McCain lays out first term plan and talks about Iraq, Clinton dominates in WV, and Obama launches criticism of Bush’s speech in Israel
The most notable piece of news this week was John McCain laying out his first term platforms. See http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/15/mccain.2013/index.html for the story. Most notably, McCain stated he believes we will have achieved victory in Iraq by 2013. He also defines “victory” clearly, articulating his vision for what Iraq will be — a peaceful democracy who will be an important ally to the United States. An insightful article into McCain’s thought processes on Iraq and other foreign policy matters, see http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/magazine/18mccain-t.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin. Most interesting to me where a few paradigms that McCain’s foreign policy approach is very pragmatic, yet the use of force is justified upon moral grounds. A particularly striking excerpt was:
“Most American politicians, of course, would immediately dismiss the idea of sending the military into Zimbabwe or Myanmar as tangential to American interests and therefore impossible to justify. McCain didn’t make this argument. He seemed to start from a default position that moral reasons alone could justify the use of American force, and from there he considered the reasons it might not be feasible to do so. In other words, to paraphrase Robert Kennedy, while most politicians looked at injustice in a foreign land and asked, “Why intervene?” McCain seemed to look at that same injustice and ask himself, “Why not?””
Also highly notable among McCain’s plans for a first term are his plans to:
1. Create a “League of Democracies” which will supplant the United Nations. This is one of the effective mechanisms he says could be used to force an end to the genocide in Darfur, which along with NATO logistical and air support, and “stiff diplomatic and economic pressure” by the United States, he believes could end the genocide.
2. Pledge to work with members of both parties, as he notes he has done frequently in the past, and not care who gets the credit, so long as the bipartisan efforts will improve the safety and prosperity of the United States.
3. Ensure several years of robust economic growth.
4. Facilitate the end of the United States dependence on foregin oil, in part by the development of 20 new nuclear generators.
5. Confirm “scores of judges” to the Federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. McCain’s “Gang of 14″ leadership position may make him ideally suited on that front.
6. Establishing a Social Security system that is solvent, does not reduce benefits for those nearing retirement and includes individual retirement accounts.
7. Providing more accessible health care for Americans and an easing of pressure on Medicare because of lower health care costs. McCain’s $5000 tax credit incentive to buy health care programs with GAP coverage (see earlier post on Health Care issue for details) would be paid in part out of the reduced strain on Medicare, relying on the market based approach to lower costs and increase consumer choice.
8. Transition more taxpayers to a simpler tax system via a flat tax that peope could opt into if beneficial. Paired with largely increased (doubled) personal exemptions and widely applicable large new credits, this could be potentially a very progressive tax system. Although I will conduct a later post comparing the Democrat nominee’s tax plans with McCain’s, most likely this plan would eliminate income taxes in effect for lower income taxpayers and greatly reduce the tax burden on businesses, especially small and new ones, and the middle class.
9. Witness Russia and China cooperating in “pressuring Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, and North Korea to discontinue its own.”
10. Significantly increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps, which will be “better equipped and trained to defend us.”
11. End the world food crisis and achieve low inflation and a “much-improved” quality of life “not only in our country but in some of the most impoverished countries around the world.”
12. Secure the southern border for the United States after “tremendous improvements to border security infrastructure and increases in the border patrol, and vigorous prosecution of companies that employ illegal aliens.” McCain’s stance on illegal immigration is starkly different from most in the GOP and from Bush. He has gotten in extremely heated debates, (and rumor has it resorted to swearing at a Senator in his own party over their “nativist” approach to immigration). McCain wants border enforcement and security but utterly rejects many of the tenets of the anti-illegal immigrant lobby. He has traditionally done very well among Hispanics in Arizona, and it would not surprise me if he chooses an Hispanic running mate to make further outreaches into that community.
13. Promised to “exercise my veto if I believe legislation passed by Congress is not in the nation’s best interests, but I will not subvert the purpose of legislation I have signed by making statements that indicate I will enforce only the parts of it I like.”
14. Try to generate efforts in Pakistan to work with the United States in deploying counter-insurgency tactics in the al Qaeda-laden tribal regions
15. Strive to kill or capture bin Laden and his lieutenants, leave no safe haven on the globe for al Qaeda, and make sure that there are no major terrorist strikes against the United States.
16. Promised that if elected that the era of the “permanent campaign” will end, and the era of problem solving would begin.
While this is by no means an exhaustive list, (his web site would be a better bet to get more details and specifics on the array of issues), these comments help to portray a sense of his priority initiatives.
Second, obviously big news this week also was Hilary Clinton slaughtering Barack Obama in West Virginia, 67% to 26%. This was even more noteworthy since Obama poured far more resources into the state (although not personally appearing himself), ran more ads than Clinton, and had more than twice as many offices open across the state. Clearly, if Obama could only garner 26% of the Democrats in West Virignia, this will not be a state he will contest in during the fall. Nevertheless, Obama’s week was not a complete loss, as he secured a slew of superdelegate endorsements, including Senator John Edwards, who has 22 delegates of his own going to the convention. Most of those delegates will now likely go to Obama, and Obama’s chances of winning the nomination continue to increase. Looking ahead to Tuesday, Obama looks like he will get slaughtered by Clinton again in Kentucky by another 25-40 points, but may be able to win Oregon by double digits. Most importantly perhaps are the internals of the exit polls in West Virginia, replicating the same pattern of support and lack thereof Obama had in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, and Texas. He continues to better among college students, blacks, and the very rich, but very poorly among the poor, poorly educated, religious, white, old, moderates and conservatives demographics.
Last, Obama, along with many surrogates, lashed out in a full scale attack against President Bush, (right after McCain unveiled his first term plan), for comments Bush made in Israel. Bush condemned the politics of “appeasement” as a naive and historically failed policy. Obama and his team felt this was a criticism against them, although Obama was not specifically mentioned. To be fair, Obama certainly would fall in this category in Bush’s teams’ mind, but so would former President Jimmy Carter who recently traveled to the mideast and met with terrorist Hamas leaders without precondition. At the link below, Obama’s speech on the matter can be seen, as can McCain’s counter-response, and Obama’s counter-counter-response. http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2008/05/mccain_hits_back_at_obama.html
