Hold your nose and vote on Tuesday, November 4, 2008: President and Vice President

[mithriltabby]

• Overviews: Google’s Director of Research has an Election FAQ. Gary Kamiya’s open letter to independent and undecided voters. Obama is really trying hard for the Lincoln comparisons: he plans to include Republicans in his cabinet. Public Citizen’s 2007–8 scorecard gives Obama a 63% (due to missed votes rather than voting against their positions), Biden an 88% (ditto), McCain 0% (missed most of the votes, votes against them the rest of the time). A former publisher of National Review considers Obama to be a better conservative than McCain. I find the past-is-past, look-to-the-future rhetoric from McCain and Palin deeply offputting: I am a strong believer in accountability, and they come across as ducking it. The Economist’s Election 2008 special coverage. Associated Press’ summary on the issues. Project Vote Smart on Obama and McCain; both flunked their Political Courage Test. On the Issues covers Obama and McCain.
• Legislative and positional records: McCain does have some disagreements with Bush. Obama has a long enough record that you can judge him by his laws; “present” votes are political strategy; Obama defied his own party to pass real ethics reform. OpenCongress on their legislative accomplishments, 50 key Senate votes, and details on Obama and McCain. The Washington Monthly covers their co-sponsored legislation in the 109th Congress and 110th Congress, and the bills and amendments in both.
• The economy: Dilbert Survey of Economists. Are we better off today than eight years ago? Robert Reich compares McCainonomics Versus Obamanomics. The Economist: a choice of remedies; changing the rules. Alan Blinder, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, says an Obama victory will lead to faster economic growth and less inequality. Barack Obama’s chief economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, has the grudging respect even of George Will, and The Economist calls his team “impeccably centrist”; he also has former Fed chairman Paul Volcker advising him. A Free-Market-Loving, Big-Spending, Fiscally Conservative Wealth Redistributionist: How Obama Reconciles Dueling Views on Economy is a good article. Obama can provide smart regulation to rein in our out-of-control markets. The Economists for Obama blog has plenty of information. Obama is no die-hard lefty; his Director of Economic Policy used to work at the dreaded Wal-Mart. Progressive Voter Guide to the Economy. Labor standards could improve our trade deficit, but McCain opposes them.
  John McCain’s economic guru is Phil Gramm (who McCain won’t rule out as a selection for Secretary of the Treasury), who contributed to the subprime meltdown, enabled the Enron fiasco (remember rolling blackouts here in California?), and bears significant responsibility among the many contributors to our current economic crisis; his advisors include the heads of tax-evading companies. McCain has has supported Social Security privatization since 1999. McCain was for deregulation for 26 years (even the reform attempt he touts failed because, according to the bill’s author, it lacked a champion in the Senate), and now he’s suddenly for regulation. His balanced budget is pretty much vaporware, he’d run up huge deficits, and his tax cuts won’t reach 100 million households. People claiming that Obama is a socialist are looking in the wrong party: McCain himself has said “Here’s what I really believe: That when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more.” Paul Krugman opines: “Ben Bernanke and I think Hank Paulson understand that we could manage to have another Great Depression if we work at it hard enough. I think Phil Gramm might be just the guy to do it.” (McCain’s touted spending freeze would probably do the job.) Obama, on the other hand, is getting advice from Warren Buffett, who warned that derivatives were “financial weapons of mass destruction” five years ago, and has a strongly reality-based team.
  Bottom line: we can’t afford to have another deficit-spending tax-cutting zealot in charge of the country. The Republicans need some time in the political wilderness to give their reality-based fiscal conservatives an opportunity to wrest control of the party back from the current fiscally reckless leadership— the common-sense types Garrison Keillor reminisces about. McCain is dangerously clueless about economics— witness the gas-tax holiday, the “fundamentals of our economy are strong” gaffe and his sudden turnaround on regulation— and his advisers won’t lead him to good policy; we’re going to need smart regulations applied to restabilize the economy, his team aren’t equipped to figure out what those are, and we can’t afford to have them learn on the job. Obama is a sensible pragmatist who can start the massive job of fixing the screwups of the past thirty years (and I’m including the Clinton years here— Bill signed off on some pretty dumb things too). The only big changes he’ll make of his own accord will be to move the economy back toward the center; if folks to the left of the center-right Democratic Party want him to do anything groundbreaking, they’ll need to create significant demand in the electorate. The only way out of our mess of deregulation, debt, and trade imbalance is reality-based policy, and the only candidate dealing in reality-based policy is Barack Obama. He’s not a national-scale magical negro who will save us all from our own folly, but he’ll facilitate sensible legislation rather than be a roadblock for it. We will still need to exert pressure on our congresscritters to show sense as well.
