Good News in the Morning

I woke up this morning, and was delighted to hear Colin Powell endorsing my candidate for President. Powell is a respected and intelligent man; moreover, he was betrayed by the current administration, which gives him all the more cause to fight for Obama’s campaign. Let’s be frank about something, John McCain, while he is angered at the allegation, does not represent a shift in policy from the current administration—probably the worst President in our history.

I digress. I was delighted to see one more component fall to Obama’s favor, and glad to see it was someone whose support could silence one of the many attempted criticisms of Obama. Over the next few weeks, we’ll see McCain and his surrogates clutching at straws, attempting to find something that works against Obama. It will be obnoxious and annoying, but it’s the cost of doing business.

Out of respect for John McCain, after he hopefully loses, I hope he returns to the Senate, and will end his campaign. McCain’s campaign and his erratic behavior in it have changed my opinion of the man and his faculties. It’s too bad, but he doesn’t care what I think, so it simply is what it is.

Poll of Economists from the Economist

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=12342127

#1 Problem with McCain

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/apr2008/db20080429_854428.htm

I would love for my friends and family, who support John McCain’s candidacy, tell me I am wrong on this topic. This is the biggest issue I take with John McCain from a policy position. Tabling the lackluster decision for a VP candidate or his temper, on just a nuts and bolts policy, I cannot understand how anyone in the middle class with good conscience supports a candidate advocating for the following: do away with the employer-based tax exemption and a tax credit to individuals to help them buy their healthcare.

Right now, as per the link: “Kaiser Family Foundation survey released last year found the average annual premium of an employer-based insurance policy is $12,000, of which employees pay about one-third.”

Taking this a step further: “McCain's plan is meant to encourage individuals to purchase their insurance and free companies from the heavy cost of providing coverage. His theory is that employees would take their tax credit and flock to the open market, where they could shop around for the plan that best meets their needs. Insurance companies would have to become more competitive to win their business.”

Here is the last premise I know to be a component of his plan. To this, McCain is proposing the following: “Instead, he would give a $2,500 annual tax credit to individuals, and $5,000 to families, to purchase their own coverage.”

Let’s add this up in classic logic:
The annual premium of employer-based insurance policy is $12,000 (I know the “conservatives” will argue the free-market will change that, but no one can dispute that companies don’t already pursue competition for their best rates; moreover, they buy in bulk). Therefore $12,000 is hopeful, but let’s stick with that for argument’s sake - $12,000
McCain’s plan offers $2,500 to individuals, and $5000 to families for their own coverage purchased
As it stands, if I have a family, and I am fortunate enough to get health coverage for $12,000, I am left with a $7,000 bill.

Now, I know that people can speak to the “Open Market,” which will encourage price competition. All that is doing is relegating folks with less money to be forced to buy poorer “discount” health insurance plans. We all know that there will be different levels of insurers, many of whom will offer plans with overly skimpy coverage.

Senator McCain, look at what took place with the Sub-Prime mortgages! Take uneducated poorer folks, and throw competition at them! Of course, under the assumption that they’ll not be duped by discount insurance salespeople, this works fine. This is the most inept bit of healthcare planning I have ever seen. I’ve not heard nearly enough discussion around a plan this daft. Heaven-forbid horrible things happen to people, but when they do, under this plan, how easily they’ll be deficient of coverage or in Chapter 11. This healthcare plan is morally irresponsible and incredibly short-sighted. At best, it just leaves the average working middle class tax payer with a $7000 increase in bills—good idea!

“Putting My Campaign on Suspension”

I have to admit, I find it a little humorous that McCain is putting his campaign on suspension to go back to Washington and avoid this Friday’s debate. Why? Matt, this crisis is dangerous for our economy! We need all of Washington in session, able to vote on the bailout package!

