Drudge Retort: Red Meat for Yellow Dogs
Saturday, August 02, 2008

Politico: While campaigns typically snow reporters with white papers and policy minutiae, many of the domestic policy plans of John McCain have been notably short on details. "The Obama people are much more detailed," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan advocacy group dedicated to balancing the budget.

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"The history of the Social Security debate has taught that too many specifics, especially during a presidential campaign, has polarized the debate," he said of the program that McCain called "an absolute disgrace [that's] got to be fixed."

Will he contrast his plan to that of his opponent? "Sen. McCain believes this is so important that we do not politicize this debate during an election season."

What, then, is the plan? There doesn't appear to be a page dedicated to it on the McCain website, though some details can be gleaned from the page dedicated to his plan to balance the budget by 2013:

"John McCain will fight to save the future of Social Security, and he believes that we may meet our obligations to the retirees of today and the future without raising taxes. 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."

Elsewhere, though, he's talked down private accounts, saying only that "workers ought to have the latitude to take a small amount of their own taxes, of their own money it's not somebody else's money and put it into an account with their name on it, a very small amount." And on an appearance last Sunday on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," he told the host that "everything," specifically including Obama's tax hike, "is on the table."


"He has not offered very much in specifics that I have seen," Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said about McCain's Social Security plan.

Riedl, however, was nonplussed by Obama's level of detail when it comes to spending programs.

"Obama's website has page after page after page of very specific [entitlement] increases, specifically within Medicare. It doesn't take political courage to specify the goodies you're going to offer voters."

"You can't judge campaign numbers the same way you'd judge a president's budget," said Bixby. But he added that the McCain campaign's budget proposals including a promise to balance the budget by 2013 were notably short on specifics and often didn't appear to add up.

www.politico.com

"The McCain goal is quite responsible," said Bixby. "But I can't see any way he could get there under the policies they've been proposing. There's a disconnect there."

A report issued last week by the Tax Policy Center, a well-respected, numbers-oriented think tank, found that "Sen. McCain's proposals on the stump are often far more sweeping than the more measured options outlined by his campaign" and would in fact double the tax impact of his formal proposals, while Obama's off-the-cuff additions would reduce the impact of his plan by about one-sixth.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's economic adviser, disputed the analysis, saying that while McCain's words on the trail don't always jibe with the granular specifics, the Tax Policy Center drew trillion-dollar assumptions based on McCain saying things like he'd prefer to get rid of the alternative minimum tax.

"He has been very clear that he'd like to develop an alternative simplified tax," Holtz-Eakin said, noting that he'd try to create one that would be revenue-neutral. "We do not yet have a specific proposal."

The Obama campaign currently has 14 paid staffers (twice as many as in the primary), and The New York Times reported last week that his foreign policy campaign bureaucracy has some 300 advisers, 12 of whom joined the campaign for at least one leg of this week's world tour.

The McCain campaign declined to say how many policy staffers it employs. but did concede that its rival's staff was bigger. "Maybe that's because they are on both sides of every policy," cracked McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

The McCain campaign, which nearly ran out of money during the primaries and until New Hampshire seemed headed for a crash-landing, operated on a shoestring budget. At points it appeared that Holtz-Eakin was responsible for formulating (or at least defending) every policy the campaign put out.

"The difference in enthusiasm among voters is also a difference in enthusiasm among policy wonks," said Robert Gordon, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who worked for the Clinton White House and John Kerry's campaign in 2004.

For Obama, the need to generate policy and snag policy wonks has been pressing since early in the primary, when the campaign needed to prove both its policy prowess and an ability to sign up top-flight minds to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards.

"We were in a contentious primary that lasted a very, very long time and was hard-fought and very substantive," said Obama policy director Heather Higginbottom. "That did not happen in a Republican primary."

In part because the leading Democrats' policy proposals were largely similar and the details were much considered by key constituencies, the candidates were compelled to offer fine-grained plans to draw differences.

It made for debates in which Clinton keyed in on nuanced and sometimes difficult-to-explain differences between her plan and Obama's to vastly increase the federal government's role in providing health care.

www.politico.com

Intraparty pressures also meant that Obama produced a fairly ambitious climate change strategy last year. The McCain campaign did not start rolling out the details of its environment and energy plan until May of this year.

