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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: 17% [?]

John McCain has all the national security credentials he needs. He was one of the few to stand up to the failed Iraq policy and to question the Bush administration; he can be partially credited with the succesful change in policy we see today. While McCain also has a good reputation on spending, his economic qualifications (not that Obama’s or Hillary’s are noteworthy) are lacking.
Mitt Romney, a man who I see as an ideal candidate for his Vice Presidential pick (I of course did support his bid for president), has the economic qualifications that McCain needs on the ticket with him. Of course,
McCain is already known to the American people as someone who is a hero, tough on spending, and right on Iraq. Romney over the course of the last 8 months is someone who has built tremendous name recognition and many are now aware of his accomplishments in business, as the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic chairman, and as Governor of the State of Massachusetts. Mitt Romney should be John McCain’s running mate in his November presidential bid.

There are several qualifications that McCain’s running mate will need to satisfy:

1. Executive
2. True Conservative
3. Bring in additional states
4. Have a strong base of support
5. Be media tested

1. McCain needs to pick an executive for his running mate. I would be hard pressed to find a person more experienced (perhaps General David Patreaus in Iraq, but it is rumored he is planning for a run after 2012) than Governor Romney. Romney was of course the lead consultant for Bain Capital, then the manager of their investment fund, the chairman of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics (where he turned a $500+ deficit into a $300 million surplus), and Governor of Massachusetts. As Jim Cramer said, “Romney is the best business man in North America.” That is quite a statement coming from Cramer and that kind of language speaks volumes about his expertise in dealing with the economy. No one could argue with what a job he did in Utah’s Olympics where he is still to this day hailed as a hero (to understand why, research the financial disasters that typically follow Olympics such as in Atlanta, Athens, etc…). An associate I know who is an active member of the US Olympic Committee, former Gold Medal champion, and Hillary Clinton supporter even admitted to me that Governor Romney was one of the most professional individuals she ever worked with. Coming from someone across the aisle, that is something that should also speak volumes about his leadership ability. While his time in Massachusetts was short, he did manage to energize the economy, pass education reform, balance the budget, and is the only Governor in the Union to have addressed healthcare. His healthcare plan is far from perfect, but two things should be noted. A-he was a Republican elected in Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states in the country. B-He was successful in legislating in the state. This is significant because one of the primary jobs of the VP is to act in the Senate as a representative for the administration in power (and of course break tied votes). Romney has proven that he is capable of running the country in the event that something happens to McCain, and also that he can perform all of the tasks required of a Vice President with tremendous skill.

2. John McCain needs to pick a true conservative to be his Vice Presidential candidate. There are some who claim that Romney was a flip-flopper, or that he lacked “social conservative” credentials, but in the last days of the campaign it became apparent that he was whole heartedly accepted by the conservative movement in the party. He is the only prominent Republican who can ensure that the powerful “wall street conservatives” do not stray to the left and fundraise for either Obama or Hillary. Romney has been a strong fiscal conservative all his career and despite what he said in his 1992 senatorial bid against Ted Kennedy (the strongest opponent Kennedy has yet faced), Romney did com down on the “right” side of life while he was Governor of Massachusetts. Aside from Newt Gingrich , I cannot think of a more prominent conservative; but again like many strong conservatives, Gingrich lacks the vital executive experience that Romney carriers. McCain and his Vice Presidential Search Committee will be hard pressed to find any prominent conservative as qualified as Mitt Romney.

3. Mitt Romney won by overwhelming margins in Wyoming, Utah, and many other strongly conservative states during the primary season. I have been to three western states since Christmas (Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho) and I noticed that almost every Republican I encountered in all three states were Romney supporters. Additionally, Mitt Romney worked very hard to strengthen his social conservative message in evangelical states during the primary season and it is doubtful that he will have much more convincing to do. He and Mike Huckabee were the two candidates fighting over the socially conservative voters, but Huckabee lacks the important ability to also court true fiscal conservatives at the same time. It should be important to note that Romney had the best record in attracting a broad range of self identified conservatives in the primary season, Romney is one of the only men who has the ability to repair the coalition that Ronald Reagan built. Governor Romney also was of course the Governor of Massachusetts, one of the most liberal states in the country. That in itself is a feat that the McCain campaign should examine closely, I doubt that there are too many other individuals who could perform as well in both conservative states and liberal ones as Mitt Romney. His 1992 senatorial bid against Ted Kennedy was also one of the most difficult fights Kennedy has ever faced in his long standing Senatorial career. While McCain can attract many independents in the next election, he will need someone like Romney to garner the support of the parties true conservatives. Unless Bloomberg had entered this race, there is not another executive in the country aside from Mitt Romney with the ability to get overwhelming support of the business vote. Romney can attract the conservative votes that McCain needs in November and for that reason alone he should be on McCain’s short list.

