Unca Darrell

MARCH 12 / UPDATED: "I will go line by line . . . ."

THIS POST collects all references to earmarks in the three presidential debates between Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama. The major points:

Senator McCain aggressively raised the earmarks issue in the first debate and, to a lesser extent, in the second debate. By the third debate he had dropped the issue, except once in response to a question about his differences with the Bush administration.

Senator Obama agreed that earmarks had been abused, but minimized their importance as a percentage of the overall federal budget and implicitly promised to reform the earmark system by going through the budget "line by line." Senator Obama then typically changed the subject to Senator McCain's proposed tax cuts. Senator Obama never promised to end earmarks. By the third debate Senator Obama seemed more confident in his position and raised the issue before Senator McCain did. 

Before signing the $410 billion omnibus spending bill on April 11, 2009 -- a bill with a reported 8,500 earmarks -- President Obama called for earmark reform -- essentially more executive branch oversight over the process. While reasonable minds might disagree, I believe his remarks were generally consistent with, though considerably more expansive than, his position in the debates.  

NOVEMBER 3 / The WSJ on McCain

If the 2008 election were solely about character and experience, Mr. McCain would be winning in a walk.

So say the best editorialists in America, those at the Wall Street Journal, in "McCain's Honor," November 1, 2008.

OCTOBER 23 / A thought experiment: the inevitable Mr. McCain

JOHN McCAIN knew his friendship with David Duke would be a problem.

In the old days, they had sat on boards together, and the senator had steered hundreds of thousands of dollars to hard-right education groups controlled by the unrepentant racist. Mr. Duke had even opened his home to host a campaign event for Mr. McCain.

To Mr. McCain's surprise, however, the issue rarely came up. When it did, he distanced himself from Mr. Duke's controversial views but not from his friend, personally. "Hey, it's not like he bombed the Pentagon," Mr. McCain said.

OCTOBER 6 / Unca Darrell's cognitive dissonance

Is Senator Obama still toast, as I've declared here and here? Or do his strong poll numbers show that he can win?

I'm sticking with "toast." I may be wrong, of course, but I still don't believe the American people will elect such a flawed and inexperienced candidate as our 44th president. I'll return to this theme soon.

Meanwhile, however, I'll take the numbers at face value and try to figure what they mean.

SEPTEMBER 29 / Reasons to vote for McCain and Palin

REASON NO 13. / President McCain would be more likely to appoint judges who respect the proper limits of the judiciary in a self-governing republic.

From the McCain-Palin Web site:

We are a free people. This means that the rules we have agreed to live by are those made by the people themselves, not a small elite that claims to be wiser than everybody else. Our laws are legitimate precisely because they reflect decisions solemnly made by the people -- in the case of Constitutional law, through the process of ratification and periodic amendment; in the case of statutory law, through their elected representatives in the legislative process. When applying the law, the role of judges is not to impose their own view [of] the best policy choices for society but to faithfully and accurately determine the policy choices already made by the people and embedded in the law. The judicial role is necessarily limited and one that requires restraint and humility.

SEPTEMBER 26 / Whatever happened to the bounces?

They're both dead, gone, and buried.

IN A NUTSHELL: Both parties had post-convention bounces. Both bounces were small. The Republican bounce was greater than the Democratic bounce, but not by much. Both bounces have now disappeared.

SEPTEMBER 24 / Bummer!

I was typing away on a post to recommend that Senator McCain suspend his campaign and go to Washington to help resolve the financial crisis when . . . the rascal suspended his campaign to go to Washington to help resolve the financial crisis.

Scout's honor.

SEPTEMBER 11 / Bounce watch

THE FLOOD of new support driven by Hurricane Sarah toward the red McCain-Palin states shows no sign of receding.

The Obama-Biden bounce went up, then promptly went down. The McCain-Palin bounce went up and, so far at least, is staying up. The GOP ticket:

• leads the Real Clear Politics poll of the national polls for the fifth straight day, 47.7%-to-45.2%;
• leads the RCP McCain-Obama favorability index for the third straight day, 20.8%-to-18.8%; and
• leads RCP's Intrade gambling odds for the second day. (The McCain contract costs $50.90, Obama $47.50.)

This time last month, Senator Obama was comfortably ahead on all these charts.

SEPTEMBER 10 / Bounce watch

IS THE AIR going out of the McCain-Palin bounce? Not yet, but stay tuned.

The Republican ticket scored 47.8% on the Real Clear Politics poll of national polls, down an inconsequential 0.2% from Tuesday, but still ahead of Obama-Biden's 45.5%.

LATE UPDATE: Late Wednesday (and for the first time in this election), the speculators on Intrade switched sides. The price of a McCain-Palin wagering contract is now $49.90, four bits higher than the $49.40 for Obama-Biden. Through most of June, July, and early August, Senator Obama traded above $60 and Senator McCain traded as low as $30.

(Late poll results changed yesterday's head-to-head numbers to 48.0%-to-45.6%, slightly different from those I cited in my post. The official McCain-Palin post-convention bounce is now 5.2%, compared to a 3.5% bounce for the Democrats.) 

SEPTEMBER 9 / Bounce watch

The McCain-Palin bounce appears to have topped out at 5.6%, about two points better than last week's Obama-Biden bounce.

McCain-Palin scored 48.4% on Tuesday's Real Clear Politics poll of national polls, up 0.1% from Monday and 5.6% from a week ago, 5.1% from a month ago, and 5.6% from two months ago.

More importantly, perhaps, Senator McCain took the lead today in RCP's favorability index, a chart Senator Obama once led by double digits.

UPDATE: Late today, RCP moved North Carolina (15 electoral votes) from toss-up to McCain-Palin, reducing the Obama-Biden lead to 217-to-189. (It takes 270 to win.) In the last month, Democrats have lost 21 votes and Republicans have gained 26 votes in the RCP estimate. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.