Vote-Caging by Division of Labor

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I’ve been wading through the Republican response to the DNC/Obama lawsuit seeking to prevent the use of foreclosure lists on election day to challenge voters rights to vote. In their motions to dismiss the suit, they use the party structure–and division of labor–to deny wrong-doing. Their picture of a party that barely works with other levels of the party leaves one big unspoken presence, of course: the McCain campaign, which until Saturday had been shacking up with a foreclosure law firm.

As I said, the national, state, and county GOPs are basing much of their motions to dismiss on the division of labor within the Republican party. Here is the MI GOP version–though all three motions to dismiss have something similar.

Plaintiffs indiscriminately and persistently lump the national, state and county party committees into a single entity described as “Defendant Republicans.” Throughout the lengthy complaint, plaintiffs try to parlay a disputed quote from a county chairperson into an orchestrated national and statewide campaign to obstruct the upcoming election.

After making that kind of organization argument, the RNC notes that it doesn’t have challengers–and the Democratic suit has not made the case that the MI or Macomb GOP provides challengers to the RNC–so it cannot be included in the suit.

The RNC does not have challengers of any kind and Plaintiffs have failed to allege any details that would constitute an agreement between the RNC and any party regarding poll challengers

So, the RNC argues, since there’s no evidence of what relationship exists between the RNC and the local GOP regarding staffing of polling sites with challengers (note–the RNC doesn’t deny there is such a relationship, only that the Democratic suit doesn’t allege it), it can’t be held responsible if challengers use foreclosure lists on election day.

The MI GOP adopts the RNC’s reasons for dismissal, but makes an additional argument, relying on an affidavit from Saul Anuzis, head of the MI GOP. Anuzis states that the MI GOP "nor anyone acting with its knowledge or approval has obtained lists of persons or addresses subject to foreclosure notices of proceedings" and that it "has never considered making challenges to voters based on any foreclosure notices or proceedings, will not make any such challenges, and will not endorse, approve, or participate in any such challenges by other persons or organizations."

Read more →

McCain’s Housing Surge

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Almost no one on the left is talking about McCain’s attempt to seize the economic debate last night (conservatives would be, but they heard it and went into shock). But it’s a funny gimmick that deserves closer attention. Here’s what McCain proposed:

Shaffer: With the economy on the downturn and retired and older citizens and workers losing their incomes, what’s the fastest, most positive solution to bail these people out of the economic ruin?

[snip]

McCain: Well, thank you, Tom. Thank you, Belmont University. And Sen. Obama, it’s good to be with you at a town hall meeting.

And, Alan (ph), thank you for your question. You go to the heart of America’s worries tonight. Americans are angry, they’re upset, and they’re a little fearful. It’s our job to fix the problem.

[McCain babbles about energy independence, taxes, and our debt before he hits his housing plan]

We’ve got to have a package of reforms and it has got to lead to reform prosperity and peace in the world. And I think that this problem has become so severe, as you know, that we’re going to have to do something about home values.

You know that home values of retirees continues to decline and people are no longer able to afford their mortgage payments. As president of the United States, Alan, I would order the secretary of the treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes — at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those — be able to make those payments and stay in their homes.

Is it expensive? Yes. But we all know, my friends, until we stabilize home values in America, we’re never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy. And we’ve got to give some trust and confidence back to America.

I know how the do that, my friends. And it’s my proposal, it’s not Sen. Obama’s proposal, it’s not President Bush’s proposal. But I know how to get America working again, restore our economy and take care of working Americans. Thank you. [my emphasis]

Mind you, this was McCain’s answer to the first question–he had come into the auditorium, gone immediately to his notepad to write down whatever he was coached on backstage, and then given this answer to the first question.  Read more →

Brand New McCain

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picture-45.pngThis John Heilemann column asking why McCain’s brand has tanked among journalists has gotten a lot of attention in the blogosphere. I’m fascinated more by what it says about the press than what it says about McCain.

Here’s Heilemann’s premise.

In the past several weeks, the shift of press-corps sentiment against McCain has been stark and undeniable, even among heavies such as Matthews long accused by the left of being residents of the Arizonan’s amen corner. Jonathan Alter, Joe Klein, Richard Cohen, David Ignatius, Jacob Weisberg: all former McCain admirers now turned brutal critics. Equally if not more damaging, the shift has been just as pronounced, if less operatic, among straight-news reporters. Suddenly, McCain is no longer being portrayed as a straight-talking, truth-telling maverick but as a liar, a fraud, and an opportunist with acute anger-management issues.