4. Mitt Romney already has a strong base of support. At the end of his presidential bid, Romney was hailed as a true conservative at CPAC2008 and there were literally tears in the room when he announced with withdrawal from the race. Romney did manage to correct his message at the end of the campaign to that of the “economic leader” and “business expert”, he was the one who could “bring change to Washington.” It is clear that Romney has the support of many conservatives in the party who are still hesitant of McCain. If McCain wants to sure up these votes, he should turn to Romney. Romney also has one of the best campaign teams ever assembled. It is no secret that he is most likely planning a ‘12 run (a source close to Romney has confirmed that to me in an email), and that is ready to go on a moments notice because of his continued political aspirations. Romney’s campaign team would be a tremendous asset to McCain (someone who is a notoriously bad campaigner). The key to Romney’s campaign team is also his finance staff led by Spencer Zwick , one of the most talented fundraisers in the GOP. Of course, the amount of money Romney raised pales in comparison to that of the Democratic candidates, but even without his own personal contributions his financing ability vastly outstripped all of his Republican rivals. The Bush administration is also pushing for an M&M ticket. While this fact may deter some who fear connections with Bush as a possible hinderance in the next election, it is important to remember that Karl Rove, perhaps the greatest campaign strategist alive is not only a strong proponent of the ticket, but is also a McCain advisor. If the ticket did not provide the best possible means for a Republican victory, I doubt Rove would be calling for it.

5. Like John McCain, Mitt Romney is media tested. He faced a brutal race with demeaning attack ads when he ran against Ted Kennedy’s political machine in 1992. He had to fight an uphill battle for his gubernatorial race in Massachusetts, and he won. He also faced much scrutiny against John McCain and the other Republican rivals during the primary season. Many claimed he was the best debater of the GOP nominees and with the exception of Barrack Obama, he certainly had the best TV presence of anyone on either side of the race. While there may be many other conservatives in the race who have good records, none of them have the spotless personal record that Romney has and very few people in the country have the media exposure that he possesses. Romney is cool in front of the camera, that is another trait the McCain campaign should look upon very favorably.

Mitt Romney satisfies all of the qualifications to be President of the United States, let alone a running mate. If it were not the personal dislike between McCain and Governor Romney, the ticket would be obvious and it would already be solidified. Yet, these are two adults who have spent the last twenty fives years of their lives negotiating (legislating for McCain, business for Romney) and who both know how to put past differences behind them. After spending years in the Hanoi Hilton, I believe that Senator McCain can forgive Romney for the policy attack ads he ran against him in the primary states. Whatever personal reasons McCain has for disliking Mitt Romney he needs to overcome them. For the future of the free world, these two men should be able to overcome their personal squabbles, if not-perhaps neither are fit to sit in the oval office.

Popularity: 39% [?]

With projected victory in OH, TX, RI, and VT tonight John McCain is expected to become the official nominee by surpassing 1,191 delegates necessary to secure the nomination.

As soon as tomorrow, the AZ Senator is expected to be endorsed in person by Huckabee, President Bush, and the Republican National Committee. The White House has indicated that the President would also like to campaign on the trail with McCain. This raises an interesting question: how desirable the active support of Bush is to McCain considering his approval stands at little more than 30%?

To be sure the President could help with massive fundraising–which has been a weekness for McCain and other Republicans–and also help with the conservative base–which is also a weakness for McCain. That being said, so much Bush could only help so much for the moderate conservative who will need to appeal to independents in 2008 in the face of general Republican unpopularity. Time will tell how the campaign strikes the delacate balance.

Popularity: 28% [?]

At 7 pm EST, the time polls closed in Vermont, sources predict Obama to win the state of Vermont. It comes as no surprise considering Vermont is one of the most liberal states in the union. Contrary to most states, the Iraq war was tied for the most important issue with the Economy, and Obama won by a lot among voters who identified with the Iraq issue (exit polls). While this victory is no surprise, it is interesting to note that Obama could net more delegates from Vermont (winning +5, if he ends up with 65% of the vote) than Clinton could if she won a narrow victory in Ohio.