• Taxes: Obama and McCain Tax Proposals show that most of McCain’s tax cuts go to the wealthy (particularly the top 1%), while Obama would help everyone under $250,000/year; Freakonomics has alternate visualizations of the same data. The Tax Policy Center provides analysis; they note McCain will increase the debt more than Obama would, particularly when he doubles the Bush tax cuts. This online calculator compares the two candidates’ tax cuts; Politifact critiques the Obama-sponsored calculator. Even McCain’s economic adviser admits the next President is going to have to raise taxes, which will put McCain in the same class as Reagan and Bush 41. Obama’s economic team discusses the candidates’ plans in the Wall Street Journal. The McCain plan would create only 450,000 jobs in 2009 at a cost of $280bn; we need 1.5m a year just to keep up, and a well-designed plan could create 2m.
  Bottom line: Trickle-down economics doesn’t work. In the past thirty years, we’ve seen a staggering rise in income inequality and repeated gut-punches to the American dream. If we reverse this trend with some trickle-up economics, a better-educated workforce will create prosperity for the corporations that employ them. A rising tide that lifts rowboats will lift yachts as well. John McCain has thrown away his credibility as a fiscal conservative; the man who said that Bush’s tax cuts shocked his conscience has apparently been replaced. (Or, as Jon Stewart said: “McCain is the first POW to be brainwashed after captivity.”)
• Environment: The Economist: greener than thou. Obama’s team. McCain’s team. McCain has his head in the oil sands: his plan has giveaways to existing polluters (economically a bad idea; Obama’s plan to auction all permits makes much more sense) and his environmental record is as bad as James Inhofe’s. The League of Conservation Voters gives Obama 96%-67%/18%, McCain 6%-36%-56%-41%-0%/0%, Biden 88%-96%-92%-93%-67%/64%. I’m not thrilled with the joint enthusiasm for “clean coal”— it should be approached with a great deal more skepticism— and I don’t think John McCain has actually studied the real costs of all those nuclear power plants he wants to build: $315bn, much of it out of our pockets.
  Bottom line: we’ve been squandering precious time in which the United States could have been making an effort to clean up our environmental act and become the world leader in green technologies. That window is closing fast, and Barack Obama is going to do a much better job of seizing what remains of that opportunity. Greening will boost California’s economy by $27 billion and create 100,000 new jobs; it has already added $45bn and 1.5m jobs to the economy over the past three decades.
• Science and technology: Both candidates responded to Science Debate 2008. Nature’s Election 2008 special. Scientists & Engineers for America profile McCain and Obama. Popular Mechanics: Geek the Vote. Wired Magazine gives McCain a D, Obama a B. Obama will restore the presidential science adviser to a position that reports directly to the president, and has the endorsement of 63 Nobel prize winning scientists. Obama’s science advisers. Sarah Palin wants creationism taught in science class. McCain has a very bad record on broadband.
  Bottom line: I don’t see any signs of someone who will simply ignore or outright suppress scientific results like the Bush Administration has. Obama is better equipped to understand scientific issues and why they matter to the well-being of our nation; he understands the importance of network neutrality, while McCain will happily allow our ISPs to exploit monopoly power over our Internet connections.
• Education: The Economist: still at risk. The 2006 and 2007 National Education Association scorecards give McCain an F, Obama an A, Biden an A. McCain is a fan of school vouchers, which don’t work very well.
