When politicians interject race into a campaign, they seldom do it directly. Consider McCain's new ad, which the campaign says it will be airing nationally:

This is hardly subtle: Sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman.

Let me stipulate: Obama's Fannie Mae connections are completely fair game. But this ad doesn't even mention a far more significant tie--that of Jim Johnson, the former Fannie Mae chairman who had to resign as head of Obama's vice presidential search team after it was revealed he got a sweetheart deal on a mortgage from Countrywide Financial. Instead, it relies on a fleeting and tenuous reference in a Washington Post Style section story to suggest that Obama's principal economic adviser is former Fannie Mae Chairman Frank Raines. Why? One reason might be that Johnson is white; Raines is black.

And the image of the victim doesn't seem accidental either, given the fact that older white women are a key swing constituency in this election.

After the McCain campaign introduced the ad, the Obama campaign responded with this statement:

Statement from Frank Raines on the ad: "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters."

"This is another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth. Frank Raines has never advised Senator Obama about anything -- ever. And by the way, someone whose campaign manager and top advisor worked and lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shouldn't be throwing stones from his seven glass houses," said Obama-Biden campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

At Politico, Ben Smith reports:

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers notes that Obama didn't contradict the claim when it first appeared in the Post.

But that's not really the point of the ad, is it?

UPDATE: The McCain campaign has now put out an ad on Jim Johnson. Please see my post above.

UPDATE2: A number of commenters continue to be unaware that I did indeed post something on the Johnson ad. In fact, I did it within minutes of the ad being announced. Here's the link, as well as a link to what Ana wrote about it.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post--upon whose reporting the McCain campaign based this dubious ad--has done a FactCheck on it. Their conclusion:

The McCain campaign is clearly exaggerating wildly in attempting to depict Franklin Raines as a close adviser to Obama on "housing and mortgage policy." If we are to believe Raines, he did have a couple of telephone conversations with someone in the Obama campaign. But that hardly makes him an adviser to the candidate himself -- and certainly not in the way depicted in the McCain video release.

This sort of story is rapidly becoming a genre unto itself:

Mr. McCain's once easy-going if irreverent campaign presence — endearing to crowds, though often the kind of undisciplined excursions that landed him in the gaffe doghouse — has been put out to pasture. He takes far fewer chances, meaning there are fewer risqué jokes, zingers at a familiar face in the crowd, provocative observations on policy or politics, or exercises in self-derogatory humor. By every appearance, this Mr. McCain is, or at least is struggling to be, disciplined and on message in a way befitting of American politics today, if not quite befitting of the McCain of yesterday.

There's a Bob and Dave sketch that turns on particularly whiny rendition of the phrase "You've chaaannnnged," which is what was going through my head as I read the piece, though Nagourney's tale of sorrow at the loss of the "old" McCain is not as weepy or as scolding as some have been. In fact, I think he captures the change in McCain's style without resorting to condemnation or a case of the literary vapors. Maybe someone else can write a macro based on it for all the other journalists that will be writing such pieces soon, especially if he loses.

Catherine Dodge and John Brinsley of Bloomberg note:

This week, President George W. Bush held a state dinner for Ghana's president, surveyed Texas hurricane damage, posed with Youth of the Year award finalists, and met with Army General David Petraeus.

Until today, Bush had publicly uttered 160 words about the worst Wall Street crisis since the Great Depression, saying on Sept. 15 that the government was working to ``reduce disruptions'' in U.S. financial markets.

After three days of financial turmoil, Bush canceled a scheduled fundraising trip and stepped before television cameras this morning to read a statement of assurance that the government is hard at work to resolve the market meltdown.

``My administration is focused on meeting these challenges,'' Bush said in a two-minute statement. ``The American people can be sure we will continue to act to strengthen and stabilize our financial markets and improve investor confidence.''

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had been the voice of the administration as he and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke confronted the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., the sale of Merrill Lynch & Co., the biggest stock market drop in seven years, and a government takeover of American International Group Inc. For three days, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 800 points, the president's absence had been conspicuous.