Polls just closed in Ohio, where McCain was declared the victor while its too close to call on the other end. Polls had Hillary up by about 7 pts in the poll averages, in large part due to the fact that it is a blue collar state with large economic concerns, although the latest Zogby poll says the race is tied.

Texas polls close at 9 pm EST, and polls indicate the Dem race is razor close there. While Obama pulled ahead in the averages in the past two weeks, Clinton seems to have wrestle that slim lead back from him. She appears to be up by about 2 percentage pts. Because of the mix of caucuses and primary in Texas, Obama is expected to win the Texas delegate count, but the popular vote is up for grabs and has a particular momentum value for the campaigns.

Rhode Island has 35 delegates, the majority of whom are anticipated to go to Sen. Clinton.

Meanwhile, on the GOP side, John McCain has already wrapped up VT and OH. The big test for the GOP tonight is whether McCain will win enough votes to wrap up the official nomination tonight.

NSP will have coverage throughout the night, so stay tuned.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Bill Buckley, the conservative writer, commentator, and founder of National Review, died yesterday at the age of 82 in the town neighboring my own. I have subsequently spent time reading more on the man and watching more of him. His prominence is owed to his unfettered defense of conservatism throughout the post-WWII era when the Left really dominated the zeitgeist and moderates, in the mold of Nelson Rockefeller, had a hold of the Republican Party. Today, American politics is centered noticeably further to the right in part because of Buckley’s promotion of figures from Barry Goldwater to Ronald Regan. And the fact that it is now hard to imagine the Nixons and Rockefellers of the world leading the GOP is a tribute to Buckley’s way with words.

In the second-ever issue of his brain-child, the National Review, he declared the magazines mission statement, which included its famous vow to “stand athwart history yelling, stop.” While this represents my own fundamental discontent with the philosophy of conservatism–for no philosophy can have merit by virtue of being the status quo–it appeals to both my romantic sense, by unequivocally promising to fight for a successful tradition, and my rational one, by standing for limited government and individualism at a time when collectivism was rising to the top of the intellectual order.

The doctrines of conservatism, which today is often cast as a three-legged stool consisting of aggressive national defense, traditional social values, and economic libertarianism, was different in many ways from what it was in 1955. Perhaps the biggest change from early Cold War conservatism, was the relative rise of the third prong, economic libertarianism, which Buckley was particularly known for. As a matter of fact, he claimed that he floated between the self-label of conservative and libertarian for some time during the latter part of his career. Additionally, he came out against the war on drugs later in life, but at the same time his reasoning was rooted in the impracticality of the fight rather than individual rights–hardly the essence of a true libertarian.

Politics aside, what remembrances seem to have concentrated on are the style of the man himself and his unmatched way with words. Watching him and hearing him and reading him, I gained a sense of an aura of refined elitism–and I mean that in only the best way–that arose from his able mind and own rebelilon against the liberal intelligentsia. His quick wit and sesquipedalian vocabulary were second to none and made his writing unmistakable.

Of all the obituaries I read today, here are the links to the five best:

from The New York Times

from Ann Coulter

from The Nation

and from the the two most Buckley-esque journalists left: Peggy Noonan and George Will

While the sources of these articles generally mix as well as water and vinegar, all of their memorials include great recollections of the man and are well done. The irony of the timing of Buckley’s death is that it coincided with the nomination of a Republican presidential candidate who is out of favor with self-proclaimed conservatives and who appeals to the center of politics, while the Democrats may be running on their most liberal platform in decades this year. The question remains: did Buckley die alongside the modern conservative movement for which he served as a fountainhead? I think that is probably overly-simplistic, but the question has been asked and is well worth asking. I anticipate that the American conservatism is still politically strong despite an unpopular president and will remain more like the party of Ronald Reagan than that of Gerald Ford in the years to come.

Popularity: 37% [?]

Since the negative article was published on the front page of the Wednesday Times, the backlash has been overwhelming against the story. An article from today’s Daily News covered not only the backlash but also the response of the Time’s executive editor.  It sounds a lot like he is blaming readers too:

The embattled executive editor of the New York Times defended its John McCain story Friday with a novel explanation for the flood of critical e-mails the newspaper received: slow-witted readers.