• Foreign policy: The Economist: the best of enemies; which war? The Council on Foreign Relations on Obama’s Advisers and McCain’s Advisers. Obama has been ahead of the game the whole time. He was for troop withdrawal before the prime minister of Iraq was. He was for sending troops to Afghanistan before McCain was. The Obama Doctrine. McCain thinks tough talk is all you need to solve problems. (If you want an indicator of who will really support our troops, note that our troops deployed abroad give six times as much to Obama as to McCain.) Obama has 60 former generals and admirals advising him, so I wouldn’t worry about military naïveté. Petraeus’ talk bolsters Obama more than McCain. John McCain has Bush trying to delay the Iraq withdrawal for political reasons. Critic or cheerleader? The McCain Iraq Timetable. McCain’s top foreign policy adviser is the neoconservative Randy Scheunemann, who helped Ahmed Chalabi furnish bogus information that was part of Bush’s case for invading Iraq. McCain’s notion of forming a League of Democracies to snub China and Russia is likely to create diplomatic setbacks when we need to keep them engaged.
  Bottom line: We need a president whose worldview isn’t stuck in the Cold War and centered around using military force to solve everything. Diplomacy and economic pressure are important foreign policy tools, and McCain is ill-equipped to use them; he’s already shot himself in the foot with regard to Iran, as his credibility in negotiations will look poor with his record showing him singing “bomb bomb Iran” and joking about killing them with cigarettes. Obama has a much better chance of being able to make competent use of the entire foreign policy toolbox.
• Health care: Compare side by side. The Economist: running for cover. Why Obama’s Health Plan is Better. Analyses vary, but most expect that Obama’s plan will reduce the number of uninsured more than McCain’s. Obama’s plan probably won’t save a full $2500 per year, but is more realistic than McCain’s. McCain’s plan will likely cause at least twenty million Americans to lose employer-sponsored coverage, and will become an effective tax increase very quickly. Making Light on McCain’s plan. A more scary insight into McCain’s health plan is to use a direct quote from him: “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.” (The Wonk Room criticizes FactCheck.org’s coverage of Obama’s attack on that issue.) McCain gets far better benefits than people would under his health plan.
  Bottom line: McCain’s health plan would be a disaster; Obama’s won’t live up to all his claims, but it will be an improvement to the current state of affairs.
• Veterans: Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America have a Veteran Report Card giving McCain a D, Obama a B, Biden a B. Disabled American Veterans has a 2006 scorecard, and tracks McCain (who got a 20% score for 2006), Obama (who got an 80% score for 2006), and Biden (who got a 75% score for 2006). VoteVets.org are unhappy with McCain and assert that a vote for McCain is a vote for the draft. McCain’s Veterans Access Card Plan would be devastating to veterans’ health care.
• Judicial Nominations: McCain has said that he will appoint justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito, likes judges who think the New Deal is on a par with Leninism, and thinks the right of habeas corpus has something to do with a prisoner’s selection of diet and reading material. McCain could tilt the Supreme Court far to the right; Obama is unlikely to have a chance to tilt it to the left. John McCain: Looking to the Framers. Barack Obama: the Present is Prologue. Washington Monthly on the candidates’ expected behavior. The Supreme Court and the Election: What’s at Stake (be sure to read the other contributions to the forum linked at the end of the article).
• Civil Rights: The ACLU Congressional Scorecard gives lifetime scores: McCain 22%, Obama 82%, Biden 86%. The Human Rights Campaign scorecards give McCain 14%-25%-33%-0%, Obama 89%-94%, Biden 100%-63%-78%-95%. The NAACP scorecard for the 109th Congress gives McCain 7%, Obama 100%, Biden 100%. Americans United for Separation of Church and State gives Biden 100%, McCain 33%, Obama 100% in 2006. Given that McCain has no respect for habeas corpus or the Fourth Amendment (e.g.: his opposition to holding telecommunications companies accountable for breaking the law), I hold little hope for our freedoms under a McCain presidency.
• Reproductive choice: Obama has a 100% record from NARAL Pro-Choice America, and their endorsement; NARAL would like you to Meet the Real McCain, whom they rate with a 0% pro-choice score. Planned Parenthood give Obama 100%, McCain 0%. Sarah Palin wants to make abortion illegal even in cases of rape and incest, though she certainly tries to duck out of ever saying it on camera. Obama’s plans do include significant efforts to reduce demand for abortion.
