U.S. Campaign Reader

Here are a few articles from both the US and international media about the US Presidential race. Highlights of each article provided with a link to the full article.

It’s Still the Economy, Stupid! Obama Goes on the Attack
By Michael Tomasky in the UK Guardian.

Simply because he’s a member of George Bush’s political party, McCain has the bigger challenge over the next few days. With 81% of Americans believing the country is “seriously” on the wrong track, McCain has to explain why he’ll be so different even though he’s voted with Bush 90% of the time.

Obama has always had more trouble with packaging. He has, if anything, too many policy proposals. He finds it hard to pare them down to three or four compelling points and present them in crisp, short sentences. In US presidential politics, the packaging is more important than the thinking. And next Friday brings the first of the three important presidential debates.

No doubt, yesterday’s poll in Michigan has 73% of voters in Michigan saying the country was headed in the wrong direction and 42% tied McCain to Bush. For McCain, this may be too much to overcome.

Wall Street Woes Benefit Obama Candidacy
By Jonathan Martin & Glenn Thrush writing for Politico.

Wall Street’s breakdown and bailout are likely to improve Barack Obama’s odds of reaching the White House — a point not lost on John McCain, whose stumbles this week seemed to lend credence to the view that economics is not his strong suit.

He said the fundamentals of the economy were “strong,” then he said the economy was “in crisis.”

In politics, perception does not always match the reality. The reality is that Senator Obama is tied intimately with the former leadership Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and has received more funds from these now seized corporations than any other Senator except for Senator Dodd. The reality is that Senator McCain called for reform at these two institutions in 2006. The perception, however, is that this mess is all Bush’s fault and by extension McCain’s.

Betting on John McCain
Economist Steve Landsburg in The Atlantic explains why he thinks McCain’s economic policies make more sense.

Free trade and immigration are my top issues, and McCain wins on both.

These are my top issues for several reasons. First, trade is the engine of prosperity not just for the United States but also for the poorest of the world’s poor. Nothing matters more than that. Second, the instinct to care about the national origin of your trading partner (or employer, or employee, or landlord, or tenant) is an ugly one, and the instinct to care about the national origin of other people’s trading partners—and on that basis to interfere forcibly with other people’s voluntary transactions—is even uglier.

Finally, protectionism, like creationism, requires an extraordinary level of willful ignorance. The consensus for free trade among economists is approximately as solid as the consensus for evolution among biologists, and it is a consensus supported by a solid body of both theory and observation. To ignore that consensus betrays a degree of anti-intellectualism that frightens me.

Free trade and energy are two of mine. McCain scores better on these. On free trade, it’s not even a contest. Obama has not a leg to stand on after his attacks on NAFTA and the Colombian FTA. On energy, it’s impossible to overlook the fact that Obama voted for the Bush Cheney Energy Policies. Contrast that vote with McCain who did not. McCain also undestands that energy independence is a national security issue.

Obama Focuses on Economic Crisis during Florida Campaign Swing
By Beth Reinhard in the Miami Herald.

Obama, who arrived in hard-hit Florida three days after McCain left the state, ridiculed his rival for casting blame after serving for decades longer in Washington.

”I think it’s clear Sen. McCain is a little panicked right now,” Obama said to the delight of the raucous crowd of about 8,000 people at the University of Miami’s BankUnited Center in Coral Gables.

He added: “This isn’t a time for fear or panic. It’s a time for resolve, and it’s a time for leadership.”

For Obama, Little Progress with Evangelicals
By Jacqueline L. Salmon and Michelle Boorstein in the Washington Post.

White evangelical Protestants favored McCain over Obama 57 to 20 percent, with 22 percent undecided. At the same point in the 2004 campaign, white evangelicals preferred Bush over Kerry 60 to 20, with 20 percent undecided.

Democratic faith advisors have never predicted they would win white evangelicals, but feel they can capture the presidency by attracting a few percentage points within this group, as well as among Catholic voters who went for Bush in 2000 and 2004. At the national and state level, Democrats have begun building a concerted faith outreach infrastructure and the Obama campaign has a team of faith advisers and talks often about his Christian identity.

One look at the Reverend Jeremiah Wright or Father Michael Pfleger, I think is enough to dispel any Christian from voting for Obama.

In Rust Belt, Biden Rips McCain, But Is Anyone Listening?
By Mark Leibovich in the Houston Chronicle.

“If I sound angry, it’s because I am,” Biden told a few hundred people gathered at a high school football field. Yes, he sounds angry, yelling through his stump speeches, flailing his arms and telling a (supportive) member of the audience to “shush up, will you?” (”I’m kidding,” he added, but didn’t sound like it.)

But the reality for Biden is that while running mates play second fiddle by definition, the Palin phenomenon has made him something of a fourth or fifth fiddle. It is not like last month, when the news media swarmed Biden’s Delaware home and delegates swooned over him at the Democratic Convention. He is trailed by just a few national reporters and struggling to break through in a race marked by historic firsts, political celebrities and charismatic newcomers — none of them named Joe Biden.

On the bright side, ol’ smokin’ Joe did make news by calling taxes “patriotic.”

Rupert Murdoch: Obama’s Economic Policies are ‘Naive’
No Author noted in The Live Feed. The link includes a video.

“I am very worried,” Murdoch said during an interview Friday with Fox Business Network. “I like Sen. Obama very much. I have met him. He is a very intelligent man. But his policy of anti-globalization, protectionism, is going to be — and card checks — are going to do two or three things. It’s going to give us a lot of inflation. They’re going to ruin our relationships with the rest of the world. And they are going to slow down the rest of the world, too. And they’re going to make people frightened to add to employment. You are going to find companies leaving this country if it’s — if you put a protectionist wall around it. You’re going to get — his policy is really very, very naive, old-fashioned, 1960s.”

Obama can turn a recession into a depression without batting an eyelash. He’s that talented. Another word for his economic plan would be inane.

McCain and Obama Different on Style as well as Substance
By Doyle McManus in the Los Angeles Times.

One is hot, the other cool. One is a man of quick action, the other a man of abiding caution. One claims the role of national maverick; the other hopes to play the role of national mediator.

The choice between John McCain and Barack Obama is not only between contrasting parties and policies; it’s also between two markedly different styles of leadership. Those contrasts were sharply evident Friday as the presidential candidates sought to show how they would lead the nation through its latest harrowing financial crisis.

Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) heatedly called on the Federal Reserve to stop bailing out big financial firms, proposed a new agency to “fix them before they become insolvent,” and vowed to stamp out “corruption and unbridled greed” on Wall Street.

Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) announced that he had decided not to issue a financial rescue plan — because he wanted to give the Bush administration a chance to work out a bipartisan solution without political interference.

From my blog, By The Fault.