The more dominant interest groups in the Republican Party social conservatives, hawks and tax-cutters had less wonky primary goals that didn't need extreme specificity to be articulated clearly, which was also true for women's groups on the left.

When McCain has focused on domestic policy, it has generally been to offer headline-grabbing plans, such as his proposal for a gas tax holiday and his claim that allowing offshore drilling could have an immediate effect on gas prices, both of which were almost universally derided by economists across the ideological spectrum.

"There's a lot more happening in the Obama budget. There's a lot more moving parts, and I think that probably calls for more specificity," Bixby said. "It's a much more ambitious agenda than McCain's."

Intraparty pressures also meant that Obama produced a fairly ambitious climate change strategy last year. The McCain campaign did not start rolling out the details of its environment and energy plan until May of this year.

The more dominant interest groups in the Republican Party social conservatives, hawks and tax-cutters had less wonky primary goals that didn't need extreme specificity to be articulated clearly, which was also true for women's groups on the left.

When McCain has focused on domestic policy, it has generally been to offer headline-grabbing plans, such as his proposal for a gas tax holiday and his claim that allowing offshore drilling could have an immediate effect on gas prices, both of which were almost universally derided by economists across the ideological spectrum.

"There's a lot more happening in the Obama budget. There's a lot more moving parts, and I think that probably calls for more specificity," Bixby said. "It's a much more ambitious agenda than McCain's."

www.politico.com

So much for the 'empty suit' arguments against Obama. BTW he just added Paul O'Neill and Robert Rubin to his economic advisory staff - which is quite substantial in size, matching the size of the problems we face. A 300 strong foreign policy advisory board.

McCain's had years to formulate policy, yet he gives se few details, and often his words on the stump are at odds with his OWN plans?

McCain has changed his tune on so many issues, no one can be really sure what you'll get if he's elected. Not even now is he spelling it out. You sure about him?

Don't let the facts stand in the way of knee-jerk right-wing apologists repeating their anti-progressive mantras.

Or for us common folks. The bullshit is deeper on the democrat side.

The bullshit is deeper on the democrat side

Posted by Sniper at 2008-08-02 06:48 PM

Really? Just where WERE those WMDs?

"Or for us common folks. The bullshit is deeper on the democrat side."

Ahh...the old "We like our leaders to one dimensional dipshits" philosophy. Might as well go with it, it got Bush elected twice.

McCain has given all the specifics he needs to give, he's not Obama and that's all he wants anyone to know about him because on real issues he gets his ass spanked.

They're waiting for us when we, tuck tail, and run out of Iraq. We've failed in all of our last several forced military engagements due to politics getting in the way of success.

If, while watching what was going on in the world, you also spent time listening, you wuld find Saddam Hussein used those weapons on, first his own people, for a test, and then on both, his and Iran's troops during the eight year escapade they fought. He also, according to the report from the FBI interrogator, who interviewed HIM at length, propagated the lie HIMSELF to build himself up in the world!

The real facts, through the interviews by the agent, straight from the horses mouth (ass comes to mind), are actually far more damning that the Inteligence reports. These being based, partially from Saddam's own comments and speeches, and input from other sources (some of which were thought to be somewhat unreliable).

Fact is Saddam blew his own horn exceptionally loud, for an extended time, and got caught short. But this would burst this simplistic bubble, of no weapons being found, therefore he (Bush) has to be wrong.

It's called news for a reason, in some cases it is even accurate and substantive, and, once in a while, even informative. In other, totally ignored, unless it can create a sensation, doubt, or a certain result in an election cycle!

I swear, somewhere in this artcle someone wrote that Barak Obama has 300 experts researching Economic issues with the New York Times! I'm sure this could ONLY be due to a lack of a timely comma!

Those things (weapons of mass destruction) are so easy to make as to be ridiculous, excepting for their ability to kill indescriminately. He, Saddam, was purchasing dual purpose equipment, basically, a giant mixing machine into which is poured dry milk products, or whatever else at hand!

McBullshit is using the GOPPER playbook of spreading fear, talking about vague policies and slinging mud.

He proves day after day more and more that he is not fit to lead this nation.

Why can't the GOP run on issues instead of silly or worn out wedge issues?

Because they don't have anything worth running FOR

Wait a bit! The way Obama is changing his mind/policy directives to match the way the WIND is, currently, blowing. McCain will SOON have all of his policies written in stone (sandstone), direct from the other great (with a small g) orator.