• Fact checking: I’m displeased that both candidates play fast and loose with the truth, but I note that Obama has far fewer “Pants on Fire” statements than McCain; the Straight Talk Express is currently a burned wreck at the bottom of a cliff, while McCain claims he “always had 100 percent absolute truth”. Politifact’s flip-o-meter. Jukebox John keeps changing his tune. The Real McCain put together two videos showing McCain’s turnarounds. If McCain becomes President, he will do so having proved that barefaced lying is the most effective way to deal with the American people, and I shudder at the thought of what kind of precedent that would set for his administration. FactCheck.org don’t have their rulings conveniently indexed by candidate, but are worth perusing.
• Spin correction: A refresher on community organizing. Hey there, Joe Six-Pack. I don’t think the McCain-is-senile rumors have legs; I do think McCain has fallen out of the habit of stretching his mind, and that’s why he keeps forgetting that Czechoslovakia split into two countries fifteen years ago, mixes up his Sunnis and Shias, and seems to think Spain is in Latin America. (Age alone isn’t the problem: Bill Moyers, for example, is older than McCain and seems to be doing just fine. McCain’s just not doing any of the mental workouts that keep the brain sharp.) McCain has his share of pork barrel projects, though it’s still pretty small; Sarah Palin has sought more pork per workday than Barack Obama. The NRA won the Pants-on-Fire award at Politifact for their attacks on Obama. The Ayers controversy is complete hype by a desperate campaign; FactCheck.org and Politifact.com both disdain the attack. The ACORN hysteria is likewise bunk. Obama is not a Jesus figure who will solve all our problems; he’s a tough Chicago politician who knows how to fight dirty. Biden’s rep for plagiarism is mostly propaganda. The real Mavericks take offense at McCain appropriating their name. The graphic showing how much better the economy performs under Democratic presidents is an example of “correlation is not causation”; there just isn’t enough data to show that that’s the controlling variable. While some think McCain is a Dead Man Walking, his actuarial odds are pretty good for his first term.
• Follow the money: Open Secrets on Obama and McCain. MAPLight.org on Obama and McCain. White House for Sale on Obama and McCain; note how McCain has five times as many lobbyist bundlers as Obama. (Obama is certainly not without his ties to special interests.) Fortune 535 shows just how rich Obama and McCain are. They’re both pretty cosy with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with McCain’s campaign manager getting $30k from them per month over five years through 2005 and another $15k per month since 2006. McCain is pretty friendly with the gambling lobbyists. McCain has raked in $150M for the RNC to bypass public financing rules, and Obama has followed suit.
• Veepstakes: Politifact.com: Biden. Palin. On the Issues: Biden, Palin. Biden’s Brief: Obama picked his running mate to help him govern. Palin doesn’t even know how much she doesn’t know about energy, and gave a dogwhistle to anti-Semitic bigots in her acceptance speech; her track record as mayor wasn’t great (neither her environmental record nor her fiscal one), her cronyism is positively Bush-like, her subpoena-ignoring is Cheneyesque, her acquaintance with observable reality is poor, she loved the earmarks so much she hired a lobbyist, and she was found to have violated her own state’s ethics laws, then lied with a claim that she had been cleared of unethical activity. Teresa Nielsen Hayden is concerned about Palin’s judgment. Palin is a GOPAC alumnus, so she’s not the outsider she pretends to be. We should be seriously worried at the prospect of a President Palin.
• Fluff and miscellany: Obama’s game is poker; McCain’s is craps. Obama is closer to the center than McCain.
• Humor: Is Barack Obama the Messiah? Things Younger than McCain. They're both Great Old Ones! General McClellan responds to Sarah Palin from beyond the grave. Adventuring party politics. If Jesus were running for President.

Bottom line: I used to like and respect John McCain, even though I had policy differences with him; in some parallel universe where McCain stuck to his principles from 2000, the alternate version of me is contemplating a race between Obama-Biden and McCain-Snowe and feeling a great deal more sanguine about the election than I am. Sadly, in this universe, that John McCain is gone; perhaps he never really existed, or was broken by pressure from the GOP elite, and the current one has a batch of advisers I strongly distrust and a record of breaking his own principles to get votes. Barack Obama is a very smart guy who is willing and able to listen to contrasting viewpoints and find common ground so we can move forward in a time of intense partisanship; he’s a realist who won’t ignore the facts on the ground. I’m voting for Barack Obama.