“Personally, I was surprised by the volume of the reaction,” Bill Keller wrote in a Times Web site Q&A forum. Readers posted 2,000 comments and sent in 3,700 questions.

“I was surprised by how lopsided the opinion was against our decision, with readers who described themselves as independents and Democrats joining Republicans in defending Mr. McCain from what they saw as a cheap shot,” Keller added.

The problem, Keller went on, is that readers didn’t get it. “Frankly, I was a little surprised by how few readers saw what was, to us, the larger point of the story.”

That point, he said, was that McCain, “this man who prizes his honor above all things and who appreciates the importance of appearances, also has a history of being sometimes careless about the appearance of impropriety, about his reputation.”

Not only is the paper’s top editor arrogant in his defense, he does not actually address the substantive grievances raised about the story first among those being why the article featured a completely unsubstantiated implication of sexual impropriety with a lobbyist.

The rest of the story did little more than summarize past questions about potential conflicts of interest between McCain and certain lobbied interests on no more than a few occasions. It did not break any story younger than the eight-year-old story of the female lobbyist and went all the way back to the Keating Five controversy back in the late ’80s.

The common denominator among the few of these stories is that not one iota of malfeasance has ever been brought to light in the decades they have been known to the public. The Times’ front page article did not change that–at all. And its nothing more than arrogance and wishful thinking on the part of Keller and the Grey Lady to suppose that fault over the matter lies, not with the editorializing of news, but with the readers.

At the end of the day, however, this story may be a blessing in disguise for McCain who has trouble exciting conservative Republicans. But if the “liberal media” has it out for the presumptive nominee then he must not be so bad (the enemy of my enemy is my friend). For instance, conservative talk show hosts, who have spent the past month or so discrediting McCain’s ideological credentials, have rallied around him on this issue as have donors. Essentially, the Times story gave conservatives something to get excited about. And whereas funding for Republicans had been hard to come by of late, this controversy has been the fountainhead of new donations:

 Team McCain has parlayed The New York Times anonymous-source hit on the GOP front-runner into a cash bonanza.

A campaign fund-raising letter ripping the “particularly disgusting” Times story and pleading with contributors to fight back “was the most successful to date,” a top McCain aide said Friday.

The aide gave no numbers, but the McCain campaign reported raising $11.7 million last month - topping the $6.8 million he collected in the previous three months combined.

The Republican National Committee sought to piggyback on McCain’s success with a similar fund-raising letter of “outrage” at The Times. That prompted a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser defending The Times.

Popularity: 27% [?]

We had mentioned last week that we attended rallies for presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain. Video footage and our impressions will be along shortly, but we’ve just uploaded a batch of photos from the events. They’re embedded below.

Popularity: 25% [?]

By 10 pm EST most news outlets called DC, Maryland, and Virginia for John McCain on the Republican side, and Barack Obama on the Democratic one. Obama won by greater margins in all three with at least 60% of the vote. McCain won by decisive margins except in Virginia which, at an 8% margin, was at least contested.

As McCain continues his march to the nomination, Obama appears to be pulling out in front of Clinton on the other side of the process. He has now won eight contests in a row (WA, NE, LA, ME, DC, ME, VA, and the Virgin Islands) and has taken the lead in total delegates (exact numbers often vary; here are the numbers from CNN and the AP; on the right side of your screen you can see NBC’s estimates).

Here are CNN exit polls (MSNBC has not published theirs for some reason) which show Obama eating into Clinton stalwarts (i.e. in Virginia he won 45% of white women and actually won hispanic voters with 54% of their vote). This is big news going into the big Texas primary on March 4th in which 50% of Dem voters could be hispanic. I do not think that Obama could possibly win such a large block of Hispanic voters (VA’s was only 5% of the electorate) as the pattern so far is that heavier hispanic communities (such as in California and New Mexico) are much more apt to vote big for Clinton.