Okay – well then, by all means, should McCain, a patriarch of the economy go back to Washington to attempt to look Presidential in the face of a crisis that was caused by everyone but those deregulating banks, real estate and Wall Street over the past eight years! What is the worst that could happen for McCain? He announces his intention to suspend his campaign, and go back to Washington in the face of his declining poll numbers, so he can look more Presidential! “I am a man of importance! My poll numbers have descended, which means I can’t get anything out of being on the stump! Rather than do that, I am going to symbolically stop campaigning in a losing campaign to look presidential by going back to Washington!

It’s a good thing McCain is putting all of this on hold! Maybe if things aren’t working out for him, he doesn’t get the October surprise Bush is striving for on his behalf, and the economy is still bad, he can put the election in November on hold as well! Yeah – it looks to me like capitalization on bad news for the Economy…

McCain McCain – Not so Much – An Open Letter to John McCain

Senator McCain,

Seeing you last night left me asking so many continued questions about you, which remain unanswered. Rather than dally about how Cindy and all of your children are doing, like usual, I’ll cut to the chase.

Senator McCain, we were brothers in arms back in 2000, when you were running against George W. Bush in the primaries. This was at the same time Rove and his henchmen and women were push-polling voters in South Carolina about you fathering a child of a different race. From there, you opposed Bush’s “irresponsible” tax cuts and ran the “Straight Talk Express.”

Here it is eight years later, and you are the nominee for your party! That is quite an impressive accomplishment, based on the difficulty of your primaries. You John, you were able to continue with your “Maverick” branding, which is a good thing for you. On the other hand, seeing your positions of late, I am wondering if you are drank the same Kool-Aid that led the Republican Party to damage its brand of conservativism.

You know that William Buckley, your beloved Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater are all turning in their graves right now, right? Being as irresponsible with the treasury of the United States, as he was with the checking account his parents gave him for Yale—cutting taxes while at war and never seeing a spending bill he didn’t like, we cannot help but see the policies of this current administration as abhorrent.

Of course, flipping that on its head, back when you opposed him, you had something going for you, which was nice. Now, on the other hand, here we are eight years later, with an economy in shambles—that’s never been your strong suit, and you are advocating more of the same?! Senator McCain, you have to understand that continuing down this road of spend and spend and spend, without paying for it, like Daddy’s credit card in New Haven, doesn’t make any sense.

Last night during your speech, I didn’t hear a damn bit of difference. We have arguably the worst president in our history, leaving us in a worse global position than when he started, and during your speech last night, I didn’t even hear you state how you were going to change any of it. Your service as a naval officer was most honorable, as were your years in the Senate. On the other hand, you’re a little too old, as your freshness seems to have left you. Without hearing more how you’ll do something different than follow the horrible plan in which we’re currently wallowing, you’re leaving me no choice but to vote for the other guy. It was funny how you alluded to him and your VP pick—she’s prettier than Romney, called on him directly a few nights ago, but in both cases, it just looked cynical.

Sincerely,

Matt

“Attacking” Sarah Palin’s Daughter

I received a text today from a dear friend, one supporting McCain. This friend is a great person, and a very astute individual. As we support opposite sides of this race, we’ve been known to taunt one another via both email and text messages. Today, I received a text from him, giving me grief for stooping low to “attack” Palin’s teenage daughter.

Not knowing whether the text was predicated off of what I shot to him yesterday via text or yesterday’s blog, I wanted to clarify something. In the event I didn’t state this clearly in my blog yesterday, my issue is not with an impregnated teen, or giving her grief. It’s that she comes from a family with a mother espousing a reduction in sex education in favor of abstinence education.

Governor Palin is an advocate of abstinence education, which is something I find too naïve and unrealistic to supplant informative sex education. It’s unrealistic and naïve, and in Palin’s advocacy of it; seemingly, she must have diluted herself into believing that her kids weren’t engaged in sexual activity. That’s just it, isn’t it?

The religious-right have always diluted their policy positions predicated on the instruction of values, which will keep teens from having sex or getting into drugs. Of course, for adults these same values mean full and gainful employment, passing these things on to children, and abstinence from substance abuse and anti-social behavior. Moreover, these values are also predicated on a divorce-free family, a stay-at-home mother and an SUV in the garage. Okay, perhaps the SUV is taking it a bit far, but is it?