There was a McCain conference call earlier today about, topically enough, the economy. Responding to previously raised questions on how it is that the campaign can continue to claim that Obama will raise taxes, despite Obama's vow that he would not, Doug Holtz-Eakin explained:

"They have said so many things throughout the campaign. It is clear that Barack Obama on taxes will say anything that is politically expedient including I will cut taxes for 95% of Americans. The fact is he has promised so much spending it would be impossible for those tax cuts to take place. He has proposed over $800 billion worth of increases in spending and that excludes a recent independent estimate of his healthcare plan which would cost over $240 billion a year alone. It is an inconceivable matter of arithmetic in modern financial markets that he could cut taxes and follow through on the spending promises he made. So there is no credibility in this package.

Shorter DH-E: "We know he's said he will cut taxes, but since we have a rigid belief in a stereotype that he sort of fits [that of the liberal tax-raising Dem], we think you shouldn't believe him." Kind of like how some people think there's no possible way that a staunch Republican like McCain could possibly actually care about the environment. Also, glad they have so much confidence in the "arithmetic of modern financial markets"!

Here's an old political consultant trick: You want attack your opponent for supporting Policy X, because your pollsters tell you such an attack would help your candidate. But there's a problem. Your opponent doesn't clearly support Policy X. So you send off researchers to find an old legislative vote that you can use in an ad to mislead the public about your opponent's plans, without lying outright. Instead of saying "My opponent supports Policy X," all you have to say is "My opponent once voted for something that sounded a lot like Policy X. Be very afraid."

Both John McCain and Barack Obama are playing this game. McCain loves citing the fact that Obama "voted" for a bill that supported increasing taxes on everyone making more than $42,000. Never mind the fact that Obama does not actually support increasing taxes on everyone making more than $42,000. It's a deception, based on an old vote, which is, presumably, better than an outright lie--not much better, but at least technically defensible.

In the last couple days, Obama has shown an increased enthusiasm for playing this same dodgy game. But since his new ads are running in specific states, they have mostly flown under the radar. Two of the ads were posted on YouTube by Politico's Ben Smith. In the first, Obama says that McCain voted three times to privatize Social Security, and that he is willing to risk the nation's retirement program on the risky stock market. Now, it is true that McCain did support President Bush's effort to privatize a portion of Social Security. But it is not true that McCain is running for president on a platform of turning Social Security over to Wall Street.

Here is what his campaign says: "John McCain supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts--but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept. John McCain will reach across the aisle to address these challenges, but if the Democrats do not act, he will." (About midway down this interview from today, McCain adviser Mark Salter expands on what McCain supports: "He's not for raising taxes, he has said – not privatization of social security, but a small percentage, even at a bond fund, would yield greater return over time than the government gets.")

The second Obama ad is even more egregious in misleading people about McCain's positions. The ad says McCain "voted against tax incentives for alternative energy--against ethanol, against fuel cells, against hybrids, against electric cars, against wind and solar, against geothermal." Then the ad says McCain wants to give $4 billion in tax breaks to oil companies. This is all a nifty bit of misdirection. The oil company tax breaks the ad refers to are a corporate tax cut McCain favors, which would apply to almost all profitable companies, not just oil companies--including those companies that work on wind, solar and biofuels.

And McCain does support specific tax incentives for alternatives to oil. In fact, he has a habit of mentioning his plan to promote alternative energy with tax incentives and subsidies at nearly every campaign stop. The McCain policy prescription is, on the whole, not as generous, or costly to taxpayers, as the plan advanced by Obama. But you can read all about it here.

UPDATE: How dare I criticize Obama!!! What an outrage!!!! Haven't I learned my lesson, from the unbiased watchdogs at Media Matters (and their linkers Atrios and Josh Marshall): an honest journalist criticizes Obama at his peril, lest he bring a swarm of alleged lazy hackery and "wanker" labels from the left blog crowd. I quake in my office chair, and rebut after the jump.

(more...)

As reported here earlier, John McCain seemed to diss Spain's leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero--or maybe confuse him with a Latin American leader--in a radio interview the other day. Now Randy Scheunemann, McCain's ninja neocon foreign policy adviser, is saying that McCain meant exactly what he said:

"The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain's willingness to meet Zapatero (and id'd him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred). Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview."

Does that mean Spain's membership in the League of Democracies is on hold? Seems to me that putting a chill in the relationship with one of our NATO allies simply because McCain misheard a question is going a bit far.