And so the campaign goes on with McCain poised to become the GOP nominee and needing less than 400 more delegates to clinch, while Clinton and Obama are neck and neck. Here’s what’s ahead in terms of significant delegate distribution and primaries for the tightly contested Dem nomination:

February 19: Wisconsin - 70 Delegates

March 4: Texas - 193 Delegates

Ohio - 141 Delegates

April 22: Pennsylvania - 158 Delegates

May 6: North Carolina - 115 Delegates

Indiana - 72 Delegates

May 20: Oregon - 52 Delegates

Kentucky - 51 Delegates

June 7: Puerto Rico - 55 Delegates

August 25-28: Democratic National Convention - 796 Superdelegates (currently 398 have tentatively endorsed: 242 for Clinton and 156 for Obama)

Wisconsin is likely to land in the Obama column; then come the big states. Key traits however give Clinton an initial advantage: Texas Dems are about half hispanic; Ohio and Pennsylvania both have a large amount of lower/middle class blue collar whites; on top of that, the governors of both PA and OH have endorsed Clinton. Nevertheless, Obama’s “big mo’” could be enough to nullify those factors, at least in OH and PA.

A bit further down the road, North Carolina would probably go to Obama because of the large southern black vote. Indiana has a lot of factors at play (For Hillary: its rural, and she has the endorsement of popular Sen. and ex-Gov. Evan Bayh; For Barack: its right next to his home state) so I’ll call it a tossup for now. Oregon is liberal and in the northwest so its advantage Obama. And I would gander that Kentucky and PR are advantage Hillary because of rural whites and hispanics, respectively.

Most importantly though are the Superdelegates (which Frank explains well here; also here is a link to all of the 796 Dem Superdelegates) who make up 20% of all Dem delegates. Only half so far have announced their intentions (which are subject to change), a disproportionate amount of which are higher ranking Dem Officials (Governors and Senators, for instance). There are two things important to remember about what influences unpledged Superdelegates in their decisions: (1) they are party institutionalists, which gives Clinton an obvious boost and (2) they are politicians, aka opportunists, who will wait to see which way the wind blows before they commit.

Of course those are just rough handicaps and do not take into account externalities like future momentum and events yet to be seen. Currently, Obama is the one with all the momentum in the world and is, by most measures, more likely to win the nomination. Nevertheless, unless one of the two sweeps the next three or four big states, the process could very well go all the way to the convention, where the New School will have the privilege of bringing you coverage of the first undecided national convention since 1952.

Popularity: 23% [?]

With Mitt Romney now out of the way and the path to the Republican nomination clear, Arizona Senator John McCain has the ability to unite the Republican Party and lead them forward into the upcoming election.  Mark Halperin, of Time Magazine’s The Page blog, has a great list of things McCain can do now that he’s the only viable candidate for the Republicans.  The Democrats may suffer from infighting for the next couple of months, but McCain finally has the capability to start his campaign for the presidency.  Huckabee is all but an afterthought at this point, even as endorsements from conservatives like James Dobson of Focus on the Family pour in.  McCain may have some support stolen by Barack Obama, who seems to be attracting many Republicans to his potential ticket as well.  The list is well worth reading, and should make some Democrats a bit frightened about the potential of two candidates fighting until the Democratic Convention.  Several of the list’s highlights are published below:

1. Raise and save money for the spring, summer, and general election.

2. Formulate and implement a general election and Electoral College strategy.

12. Travel overseas to heighten his foreign policy credentials.

13. Look and act presidential.

14. Charm independents without offending his base…

Popularity: 27% [?]

Just a couple of hours ago, sources (here and here) began to report that Mitt Romney will withdraw from the Republican presidential race after his poor showing on Super Tuesday. The story was supposedly confirmed by GOP officials, including two of Romney’s advisors.

He is expected to make the announcement at the big Conservative Political Action Conference in D.C. this afternoon. Assuming it is true, the move would leave just three candidates in the race: John McCain way out in front, Huckabee, and Ron Paul pulling up the rear. His withdrawal makes apparent that he feels McCain’s lead is too substantial to overcome at this point, and that he believes he will become the GOP nominee.

Gov. Romney had emerged as the conservative alternative to the moderately-perceived McCain, and was the popular candidate among prominent conservative sources like in talk radio (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et al) and National Review magazine.

More to come.

UPDATE: Video of Romney speaking at CPAC can be seen here, LIVE.

UPDATE 2: Romney officially announced that he will drop out of the race in his CPAC speech. He cited that despite enormous differences with McCain, he agrees that Iraq is the transformative issue facing America and that if he continued fighting McCain it would only disable him in a general election and make the election of a Democrat more likely.

As he announced his withdrawal, loud jeers could be heard in the crowd deriding the decision to drop and John McCain who has come under much fire from conservatives.

McCain is to speak at 3 pm EST.

Popularity: 26% [?]