Note Heilemann’s assumption: this change happened in the last "several weeks." And because the press sentiment shifted, John McCain is now portrayed "as a liar, a fraud, and an opportunist with acute anger-management issues." Though he doesn’t say it explicitly, Heilemann weakly concludes that John McCain’s fall-out with his press buddies has at least exacerbated–if not caused–his recent failures.

From his initial assumptions, Heilemann tells the following narrative. He traces McCain’s popularity to his 2000 run.

McCain’s darlinghood was largely a vestige of his 2000 race in the Republican primaries, when his challenge to George W. Bush and the GOP Establishment, his reformist stances, and, not least, his freewheeling open-access press policy on the Straight Talk Express earned him countless fans among inky-fingered wretches. 

And notes all the McCain BS that the press ignored.

Over the past eight years [McCain’s brand] had proved durable, most of all with the press, which consistently saw McCain’s deviations from what were supposed to be his core beliefs as aberrations. The speech at Falwell’s university? The reversals on the Bush tax cuts and torture? The support for the teaching of “intelligent design”? All had been dismissed by the press corps as necessary hedges, as a matter of McCain doing what he had to do to win the GOP nomination.

Heilemann repeats McCain’s bogus claim that everything changed when Obama refused McCain’s town hall proposal. 

But many longtime McCain watchers say that the candidate’s own gathering sense of frustration made him ripe for such a change. Read more →

The Problem Isn’t So Much that She’s a Tax Cheat…

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The problem is that Sarah Palin improperly billed the state of Alaska so she could cart her children around to events.

Both the NYT and the WSJ confirm what tax bloggers have already concluded. The Palins did not declare the $43,490 the state reimbursed them for travel costs for Todd and the kids to accompany Sarah on official trips. And they should have–certainly for the funds reimbursing travel for the kids. Here’s the WSJ:

While several tax experts have raised serious questions about whether the payments to Gov. Palin are taxable income, they said the case was clearer cut for treating the reimbursements for the children’s expenses as taxable income. "The kids are a slam dunk problem," said Robert Spierer, a partner with the accounting firm Perelson Weiner LLP in New York City. "The husband you could make an argument that he had to be there because it was required for spouses to be there."

But not the children, he said. "I don’t think I would ever claim that on my clients’ returns. I can’t think of a real strong argument for it."

[snip]

Bryan Camp, a tax professor at Texas Tech University School of Law and a former Internal Revenue Service lawyer in Washington, said the IRS would ask several questions to determine whether the travel reimbursements were reported properly.

Those questions include whether Mr. Palin and the children were employees of the state of Alaska, whether they traveling for bona fide business purposes, and whether they would have been able to deduct those travel expenses on their own tax returns for business purposes.

Because the answer to at least one and possibly more of those questions is no, "The Palins should have reported the $43,000 in family travel allowances received in 2007 as income," Mr. Camp wrote in an analysis.

See, the Palins almost certainly owe taxes on these funds (the NYT says they owe $6000). Asssuming they pay their back taxes, they can just say, "aw shucks, we didn’ know." They do that, and we’ll stop calling them tax cheats.

(Though, given that the Palins filed their taxes on September 3 this year, after Sarah was already the GOP VP nominee, I think it fair to ask how the Palins managed to make this mistake while under the watchful eye of all those GOP handlers.)

So, fine, the Palins pay their back taxes and I’ll stop calling them tax cheats.

But that doesn’t address the underlying scam here: Sarah Palin is carting her kids (and her husband) around to official events. Read more →

And If His Contrition about Keating Is Fake, then So Is His Sincerity about Reform

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Aravosis listens to tedious McCain conference calls so you don’t have to.

Then McCain’s lawyer dropped the real bomb.

The Keating Five Investigation was "a political smear job on John [McCain]." WTF? He called Howell Heflin, who led the hearings, a "stooge" of the Democratic machine out to get poor, innocent John McCain.

This opens up the entire question of McCain’s supposed contrition. If McCain thinks he did nothing wrong, and that it was wrong for the Senate to scold him for his actions during the Keating Five Scandal, then he isn’t contrite at all, he isn’t sorry at all. He’s learned nothing. You can’t turn a new leaf when you don’t think you did anything wrong. [my emphasis]

I’d go further. As the NRO helpfully reminds us this morning (inconveniently for them, they didn’t get the memo about this latest McCain flip-flop until it was too late), McCain’s entire claim to be since about his mavericky reformer personality stems from his contrition about his mistakes with Keating.

