus Blog, to note that they’ll be lending their support to John McCain.

Someone who supported Hillary Clinton has a bundle of reasons to support Obama. The major differences between them were not even policy based, but instead character based. Feminists who supported Clinton because she was a woman should recognize that Barack Obama is a man doing the same thing for African Americans. In the process, he’s not just breaking down discrimination against blacks; he’s breaking down discrimination as a whole. Clinton supporters must also realize that Clinton still did something incredible for females everywhere, helping them to realize that the sky truly is the limit. She didn’t lose the nomination because she was a woman; she lost it because Barack ran a better campaign.

——

In other news, The Caucus, quickly becoming one of my favorite go-to sources for political news and insight, has a new feature entitled “The Long Goodbye.” Informative and humorous, the series provides interesting insights into the race and Hillary’s potential strategy. I recommend you keep a close eye on it for more up-to-the-minute news on Hillary’s concession.

Popularity: 44% [?]

George Will’s latest column in Newsweek consisted of a series of questions he would like to see Senator Obama answer during this campaign. It is worth reading the whole thing, but here are a few of my favorites:

• ExxonMobil’s 2007 profit of $40.6 billion annoys you. Do you know that its profit, relative to its revenue, was smaller than Microsoft’s and many other corporations’? And that reducing ExxonMobil’s profits will injure people who participate in mutual funds, index funds and pension funds that own 52 percent of the company?

• You say John McCain is content to “watch [Americans'] home prices decline.” So, government should prop up housing prices generally? How? Why? Were prices ideal before the bubble popped? How does a senator knowideal prices? Have you explained to young couples straining to buy their first house that declining prices are a misfortune?

• Michelle, who was born in 1964, says that most Americans’ lives have “gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl.” Since 1960, real per capita income has increased 143 percent, life expectancy has increased by seven years, infant mortality has declined 74 percent, deaths from heart disease have been halved, childhood leukemia has stopped being a death sentence, depression has become a treatable disease, air and water pollution have been drastically reduced, the number of women earning a bachelor’s degree has more than doubled, the rate of homeownership has increased 10.2 percent, the size of the average American home has doubled, the percentage of homes with air conditioning has risen from 12 to 77, the portion of Americans who own shares of stock has quintupled … Has your wife perhaps missed some pertinent developments in this country that she calls “just downright mean”?

• You favor raising the capital gains tax rate to “20 percent or 25 percent.” You say this will not “distort” economic decision making. Your tax returns on your 2007 income of $4.2 million show that you and Michelle own few stocks. Are you sure you understand how investors make decisions?

• You denounce President Bush for arrogance toward other nations. Yet you vow to use a metaphorical “hammer” to force revisions of trade agreements unless certain weaker nations adjust their labor, environmental and other domestic policies to suit you. Can you define cognitive dissonance?

Most of these questions capture economic illiteracy that is commonplace in politics. It especially suggests the arrogance of a politician who think that he can make economic decisions better than individuals can in the free marketplace. The second question really gets to the heart of it–could you even imagine him trying to answer?

Popularity: 51% [?]

From the NYT, regarding his proposals on taxes and spending:

The problem is that the campaign has been far, far more detailed about its tax cuts, which would worsen the deficit, than its spending cuts, which would reduce it. Mr. McCain has proposed the elimination of the alternative minimum tax (at a cost of $60 billion a year), new child tax deductions ($65 billion), a corporate tax cut ($100 billion) and faster write-offs for corporate investments in new equipment ($50 billion to $75 billion).

On the spending side, the senator talks broadly about cracking down on pork barrel projects and holding agencies accountable for their budgets. These steps, Mr. Holtz-Eakin told me, could eventually bring $150 billion a year in savings. He added that given Mr. McCain’s history of fighting against wasteful spending, he deserved the benefit of the doubt.

It would be easier to give him that benefit, though, if he weren’t so vague. For decades presidential candidates have been promising to cut waste, fraud and abuse, and no one has yet made a noticeable dent in the federal budget.

As Mr. McCain’s plan currently stands, The Economist magazine concluded that it “will not come anywhere close to paying for the tax cuts.” Most telling, I spoke over the past week with several other economists who admire Mr. McCain and have advised him over the years. None would defend his current fiscal package (or be quoted).

Neadless to say, there is a hole at least $150 billion wide in McCain’s economic agenda. At least, however, McCain isn’t using the old “the tax cuts will pay for themself” defense–didn’t work so well in the past eight years.

For a myriad of reasons though, I have relative confidence that McCain will attempt to control spending proportionately to the Bush and would-be McCain tax cuts. However, it will take much more than crusading against pork barreling, which accounts for about $30 billion of the budget if my memory serves me.

What it will take is addressing much, much bigger programs including the great third rails–Social Security and Medicare, whose costs are rising at an alarming rate (already SS is the biggest government program in the history of mankind). On his website he at all specific about how he will address these issues or control spending other than eliminating earmarks and freezing non-military discretionary spending.

Much of McCain’s credibility centers around the idea that he speaks his mind and does what he believes regardless of the political convenience. In this case, he is not living up to that. We have seen McCain’s specifics on tax cuts, but that’s the easy stuff. What really matter’s is how–and if–he will cut spending, but it is also not a very popular topic.

If McCain really believes what he says about spending and the size of government, he will begin thinking hard about how he will squeeze the budget. After all, if you don’t propose any cuts in spending, you shouldn’t expect the deficit to narrow any time soon.

Popularity: 59% [?]