McCain campaign tries to "straight talk" their health care policy

The McCain/Palin campaign's Senior Policy Adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin, eagerly dismissed "misconceptions made by the Obama campaign about McCain's health care policy" in a teleconference today. The McCain campaign denied that McCain would tax health care benefits for the first time. Holtz-Eakin said "McCain's tax code will equally subsidize private health insurance." The Obama campaign supposedly accused McCains health care policy because Americans with pre-existing
medical conditions would not receive coverage. Holtz-Eakin said "McCain'ss guaranteed access plan for every state would implement fines on companies that deny care inappropriately."

The McCain campaign said the Obama campaign created a false perception of a $882 billion cut to
medicare, phrasing it as a 'cut to necessary care, but Holtz-Eakin said that "there will be no cuts to health care, especially Medicare." He also noted that the same health care benefits will grow more slowly.

Holtz-Eakin ended the conference by saying that Obama's plan is an expansion of big government and is on the path towards "risky sub-prime health care".

McCain's greatest challenge - the last 18 days

The Brookings Institution hosted the third seminar in a series on "Issues, Ideology, Gender and Race in the 2008 Election" featuring Sunshine Hillygus, Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University; Daron Shaw, Associate Professor of Government at University of Texas at Austin; and Shankar Vedantam, columnist for the Washington Post.

The panelists discussed specific factors pertaining to the 2008 Election such as; campaign tactics, youth involvement, the role of race, gender, ideology, character, and party identification. All three panelists agreed that voters participate in "proximity voting" whereby they determine their own vague ideas on an issue and gravitate towards the candidate that seems the most similar. In this way, they rationalize their own vote choice based on the comfort they feel from their candidate. The youth vote was a large
point of discussion due to the efficiency with which the Obama campaign has used first-time voters and the new millennial generation to his advantage.

The challenge they outlined for Senator McCain, who has fallen behind in recent polls particularly due to the economy, is for him to swing voters who "have a foot in each camp." Those voters, such as pro-life Democrats, have a large decision to make and it will be up to both candidates to convince those voters that the issues that matter to them are the issues each respective candidate can support.

McCain campaign continues to attack Obama campaign’s relation to ACORN

Rick Davis, adviser for the McCain/Palin campaign, continued speculation about the Barack Obama campaign's involvement in the "emerging scandal relating to ACORN." Davis accused Obama of not utilizing the time he was given during the final Presidntial debate to "spell out his historic involvement with ACORN". Davis would like to see the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) asked, "what exactly happened with that $830 thousand given to you by the Obama campaign?"

As for the McCain campaign's stance on ACORN and their voter registration, Davis said, "I believe the power the media has to bring scrutiny to these issues will help reform the process." In response to the fact that the Supreme Court just sided with Democratic election officials in Ohio over the voter registration dispute, Davis said the Supreme Court "did not make the decision based on the merits of the case."

Davis expressed his concern for lack of honesty in this election, and that there's a "cloud of suspicion hanging over this election." Davis further stated that "when John McCain gets elected President, we want to know that these are the most honest elections that Americans will have confidence in."

McCain-Palin campaign attacks Obama's tax proposals

"The reality is not that Barack Obama has a tax-cut, or even a plan to make jobs. The reality is that he has a plan that is riddled with bad incentives, full of targeted handouts, and fundamentally based on redistribution of wealth, and stands in sharp contrast to John McCain's approach." This was stated by Doug Holtz-Eakin, Senior Policy Adviser for the McCain-Palin campaign, in response to Senator Barack Obama's (D-IIll.) tax reform plan. Nancy Pfotenhauer, Senior Policy Adviser for the McCain-Palin campaign, said Obama's tax plan "punishes achievement".

The campaign advisers claim Obama's tax reforms amount to "sending checks to individuals, many of whom may not be working, and who certainly do not have a tax liability". They added that Obama's tax cuts for job creation in American businesses are "too little too late", and too small to offset the supposed damages his own policies would do. Pfotenhauer said, "if this is his prescription for our economy, at a time when we're already ailing, I cannot think of any kind of medicine that could be worse".

"Barack Obama's overall economic policy can be characterized as the Europeanization of the american economy, because it is effectively a high tax, high spending protectionist approach," Pfotenhauer said, "and it doesn't work. All you need to do is look at the economies in say Germany or France, where you have, even in our tough economic time, unemployment rates that are significantly higher, growth rates that are significantly lower, and a quality of life or living that is about a third lower than in the United States." Holtz-Eakin and Pfotenhauer were participating in a conference call on Obama's tax plan, which according to the McCain advisers, includes approximately a trillion dollars of new spending and increased tax credits for Americans that do not pay income taxes.

A Brief Glimpse of Obama's Past as Community Organizer

A panel discussed a brief history of community organizing as well as Senator Barack Obama's history as an organizer at the Hudson Institute's Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal Center. Though Obama was mentioned, the panel discussion was mostly about what community leaders do to shape their neighborhoods and build grassroots movements.

There are two types of community leaders: organizers and mobilizers, said Harry Boyte of the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute. Mobilizers, he said, define an enemy of the community and create an us vs. them mentality which shuts down the critical thought process. Organizers seek to rebuild the civic culture and landscape in a community, and are not chiefly about seeking power or combating an enemy. Mobilizers are more militant and combative than organizers, said Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Kurtz and Boyte dissagreed on whether Obama was more of a mobilizer or an organizer. Both said that Obama encourged his followers not to be confrontational and use inside politics when trying to get money and legislation passed in favor of their community. But Kurtz also pointed out that Obama trained and supported leaders of ACORN, the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now, which often reverted to militant and radical tactics when trying to get bank loans for their community. Every panelist agreed that if Obama was elected president, community organization and leadership would become more prominent in America. "I can tell you if we see an Obama presidency we can see an enormous expansion of...civic re-vegetation," said Boyte.