First thoughts: Adding it up
Posted: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 9:20 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
First Thoughts
From Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, and Domenico Montanaro
*** Adding it up: The day after McCain and Obama spoke on the economy, the big papers -- not surprisingly -- have fact-checked their economic plans and budget numbers. And neither is passing the smell test. McCain’s assertion that he will balance the budget after his first term is getting the most scrutiny. The reason: Accomplishing that feat is difficult, especially when fighting a war and advocating big tax cuts. “It would be very difficult to achieve in the best of circumstances, and even more difficult under the policies that Senator McCain has proposed,” Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition told the New York Times. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times adds up Obama’s spending proposals and notes that it’s unlikely he will be able to pay for them as he asserts. “A variety of budget analysts are skeptical that the Democrat's agenda could survive in the face of large federal budget deficits and the difficulty of making good on his plan to raise new revenue by closing tax loopholes, ending the Iraq war and cutting spending that is deemed low-priority."
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VIDEO: The Republican candidate defends his economic plans on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
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Courting the Latino vote, Part 28: For the second time in the past 10 days, McCain and Obama speak to a large Latino group in DC. On June 28, it was to the National Association of Latino Election and Appointed Officials (NALEO). Today, it’s before the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC); McCain goes at noon ET and Obama speaks at 4:30 pm. As he did in his NALEO address, according to advanced excerpts, McCain will talk about his support for comprehensive immigration reform but will insist that the borders must be secured first; he’ll emphasize his military background; and he’ll note that one of his fellow POWs was a Mexican American. Obama, meanwhile, will once again likely note that McCain said during the GOP primaries that he wouldn’t have voted for the immigration bill he helped to author. By the way, here are the numbers: In 2004, Bush won about 40% of the Latino vote, which was up from the 35% he got in 2000. But in 2006 -- when Democrats took control of Congress at a time when many Republicans campaigned against immigration reform -- the GOP won only 30% of the Latino vote. Per the latest NBC/WSJ poll, Obama was beating McCain among Latinos by a 62%-28% margin.
*** 'Slowing,' Part 2: Strikingly, however, McCain will mention immigration and Latino issues only at the very end of his LULAC speech. At the beginning, he will once again talk about the economy and will repeat a phrase we noted yesterday -- that the economy is slowing. “All of us know what is happening to the economy,” he is expected to say. “It is slowing.” Slowing? Will we see the speechwriters change this phrase for a candidate who’s trying to suggest to American voters that he feels their pain about the struggling economy? But it is smart of McCain to focus on the economy and non-immigration issues with this Latino audience. One of the bigger mistakes non-Hispanic politicians make in targeting Hispanics is somehow assuming that their wants/needs are radically different from the rest of the population. If anything, issues like the economy, health care, and education resonate even louder in the Hispanic community than in the electorate as a whole.
*** FISA, revisited: Per NBC’s Ken Strickland, the Senate will take up the surveillance bill (FISA) today. Passage of the bill, which will probably come Wednesday, will likely include retroactive immunity for telecom companies that allegedly assisted the government in its warrantless wiretapping program shortly after 9/11. Outraged Democrats say the immunity provision will kill any court review of whether the secret program was legal or constitutional. Obama, of course, has taken some political heat on this issue from supporters -- and also opponents. He initially stood with others working to block the bill because of the immunity issue. But he now says he'll support this latest compromise bill, which has more restrictions on wiretapping but still provides immunity.
*** Webb no longer on the list: The second major Dem short-lister has taken himself off the VP list. Jim Webb, apparently after being asked for vetting materials, decided not to cooperate with the vetters and took himself out of the running. Most reports indicate he didn't want to re-litigate his past statements on women in the military among other comments. Webb becomes the second big Democrat -- Ted Strickland was the first -- to make a Sherman-esque statement regarding being picked as Obama’s VP. There’s one Virginia elected official who remains on Obama’s list: Gov. Tim Kaine.
VIDEO: NBC Political Director Chuck Todd discusses today's political headlines including Sen. Jim Webb expressing no interest in being Barack Obama's vice president.
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Hardly slim Pickens: Here’s some news that’s bound to spark some interest today: T. Boone Pickens -- the billionaire oilman who has funded both the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as well as Oklahoma State football -- is running an ad campaign to end America’s dependence on oil. Per the
Dallas Morning News, Pickens “has a plan to solve the country's $700 billion-a-year dependence on foreign oil. Replace gasoline with natural gas. Replace natural gas-fired power plants with wind, solar, nuclear and clean coal. Basically, replace foreign oil with domestic fuel without straining those resources… He'll spend tens of millions of dollars on television and Web advertising and will make talk show appearances along the way.”
*** Peachy for Obama in the Peach State? In 2000, Bush beat Gore in Georgia by 12 points, 55%-43%. Four years later, he upped that margin over Kerry to 17 points, 58%-41%. So why does Obama think he can put the state -- where he visits today and also had two fundraisers last night -- in play? The reasons: 1) it's one of the youngest states in the union, and he’s likely to over-perform with young voters; 2) he can register more African-American voters and then maximize turnout; 3) the state's teeming with non-native voters, who might be more willing to vote Democratic; 4) Bob Barr's name is on the ballot, and that could draw conservatives; and 5), the Obama camp is hoping evangelicals in the state sit on their hands for McCain. Obama needs all five of these factors to come true to make Georgia competitive, which won’t be easy. If Obama ever starts pulling resources from a state to focus on others, we're guessing that Georgia, which isn’t a cheap place to advertise, is one of the first states they'd yank cash from. But they'll wait and see how their voter registration drive goes in that state first.
*** Viva Las Vegas? And Georgia isn’t the only state on our minds this morning. Nevada political guru Jon Ralston has this nugget regarding the Silver State: “[T]he Democrats now have a 55,560-voter lead over the Republicans in a state that was dead even a presidential cycle ago. But the numbers in CD3 should be the most worrisome to the GOP, as Democrats now have a nearly 24,000-voter lead in a district that was even only two years ago.” Dems have seen voter registration spikes in a number of battleground states, and Obama's spending a lot of money on voter registration. We won't know for sure the payoff until the fall.
*** On the trail: Besides speaking to LULAC, McCain holds interviews in DC with AARP officials, the American Legion’s national commander, Poland’s foreign minister, and Pakistan’s ambassador before heading to Pittsburgh to meet with the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial page. And Obama has a town hall in Powder Springs, GA.
Countdown to Dem convention: 48 days
Countdown to GOP convention: 55 days
Countdown to Election Day 2008: 119 days
Countdown to Inauguration Day 2009: 196 days
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