Archive for the Election 2008 Category

Speaking to a crowd of about 1,200 in Langhorne, PA, Joe Biden railed against the Republican party for failing to address issues such as decreasing real wages, job losses, and the increasing cost of gas, groceries, health care, and education. He referred to the Bush administration as “eight years of failure.”

Biden said that if he and Barack Obama are elected, they will seek to give families an extra $1,000 in tax incentives.

Obama and Biden have recently made middle class issues central to his campaign. But according to DelawareOnline, working Americans’ reactions to Biden’s appeals have been mixed. Especially in heavily Catholic areas, Biden’s pro-choice stance has cost him supporters.

At a recent event hosted by AARP, Barack Obama has come out unequivocally against Social Security privatization.

McCain’s record is full of flip-flops. Originally, he spoke out in favor of President Bush’s privatization proposals. More recently, he has backed away from these statements, declaring that they “weren’t campaign promises” and even that he “never has been for privatizing Social Security.”

Check out the full article on Obama and McCain on Social Security privatization.

This year’s presidential election is between one man who’s lost track of how many houses he owns, and another who thinks average Americans have religious faith and are against their jobs being shipped overseas out of “bitterness.” The Democratic vice presidential candidate, having never worked anywhere other than on a city council and in the Senate, has never known what it’s like to have to work for a boss who demands productivity. These are three people who have no clue how average Americans think; or if they do, they’ve learned about it the same way you and I might learn about what life is like in Uzbekistan: either through books and documentaries, or by occasionally visiting what we perceive as a foreign land.

That leaves Sarah Palin.
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Taxes are a perennial hot campaign issue. It’s therefore no wonder that both Barack Obama and John McCain are seeking to use it to their own advantage.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center looked at the candidates’ plans, and stated that both may be unworkable since deficits are already astronomical. There’s not much room for a “tax cut” when current rates of taxation are already accompanied by enormous deficits.

McCain’s plan, however, is the more costly. McCain’s ads are deceptive, if not outright fraudulent. In them, he repeatedly invokes time-tested theme of “the-Democrats-are-out-to-raise-your-taxes” and claims that he alone can save working families from a higher tax burden. It’s a lie, pure and simple.

In reality, McCain is taking a page from the familiar George W. Bush playbook: give tiny, token tax relief to the middle class while reserving all the real goodies for the ultra-rich.
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The National Review has come out with glowing praise for John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate. No great surprise. But interestingly, the ultraconservative journal frames the election in terms of middle class issues, even "reforms of taxes and health care geared to the middle class."

The big question: will these issues merely be considered "themes" or "messages" with which to court the middle class, or will the GOP duo genuinely address them in their policies?
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