Campaign War (September 22)
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- The day begins with both Barack Obama and John McCain announcing new television ads to be used nationwide. Barack Obama’s ad “Article” links John McCain’s plans for health care to current financial crisis -
“We’ve seen what Bush-McCain policies have done to our economy,” goes the script. “Now John McCain wants to do the same to our health care. McCain just published an article praising Wall Street deregulation… Said he’d reduce oversight of the health insurance industry too… Just ‘as we have done over the last decade in banking’…Increasing costs and threatening coverage. A prescription for disaster.
- John McCain’s ad on the other hand links Obama to ‘Chicago political machine‘.
“Barack Obama: Born of the corrupt Chicago political machine.” That’s an inaccurate statement — Obama wasn’t a machine candidate in the state Senate or in the U.S. Senate primary. However, he has been backed by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and other establishment Democrats since he got the Senate nomination in 2004 and has worked with them.
The ad goes on to list establishment Democrats and their connection to Obama — some stronger than others.
- Barack Obama gave a major speech on Economy in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Text of the full speech is here. From the speech -
Well let’s be clear. When it comes to regulatory reform, Senator McCain has fought time and time again against the common-sense rules of the road that could’ve prevented this crisis. His economic plan was written by Phil Gramm, the architect in the US Senate of the de-regulatory steps that helped cause this mess. Even knowing what we know now, Senator McCain said in an interview just last night that de-regulation actually helped grow our economy. Well that might be true for the profits of a few CEOs, but it’s certainly not true for America’s prosperity.
- John McCain said he does not regret deregulation and is still convinced it was helpful to economy on his appearance at 60 Minutes.
- Newsweek reports that John McCain with his wife has 13 cars, 7 houses and a private Jet compared to Barack Obama’s 1 house, 1 car and 0 Jet, illustrated well in this picture -
- [Update 1] The Associated Press/Yahoo poll conducted with the help of Stanford university predicts that Obama could lose up to six percentage points on the election day due to his race. The poll of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27-Sept. 5, and was designed to probe people’s racial attitudes and how those attitudes affect voting.
- [Update 1] John McCain campaigning in Pennsylvania demanded greater oversight in the financial bailout plan.
“Never before in the history of our nation has so much power and money been concentrated in the hands of one person. This arrangement makes me deeply uncomfortable,” the presidential candidate said at a rally here. “We will not solve a problem caused by poor oversight with a plan that has no oversight.”
- [Update 2] New York Times reports that John McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis was paid $2 million by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Rick Davis does not deny the fact that he was paid but says he was paid to “promote the cause of home-ownership“.
…Davis said only that he was involved in an effort to promote the cause of home-ownership — but that he wasn’t actually a lobbyist. “I never lobbied a single day,” Davis said –
- [Update 3] A new CNN poll suggests Republicans are thought be responsible for the problems at Wall Street and as a result Obama gains.
A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll suggests that by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans blame Republicans over Democrats for the financial crisis that has swept across the country the past few weeks — one factor that may have contributed to an apparent increase in Barack Obama’s edge over John McCain in the race for the White House.
- [Update 4] John McCain’s campaign convened a conferernce call this afternoon to complain of media bias. The call was hosted by campaign manager Rick Davis and strategist Steve Schmidt. But politico reported there were very obvious misstatements and fact twisting in the conference call.
- [Update 5] Politico gives the day to Obama.
Yet again, Obama-Biden did what it needed to do today, keeping the economy at the center of the conversation and expanding its attack on McCain’s healthcare proposals. Under different circumstances, Obama could have a tricky needle to thread this week, as congressional Democrats engage the Bush administrations in a high-stakes debate on the Wall Street bailout. But starting tomorrow he’ll be sequestered in debate prep, so he may be able to avoid some of the week’s tougher questions.
It’s harder to judge the McCain campaign’s performance today. On the one hand, McCain seems more comfortable talking about the economy as he gets more critical of the bailout plan. On the other hand, Steve Schmidt’s Times-bashing went one step too far, sounding desperate rather than merely confrontational. This may have been McCain’s best day in a week – but that’s not saying too much.