McCain and Palin both attacked Joe Biden for saying that it was the patriotic duty of wealthier Americans to pay more in taxes. They believe it's the patriotic duty of wealthy Americans to pay less in taxes. Alan Greenspan, formerly held in high esteem by John McCain--who once said he was going to rectify his economic ignorance by reading Greenspan's book--thinks McCain and Palin are wrong...unless they can produce $3.3 trillion in budget savings to pay for the tax cuts. McCain has proposed some significant tax cuts--his opposition to the Farm Bill remains smart and courageous--and some earmark bon-bons tricked out as a big deal, but which only represent about $20 billion. He hasn't proposed anything remotely resembling $3.3 trillion, nor could he.

As for Biden, he's proposing that the wealthy return to tax rates that are actually lower than those imposed by Clinton--rates which, as you recall, really stifled the economic boom of the 1990s. Obama is proposing only a 20% tax on capital gains, which is lower than 25% rate Clinton demanded, and significantly lower than the income taxes imposed on labor.

And Biden's right: in a system of progressive taxation, it is the patriotic duty of the wealthy to pay more than the middle class or the poor...and furthermore, since we're all going to be paying for the mess the Wall Street sharks made, I'd go Biden a step further: there probably should be a confiscatory shark tax for any and all executives whose companies have gone belly up and required a federal bailout.

Update: Jonathan Cohn over at TNR adds the important point that paying higher taxes during a time of war has been considered a form of patriotism throughout U.S. history. One might even argue that George W. Bush has been downright unpatriotic laying off the costs of his foolish war on our children.

This is shaping up as a pretty bad week for the McCain campaign. First, the economic fundamentals are sound. Then we're in a major crisis. He talks about the excessive compensation that CEOs receive, but continues to have Carly Fiorina ($100 million for her failed stewardship of Hewlett Packard) as an economic spokesperson. He wants to have a vigorous new regulatory regime patrolling Wall Street--even though he has always opposed such a regime and his pal Phi Gramm was the guy in charge of dynamiting the regulations--and yet he is running this ad, warning against excessive federal power.

This is called flailing. This is why his campaign is losing some altitude. It seems to me McCain has to make a choice: reformer or deregulator. Reform means the restoration of a serious, activist regulatory presence--in other words, more government. Deregulation means more of what we're seeing this week on Wall Street, the excesses that occur when government steps away from its responsibility as referee and guarantor of a fair playing field.

As in recent weeks, McCain has made a bet on the stupidity of the American people--he thinks he can have it both ways. The drift away from him in the polls may be a sign that the public says he can't.

McCain has a new ad up today that features a big bad building that casts a deep dark shadow over America. It is the U.S. Capitol Building, of course, and it represents Democratic big government regulations and taxes, which is ironic because McCain has spent much of this week competing with Obama in the who-can-call-for-more-regulations-to-prevent-another Wall-Street-crisis game. (Never mind that Obama plans to lower taxes for most Americans, not raise them.)

What is not so surprising is the metaphor at the heart of the ad. One of the new national consultant stars of this campaign cycle is Fred Davis, the blow-dried California adman who is responsible for much of the McCain's media, including the "Celeb" ad that flashed Paris Hilton into the political ether. Mark McKinnon, a former McCain aide who worked for President Bush in 2004, calls Davis "the most creative person in the business -- period."

With this new ad, Davis appears to be returning to one of his old tricks--the aerial flyover. Back in 2002, Davis helped Sonny Perdue win the Georgia governorship in an upset partly credited to this ad, which cast Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes as a giant rat casting his shadow over the state. (To see the rat in motion, go about 1:30 into the ad.)

So, a few of my liberal friends have taken to reminding me every time I point out something vaguely sketchy about the Obama campaign (the 1982 ad, I think, was tacky, for instance) that "at least Obama never implied McCain is a pedophile. Game over." I told this to some McCain people the other day, mainly to see the tiny fumes of smoke emerge from their ears.

But today they have something to legitimately be angry about. And, oh, they are. Jake Tapper -- who is doing fantastic work this cycle, go Jake! -- lays out the details here, but the basic structure is familiar: An ad attempts to tie McCain to some particularly unpleasant Republicanness [in this case, a closed borders approach to immigration], but it turns out McCain was not at all associated with that particular nastiness.

This is particularly distressing to the McCain camp because, as we all know, McCain very nearly lost the nomination over immigration, and managed to piss off nearly all of the party base, including Rush Limbaugh, with whom the Obama campaign ties to McCain in that ad.

I'm only confused because there are so many other unpopular Republican policies to legitimately associate with John McCain!