The religious right’s promulgating this idea of their “values” saving civilization from itself are all well and good, so long as they do not preach hate or discrimination against those who perhaps have “alternative” lifestyles. Of course, we know better than this, right?

I just cannot yet square how and why we should take these folks seriously. Their policies do not work for them, in their own families, nor have they proven them elsewhere. For this daughter of Sarah Palin’s, a teen, she has the benefit of a mother who is the governor of her state. What about all of the underprivileged teenage women without good sex education or family support? What about these young women? They are told by the Right to have their children, and put them up for adoption, if they cannot afford to tend to them.
Of course, in the meantime, they might not have the health insurance to provide them healthy and good obstetrics. Beyond that, if they choose to keep their child, they would then need to support them, but receive grief from our society for needing assistance (not from the government, per se, but from those that lambaste “welfare moms). Lastly, when the kid is being brought up underprivileged, she or he is more prone to anti-social behavior, and on and on.

The point is simple, because not every teen mother has the benefit of having a family with her parents together, and a boyfriend marrying her, they should not all be subjected to education that clearly does not equip them with the tools to avoid unwanted pregnancy. So I am clear, it’s not to the detriment of this young woman being pregnant. It’s to the stupid naivety of her mother and her mother’s party. To make a simple cliché, they should practice what they preach, and for her daughter, while she might not agree with her mother, clearly she wasn’t in a household where she felt comfortable asking for a prescription for birth control—same story. Maybe Sarah Palin can learn from her daughter, and provide her other children with birth control, rather than leaving them without, rushing into shotgun weddings (as Palin is a big NRA member, maybe it’s a 7mm wedding…)

Keeping Families "Off Limits"

I respect Obama for stating that the campaigns should keep one another’s families off limits—they should. I note that, having watched Karl Rove state on Fox that Obama was going after Cindy McCain, when he made fun of McCain not knowing how many homes they owned. Hey Karl, Cindy’s name wasn’t mentioned once, and to infer from Obama, acknowledging McCain not knowing how many homes he owned, an attack on Cindy, that’s what we call a non sequitur.

Okay, sorry for going a bit tangential. Here’s the gist of where I am going. Governor Palin, being an advocate of Religious-Right "birth control through abstinence," watches her argument crumble with a child having a child while still in high school out of wedlock. Right now, Palin cannot stand on a stage, in an auditorium, in Congress, or in a high school gymnasium speaking about waiting until marriage or until one has graduated from high school.

Governor Palin as VP and McCain as a President would be an administration against sex education, speaking in favor of abstinence education. As a student, in both Jr High and High School, I never sat through a safe sex discussion without someone mentioning abstinence being the only 100% effective prevention of pregnancy and STD’s. With that, a proper education on various means of birth and disease control, following a statement on abstinence, should be the standard with which sex education is provided. To preach abstinence education supplanting comprehensive sex education, for Governor Palin, would now be hypocritical.

That’s the point – while I think we should keep the families off limits, Bristol Palin is proof that her mother’s platform is ineffective and unrealistic. In my opinion, while Obama and Biden should take the high ground, the public should be mindful of what that approach to birth control provides, in a wealthy and successful family. Let us not forget that Bristol Palin is by no means an underprivileged young woman in a rural setting or the inner-city, with less of a chance to successfully raise her child. In my humble opinion, this is quite relevant, and calls into question the GOP’s platform on health education and birth control.

Confusion: Is It That McCain Is Too Old?

Waking up this morning, with Morning Joe on the TV, as I prepared my oatmeal, I heard nothing but conjecture about Obama’s campaign, and the angle they are taking with McCain. A few days ago, on the Today Show, to Matt Lauer, McCain said,

“not too important” when American forces could come home from Iraq and that, “What’s important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea;
Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That’s all fine.”

To McCain’s credit, he is analyzing Iraq with a naïve sense of pragmatism, which would be fine were it somewhere in Africa or Asia, but history has shown the contrary; hence, my use of “naïve.”

