McCain calls Obama out on money, war, dirty politics
Perhaps the biggest news of the day, the week, and quite potentially a major turning point in this campaign was the story today that McCain intends to accept public financing for his general election campaign. Although no formal announcement has been made, the story seems to have been confirmed by several top aides in the know. This means that McCain principally will have approximately $85,000,000.00 of taxpayer money for the general election - that is, the period of the election after the Republican National Convention, a period of approximately two months. This is important for several reasons:
1. McCain will not be allowed to raise his own money. While this is a calculated risk, candidates nowadays with a major party nomination might be able to raise much more than that, so he is risking a huge cash disadvantage compared to whichever Democrat comes out of their current struggle as the nominee. Thus far, the two Democrats have raised a combined $469,000,000.00!
2. McCain will very credibly be able to bolster his argument that he, unlike Bush or Obama or Clinton, is not beholden to any special interests or lobbying groups. Besides giving him some basic credibility, this also takes away two routine Democrat attacks against GOP candidates - that they are corrupt sellouts to corporate interests, which ties in with current gains they have made impeaching the general GOP ethics ethos, and that the Democrats are the underdog looking out for the people, while the GOP is only concerned with big business.
3. McCain will be able to raise money for other candidates, likely helping other GOP candidates this election cycle.
4. McCain will rely in large part on the RNC to help his campaign effort, who will likely raise another 100-200 million dollars on top of the 25 million they have now.
5. Last, but not least, and perhaps most important, McCain is calling out Obama on Obama’s statement in late 2007 that he would take public financing if the GOP candidate did. Now, Obama’s fundraising potential has far exceeded expectations at the time he made the statement, and McCain could charge him with rank opportunism if Obama refuses to take public financing as well. If Obama accepts McCain’s call, (assuming he is the nominee), then Obama may vastly limit his spending power to an equivalent of what McCain will have. If Obama refuses, he will be charged with flip-flopping, being beholden to special interests, etc… thereby helping McCain win over independents concerned with such ethical issues.
The big headline grabbers lately, and the past two days especially, however, have been General Petraeus’s testimony before the Congress on the Iraq war. The report is that the surge has been very effective, that casualty numbers are sharply down, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have stood up, many Sunni have abandoned Al Qaeda in Iraq and are now fighting with the American and Iraqi forces, but that a sudden withdrawal would jeopardize all progress that has been made thus far. If you believe the American commander of all our forces in Iraq, this report is a clear indictment against the policies of Clinton and Obama as incredibly irresponsible, and a verification that McCain is the only candidate that knows what he is doing about Iraq. The public mood, however, and the other Democrats questioning Petraeus, are not accepting these conclusions, so time will tell if this moves many votes or not.
The last time McCain and Obama engaged through the media on the Iraq issue, Obama’s statement that he would pull out all American troops as promised from Iraq was tempered by his statement that he would send forces back in if al Qaeda established a base there. McCain shot back at him that al Qaeda was already in Iraq and has bases there. His surrogates added al Qaeda already has bases there, that Obama’s strategy could give al Qaeda a whole country and would forfeit the advantage of the position we have achieved in the region. Altogether Obama came off looking rather foolish.
This time Obama mentioned that we needed a “diplomatic surge with Iran,” echoing previous comments stating his policy that he would meet with the Iranian leaders personally. McCain countered that this was unwise since there are plenty of ways of conversing without putting Iran as leaders on the world stage, sacrifice our values and enhance Iran’s prestige. Further, Iran is not interested in stabilizing Iraq, their power in the region increases through a destabilized Iraq in which al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and other Sunni forces could exploit the chaos to exponentially increase their power. Iran is also under sanctions for defying the international community and continuing work to build a nuclear bomb, while remaining committed to the destruction of Israel.
Iran was named by Petraeus and a top diplomat as the primary force/problem causing American deaths in Iraq as they directly fund, train, arm, and otherwise support terrorists there, seeking to destabilize the region. The reduction in troop deaths has been directly correlated with the blocking of funding from Iran to the terrorists in large measure. It is likely that such a measure as Obama proposed could not only jeapordize the progress in Iraq, but directly threaten the safety of and our relationship with the state of Israel, our greatest ally in the region, and the entire region could become destabilized. Thus far, Obama has not stated any plan by which he could avoid any of these problems/concerns, so the onus is on him to do so over the next couple of days, otherwise McCain comes out ahead in the Iraq war exchange again. McCain is effectively painting Obama as naive, shortsighted, and foolish on foreign policy.
Last, Obama has been tagged for not living up to the “different standard of politics” he has promised to usher in. Both McCain and Clinton have noted Obama seems to be letting his surrogates run vicious attacks for him and then merely states he does not agree without repudiating the comments. The latest was Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia stating that McCain’s service in Vietnam was inhumane because he dropped laser guided missiles from 20,000 feet and flew away without ever seeing the enemy or who was left behind reaping that damage. In short, he called McCain an arbitrary maniacal killer. Obama stated he disagrees and respects McCain’s service, but nevertheless the smear was effective. For the first time on Rasmussen Reports, Obama is now ahead of McCain, a 4 point swing over the past 24-36 hours of polling. Coming to McCain’s defense was Senator Graham from South Carolina who noted that not only did they not have the type of remote precise bombing technology during Vietnam that Rockefeller stated in ignorance but McCain did get “down and dirty” near the enemy, resulting in his capture and long tenure as a POW in the “Hanoi Hilton” where he was mistreated and tortured. Clinton’s folks in Pennsylvania noted today that Obama campaign event organizers were caught arranging a racially diverse backdrop of people for his speech, prompting some students out of their seats so as to “get more white people” in the background behind him. This they contrast with his promise to be a “post-racial candidate” where “race doesn’t matter” and adding with a hint of sarcasm whether they sought, as Obama stated in his speech on race “typical white people,” a phrase his critics have latched onto.