Life is great, just sit back and enjoy it, for as long as possible! We will, soon after the election, be without! Without a job, money, gas (for the car and house), will to work, and hope. Not necessarily in that order. But, we will have medication, Jim Beam, Smirnoff, Boones Farm (or Ripple), and Old Crow!

No one talks directly to you, always at you. The care goes as far as your vote will allow it, because both are deep inside someone elses' pocket.

Be that voice in the wilderness, and you'll be just that, a voice in an empty wilderness!

"The bullshit is deeper on the democrat side"

At least they never know how deep it is because they are swimming in it.

Both sides are full of bull crap. They will do anything to get in the boys club.

What ever happened to "We the people" and they represent "Us"?

UNCLESAM

"We the people" went down the drain when the fundamentalists decided that "the people" was an imminent threat to their goal of creating a single party reign here in the United States and using the world's oil resources to leverage their control elsewhere.

For the neo-cons, the rewards far outweigh the cost and there is no cost too high to pay.

The neo-cons rant on about how our enemies hate our freedoms. There's a psychological term for this (which escapes me at this hour of the morning) but it boils down to accusing others of the very thing they're guilty of themselves.


McBush is not going to waste his time with written details since he might have to explain them later on. McBush is not a smart man and this goes back to before he was shot down. At Annapolis is was known as a screw up and was anything but an honor student.The man does not belong in the White House period.

It's not McCain's fault.
He's just confused.
Ask the government of Czechoslovakia.

McCain has been living on someone else's laurels since his days at Annapolis. Namely, his father and grandfather, both of whom were Admirals.

After five years at the Hanoi Hilton, he pimped that ride into the Senate and nothing has changed since. Now he wants to parlay that into the presidency.

The man definitely knows where the money is. From lobbying for the Keating 5 (which caused the S & L failures) to pairing up with Phil Gramm (who designed the loopholes for Enron) to pairing up with Phil Gramm again to write the legislation which has caused the current bank failures, to paring up with Phil Gramm again (to co-chair his presidential campaign and ultimately be appointed as Secretary of the Treasury.)

Something tells me that Phil Gramm would be writing the legislation to privitize Social Security and sucker a lot of trusting seniors out of their retirement supplement.

The evidence against John McCain speaks for itself.

So I agree with REZNWERKS.

THIS MAN should not be allowed within a 2000 miles of the White House!

If Arizona likes him, let Arizona keep him.

And good riddance.



It's akin to our President, VP, and their staff refusing to testify under oath, sure in the knowledge that if they had they'd be liable to face perjury charges later on.

AU

I've often thought of that myself. If McCain doesn't say anything specific he can't be held accountable.

I don't know if anybody has noticed but McCain uses a lot of "we should" do this or that but he doesn't ever commit that he's actually going to follow through.

I wouldn't vote for McCain if Obama was caught dancing naked in a public fountain wearing a tiara and singing show tunes.

We will, soon after the election, be without! Without a job, money, gas (for the car and house), will to work, and hope.


Posted by dogen

..all happened on W's watch!

Vague and undefined are the modus operandi for both of these two political HACKS we have to chose from. I see n oreal specifics on any of Obamas plans or McCains

"I see n oreal specifics on any of Obamas plans or McCains"

Experts do.

www.politico.com

GOTTRUTH

As the article points out the details are all there.

All YOU have to do is read - at least the posted article to find that out.

An incurious mind is the only thing standing between you and Obama's details.

Geesh

"Specifics? We don't need no goddam Specifics"

Signed, Johnny McLame (who approves of this message).

"...I wouldn't vote for McCain if Obama was caught dancing naked in a public fountain wearing a tiara and singing show tunes...Posted by Twinpac"

Sounds like the average evening at my house. LOL!

McCain Skimps on Specifics: And Obama has been so specific as to his plans???

MSGT

You didn't read a paragraph of the article this thread is about either, did you?

Pretty obvious you didn't.

If you graduated 894th academically out of a class off 899 at the navel academy and both your Father and Grand Father were Admirals preceeding you in the Navy you'd be a little skimpy on specifics too....because there is a very good chance you are pretty much of a Dumb-Ass.

McLame or Obama Zbignew Brzezinski? Gee? which pile of new world order globalist piece of shit should I vote for?

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