More Tax Cuts!

Rudy unveils a tax plan. Pethokoukis:

One big problem is that budgeteers surely would crunch the numbers and claim the plan would result in $2 trillion to $3 trillion in lost government revenue. Such "static scoring" that does not take into account the economic growth impact of lower taxes may well be bunk. But a big tax cut should probably be accompanied by a big spending cut plan or a plan to reduce entitlement spending. I think the electorate is in a pretty skeptical mood these days.

Kudlowgasm imminent.

Our Clinton Problem – And Mine

A reader writes:

I see you quote with approval Maureen Dowd’s column on Clinton’s tears. Every day you tell us how much we need Obama’s reasonable, fresh, high-minded vision of unity, and every day you pour gas on the fire by elaborating, just like Dowd, all of your personal resentments about Clinton and her husband. You know all about how selfish and arrogant they are, you know they pressure people, pull levers, and operate a merciless machine, you know their motives, their hidden motives, their secret motives, and even the ultimate motives behind all their other motives. Is such intimate knowledge standard ethical equipment for a journalist? Do you see no contradiction between the qualities you praise in Obama and the very different qualities you display yourself?

How do you help him when you charge, over and over, that any Democrat who prefers Clinton must be addicted to political poison or just plain dim?

I’d like to see Obama president myself. I want to vote for him. But I know that if you take all the bad the Clintons have ever done and piled it up in a heap, it just doesn’t equal one month of the horror of the current administration. Are you a deeply self-deceiving man, or just a deeply cynical one? Do you people in the media take no responsibility for the poison of the last fifteen years? How do you expect to change the air in Washington when you sit down on Sunday morning with Chris Matthews and smile at his pathological hostility? And Dowd — who in politics appears more troubled and sick than this sad woman? Don’t you notice these things? Do you think we don’t notice? How is this journalism? And how in God’s name does it help?

I’ve received many emails criticizing my Clinton obsession. Most I do not find convincing. I do not believe that holding a female politician to exactly the same standards as a male one, and refusing to give her a pass because of her gender on anything, is sexist or misogynist. I’ve tried to be gracious when appropriate. I have aired defenses of them. But I have to say this email has brought me up short in ways others have not. It isn’t so much the content of my criticisms but the tone. I will probably fail to get the better of my emotions when it comes to the good Senator and ex-president. I’m a human being writing in real time with no filters. That’s blogging. But, while not stinting on legitimate criticism, I’m going to try a little harder to be a little more temperate. Goodbye to all that, eh? 

Medved vs Hewitt

It’s on now:

Instead of using a truthful statement that would have made no impact on voters, [the Romney folks] used a hateful lie — that appears to have made little impact on voters.

As the Wall Street Journal editorialized today, Romney’s ill-advised attempt to demagogue the immigration issue and to “impersonate Tom Tancredo” has failed miserably, in Iowa and now in New Hampshire.

I happen to believe that Romney has fatally damaged his once-promising $100 million campaign by the flood of negative ads shamefully distorting the record of his various opponents.

Romney, who’s now desperate to pull out a last chance victory in Michigan, won’t apologize. But Hugh Hewitt, a fair-minded Republican leader of impeccable integrity, should offer that apology now.

Obama And The Race Card

I share this reader’s concern:

I agree with everything you say wholehearedly about how tacky it is for the Clintons to trash their party’s best hope for the future.

But be very, very careful, especially in quoting Donna Brazille, who should teach college courses on how to lose elections. I’m starting to get the impression that the Clinton camp is trying to lure Obama into playing the race card. The obvious tactics of calling him kid and everything seem to me like a race-bait tactic. First, get Bill to belittle Obama in what can be seen by some (but not by white people) as a racial slight. Then, provoke Obama, who has not made race a factor at all in the campaign, to fall back on race as a defense against their attacks. This will then drive away many of those who have been attracted to Obama’s campaign in part BECAUSE he has not played the race card.

The Clinton’s are smart. Don’t play to them, though.

So right. I found Jesse Jackson’s TV appearance in defense of Obama troublesome. And I sure hope Obama doesn’t take the Clinton-bait (everything I’ve observed about him suggests he won’t). The Clintons have already used the gender card. They tend to use whatever comes to hand. But Obama’s core message is that he doesn’t go there. He should stick to that. He is in a different league than the Clintons which is why he stands a chance of beating them. By all means, go on the offensive by decrying those who cry "false hopes" and remind voters that a vote for the Clintons is a vote for dynasticism and the polarizing past in American politics. But stay positive on the racial and gender issues. Yes, the Bradley Effect probably made a difference in New Hampshire. But don’t let it get to you. The only way past this is through it.

Clinton and Truman

A reader writes:

Your reader asked, "Can anyone imagine, say, Harry Truman in 1960 traveling to West Virginia to deliver such a blast against John Kennedy?"  No, but Truman delivered a strong blast against Kennedy, just before the 1960 Democratic Convention, in support of his favored candidate, Senator Stuart Symington:

In a effort to boost his fellow Missourian, just before the convention Truman called a news conference, during which he spoke out against Kennedy’s youth and inexperience and asked him to withdraw from the race.  When he concluded that the convention was "rigged" for Kennedy, Truman resigned as a delegate.  Unfortunately, Truman’s support was not sufficient to garner widespread enthusiasm for Symington.  His speech attacking Kennedy, coupled with his failure to attend the convention, may even have alienated potential support for Symington. (Linda McFarland, Cold War Strategist: Stuart Symington and the Search for National Security, Greenwood Press, 2001, p. 106)

Bill Clinton’s behavior isn’t some sort of unique aberration from past norms of American politics.  It’s probably typical.  Whether it’s any more successful than Truman’s was remains to be seen.