 …his involvement in the scandal is what drove McCain to become such a relentless pain-in-the-tuchus about campaign finance reform, and arguably blind to First Amendment objections. Put aside the fact that McCain sees that his association with Keating was a mistake,…

I guess that whole maverick reform business was just a temporary, politically convenient stunt, then, if the underlying contrition was just an act. 

Debate Prep

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Let’s review the events of the last week or so for the McCain team. On Thursday, McCain precipitously withdrew from MI–the MI GOP seemed to have no warning, and his offices were already packing up and closing on Saturday. McCain then spent the weekend sequestered with his advisors in Sedona (though he did take a break on Saturday for a Happy Meal). He’s got an event in NM today (a state where Obama leads polling by greater margins than he does in MI), but the weekend retreat was notable for the way it served not just as time to retool the campaign (and, desperately, to try to count to 270) but also to prep for the debate on Tuesday. Indeed, the campaign seems to be tying their new campaign roll-out to Tuesday’s debate.

Asked at a Colorado town hall, "When are you going to take the gloves off?" the candidate grinned and replied, "How about Tuesday night?"

[snip]

A senior aide said the campaign will wait until after Tuesday’s debate to decide how and when to release new commercials, adding that McCain and his surrogates will continue to cast Obama as a big spender, a high taxer and someone who talks about working across the aisle but doesn’t deliver.

Now, that’s not entirely true–that the campaign would wait until Tuesday to roll out its new recycled smears. Sarah Palin’s been accusing Obama of palling around with terrorists since Saturday.

But it does set up a remarkable dynamic for tomorrow’s debate. After losing two debates in a row, the McCain team seems to believe it can use the next debate as an opportunity relaunch its entire campaign.

Obviously, this is the debate format McCain prefers.

Second presidential debate: all topics in town meeting format, moderated by Tom Brokaw
Tuesday, October 7, Belmont University, Nashville, TN

-Two-minute answers, followed by one-minute discussion for each question.

Or should I say preferred. McCain won New Hampshire by doing about a million town halls; and he used them a lot early in the summer. But around mid-summer (when Steve Schmidt took over the campaign, I think), McCain started vetting the attendees of these town halls. And as the WSJ points out, he has really cut back the number of town halls he is doing. In other words, McCain used to like the unscripted format of town halls, but has grown sour on them.

Read more →

New Proof On Longtime McCain Lie About Threatening Official

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In Arizona, the tales of John McCain’s angry rage and belligerent, threatening behavior in relation to the Mt. Graham Observatory project are legendary.

Today, new evidence in the form of a document, made at the time of the events, has been produced confirming the charges and demonstrating McCain’s patent dishonesty in repeatedly denying his misconduct. From Alan Maimon at the Review-Journal:

Frustrated that a massive telescope project he backed had hit a snag in 1989, Sen. John McCain lashed out at a U.S. Forest Service supervisor, threatening his job if he failed to help get approval for the project.

McCain over the years denied making the menacing comment, but newly surfaced government documents indicate that his anger boiled over to the point where he did.

The incident with the forest official wasn’t the first or last time McCain became irate at someone he felt stood in his way.

From environmental activists to former high-ranking Republican officials in his home state, a diverse group of Arizonans have vivid memories of heated skirmishes with the Republican presidential candidate.

The flare-ups started in the late 1980s, around the time that McCain and the others in the Keating Five orruption were under investigation for improper relationships and influence peddling with Charlie Keating in the Savings and Loan Bailout Scandal that led to Keating’s criminal prosecution and conviction. McCain was under immense pressure on many fronts resulting from his conduct in those days. As remains the case today, when John Sidney McCain III is under pressure, he lashes out furiously at anyone in his path. It is his way.

In an interview with the Review-Journal, former GAO manager Joe Gibbons said McCain proceeded to interfere with the agency’s work, "going bananas" and "steamrolling the GAO" to get his way.

McCain had already shown a willingness to throw his weight around, according to some involved in the Mount Graham project.
…
But Gibbons and other GAO investigators charged with examining the scientific fights over the project also reached conclusions about related personal clashes.

An internal GAO memo from 1990 obtained by the Review-Journal refers to McCain’s "admitted threat" to the forest supervisor. The memo was Read more →

Fourth Branch Sarah

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I’m sort of busy today, preparing for the special Monday Book Salon with Bart Gellman, talking about his book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. The book salon with be at 3PM ET, so prepare your questions. 

But I confess that reading the book after watching the VP Debate the other night made me laugh–rather than shudder–at Palin’s clear hopes of following in the path of Fourth Branch Dick.