Due to McCain’s age, I don’t suspect many in the press will use the adjective “naïve” in referring to his comments on Iraq, not in analysis. Rather, we have Obama’s campaign surrogates or John Kerry using the word “confused.” Quite simply, that word is somewhat fitting, in the same way one calls someone’s child “confused,” when they are espousing naïve claims.

All of this is perfectly understandable. Right now, for Obama’s campaign to use the word “naïve” would open the door to Obama’s relatively short tenure in national politics. Rather than using “naïve” or “confused,” in my humble opinion, they should switch to “strategically flawed,” for the same line of attack. By all means, they are working to do that, but McCain’s comments are so absurd, it’s hard not to speak to quick pejoratives, as that is what comments like this deserver.

I look most forward to a live debate on the subject. I would love to hear Obama utter the words, “Senator McCain, you are wrong. Let’s step back and game this. Right now, we have 100,000+ troops in this country, one we invaded on a cause, which was later demonstrated to be false. There is a region that has theological and culture division from us, whose activists and terrorists are using the above premise, the invasion, to justify terrorism and anti-Americanism. In the meantime, we have not caught or killed Bin Laden. What strategic benefits to maintaining an occupation in Iraq do we have?”

The quick and dirty of it is that while McCain’s age is something to avoid outwardly discussing, his ideas and beliefs in foreign policy are antiquated. McCain is still thinking in terms of “us versus them,” which would be fine; however, “them” is something much more amorphous than it was when it was the USSR. In short, we are fighting a culture, one which uses our “fight” as justification for further violence. While I am not saying we stop being violent towards those trying to kill us, I am suggesting, we work differently than treating our current enemies as Nation-States. This isn’t the Cold War, nor do we have a draft.

Politics ’08, and the Good Cop – Bad Cop

It’s too challenging to hear further banter on “Bill and Hill” from the media. Everyone alludes to it, but no one will summarize it for what it is, a consistent strategic ploy by the Clinton’s.

This has happened too many times for Clinton’s campaign to pretend that it’s not a strategy. For example, there was the campaign manager in New Hampshire, whom noted Obama’s admission of drug experimentation as a kid, later “fired.” Then, there was the BET mogul again noting something, only to later apologize. Furthermore, there was Clinton’s Jesse Jackson reference following South Carolina.

Of course, Clinton’s campaign officially decries such acts or statements, but one can’t help except to think that this is not a good cop – bad cop strategy with the voters. Clinton’s supporters, including former President Clinton, are sent out to say things to keep Obama on the defensive. It’s down and dirty politics written about by Machiavelli, practiced by Morris and Rove.

Hearing NOW come to the offensive towards Ted Kennedy for endorsing Obama only serves to further make Hillary less attractive as a candidate to the majority of Americans. I feel objective in saying that, as I am for good components of gender equality; however, I feel their tactics are too strong and extreme. In short, it has nothing to do with Hillary being a woman; it’s that, as a person, she is disdainful. “Here comes the fun part,” or whatever it was she said concerning going on the offensive.

At the end of the day, or at the end of this next week, we’ll have a pretty good idea how things will shape up come this August. Edwards dropping out today, along with Giuliani, with McCain’s win in Florida and Huckabee’s support, this race is shaping up to be a McCain vs. the Democrat. As I have said before, Clinton is too polarizing and McCain is to moderate for the majority of Americans to not keep the GOP in the White House in that race. If the Democrats want to win against McCain, they need to insert Obama. I said this a few weeks ago. I will say it again and again, ultimately, if it goes the other way, it likely to go badly.

I don't dislike McCain, but for fear of the last eight years of Bush, Cheney, Lott, DeLay, Abramoff, and dozens of others that don't practice what they preach, we need to give them Dems a shot again.

Case in Point, if you haven't been to this website yet, please look. They do too good a job for me to try to reproduce, but it's to hard not to cite and cite their work.

http://www.publicintegrity.org