Month: January 2008
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Matt Welch’s anti-McCain primer
If you’ve neglected my recommendation of Matt Welch’s McCain: The Myth of a Maverick make sure to check out Welch’s debunking of the various myths about his unwavering devotion to honesty, principle, and “straight talk” that newspapers have been pushing in their endorsement editorials. Inoculate yourself before Super Tuesday!
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Sheryl Gay Stolberg fails Stat 101
Once again, a journalist has misinformed the public due to a fundamental lack of understanding of basic quantitative data. In today’s New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes that President Bush “has spent years presiding over an economic climate of growth that would be the envy of most presidents.” But as Dean Baker points out
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The ironies of dynastic politics
Barack Obama’s campaign against one political dynasty (the Clintons) is endorsed from the descendant of another one (Caroline Kennedy). Why do we care again? Update 1/28 10:06 AM: On the other hand, today’s endorsement from Ted Kennedy is a much bigger deal. In particular, as TNR’s Jonathan Cohn and a commenter below note, it could
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Obama white vote exceeds expectations
Contrary to a previous poll showing him with support from only ten percent of whites in South Carolina, Barack Obama got a quarter of the white vote: About half the voters were black, according to polling place interviews, and four out of five of them supported Obama. Black women turned out in particularly large numbers.
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Bob Herbert quotes random blog comment
Today Bob Herbert questions the nasty attacks on Barack Obama by Clinton surrogates — a fine subject for a column. But then he transitions to a random quotation from the Internet: The Clinton camp knows what it’s doing, and its slimy maneuvers have been working. Bob Kerrey apologized and Andrew Young said at the time
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Obama’s low white support in SC
I’ve been worried about Barack Obama’s relatively low support among whites but these numbers from South Carolina are worse than I expected: But while Mr. Obama seeks to transcend race, his campaign cannot avoid the politics associated with it. A new poll on Friday, conducted by MSNBC/McClatchy Newspapers, showed that Mr. Obama was winning support
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McCain’s anti-Hillary Google ad
John McCain is running this lovely anti-Hillary Google ad, which just showed up in my sidebar: If you click on the ad, you go to a mock quiz touting McCain’s electability against Hillary.
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NYT questions McCain’s supply-side claims
Unlike last week’s article by Michael Cooper, today’s New York Times report by David Leonhardt (an economics reporter) questions John McCain’s pattern of claiming that tax cuts increase revenue: On several occasions over the last year, Mr. McCain has said that tax cuts can reduce the deficit by spurring additional activity that, in turn, leads
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Laffer on the conspiracy against him
Supply-side guru Arthur Laffer has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal making the case for the fantasy that tax cuts increase revenue: In the 1920s, the highest federal marginal income tax rate fell to 24% from 78%. Those people who earned over $100,000 had their share of total taxes paid rise — from 29.9%
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The NYT doesn’t endorse Rudy
In the course of endorsing John McCain, the New York Times rips apart Rudy Giuliani: Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking. When he claims fiscal prudence, we remember how he ran through surpluses without a thought to the inevitable downturn and bequeathed huge deficits to his successor. He fired Police Commissioner William Bratton,