IFILL: Governor, you said in July that someone would have to explain to you exactly what it is the vice president does every day. You, senator, said, you would not be vice president under any circumstances. Now maybe this was just what was going on at the time. But tell us now, looking forward, what it is you think the vice presidency is worth now.

[snip]

PALIN: No, no. Of course, we know what a vice president does. And that’s not only to preside over the Senate and will take that position very seriously also. I’m thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president’s policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are. John McCain and I have had good conversations about where I would lead with his agenda. That is energy independence in America and reform of government over all, and then working with families of children with special needs. That’s near and dear to my heart also. In those arenas, John McCain has already tapped me and said, that’s where I want you, I want you to lead. I said, I can’t wait to get and there go to work with you.

[snip]

IFILL: Governor, you mentioned a moment ago the constitution might give the vice president more power than it has in the past. Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?

PALIN: Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. Read more →

Mich-Again

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Via Marc Ambinder, Michigan’s Republicans are going to appeal directly to the hockey mom:

Subject: Dear Governor Palin from Chuck Yob
To:

Governor Palin,

I saw your comments on Fox News today and described in the Detroit Free Press article below.  I wholeheartedly agree with you that the decision by the McCain campaign to pull out of Michigan was the wrong decision.

We have all been wrong at times, and I think this is a decision that will be corrected in a couple of weeks.  We were ahead three points as of a week ago according to MRG, a polling firm that I trust more than any national pollster.

I talked to Michigan Republicans and McCain supporters on a conference call last night and they vowed to redouble their efforts.  Indeed, there will still be a campaign for John McCain in Michigan whether it is sanctioned by the professionals in Washington DC or not.

[snip]

I agree with what you said on Fox News today and I hereby invite you to come to Michigan immediately.  The good people of Macomb County, Northern Michigan, the Upper Peninsula, and Grand Rapids await your response.

Your Friend and Loyal Supporter of McCain-Palin 2008,

Chuck Yob
Michigan Co-Chairman
McCain-Palin 2008
Republican National Committee Member 1989-2008
Former Vice Chairman, Republican National Committee

At what point does Palin’s work cease supporting McCain’s 2008 campaign, and begin laying the groundwork for Palin’s own 2012 campaign? Because, first of all, Palin has the stamina to do far more events in a day than McCain. She can help the MI GOP raise money–something they desperately need. And in return, Palin would be building relationships she could call on in 2012.

Update: 2112 changed to 2012 throughout (I hope). That’s about the 12th time I’ve made that error. 2112 just looks right to me. 

Michi-Gone (But Not Forgotten)

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There’s still something funky about the way McCain pulled out of MI. As I noted yesterday, Obama was focused enough on MI to schedule a Detroit rally (Sunday, with both Obamas and both Bidens), two Michelle events (yesterday), and Grand Rapids and Lansing rallies yesterday. And, as Nate points out, MI wasn’t even the best state to pull out of based on return on investment. 

That is, Michigan actually appeared to be a slightly better place to spend their marginal resources than states like Pennsylvania or Wisconsin; a dollar there goes about 2.4 times as far as one spent in an average state.

Then there’s how quickly they made the decision (I know, I know, this is McCain, but still). The MI GOP had emergency meetings last night to devise a new strategy (and, apparently, Kissinger did a McCain campaign stop today).

Michigan Republicans kicked into overdrive last night.  We had a series of conference calls and meetings with activists and donors, coming up with our own plan on how to implement a "Michigan strategy" for McCain and the rest of our ticket.  

Which is going to be particularly tough for them, given that they were nearly broke in May and were surely counting on Cindy’s McCain’s money to support campaign events this year.

And as some have noted, Sarah Palin just found out this morning.

"Well, that’s not a surprise because, you know, the polls are showing we’re not doing as well there evidently as we would like to," Palin said. "But I read that this morning also. I fired off a quick email and said `Oh, come on, you know, do we have to? Do we have to call it there?’"

And perhaps weirdest of all, there’s the overall damage this decision will do to McCain’s campaign (Jack Lessenberry is MI’s favorite political curmudgeon).

For John McCain, pulling most of his campaign operations out of Michigan makes a certain kind of sense. On paper, anyway. But then, the Vietnam War made a certain amount of sense on paper.

Just not in reality. My guess is that the McCain camp’s decision will turn out to have been an appalling blunder for reasons that stretch far beyond Michigan. First of all, let’s look at what happened.

[snip]

My guess is that the stigma of having publicly conceded a major state a month before the election will far outweigh the advantage of having an extra staffer or two in Florida or being able to show a few ads in Maine or Ohio. Read more →