Hillery, Obama, Edwards and the Democrates

I imagine everyone noted that the entirely predictable cable media notion yesterday on the barack/hillary 'truce' (repeated over and over on every channel) was "how long will it last?".

If you can't offer up red meat then the next best thing is to promise that you are out seriously hunting for it and tomorrow's menu is bound to include it.

Oh, I dont think we've suddenly seen the end of all too overt contention among the candidates, or that they will suddenly filter out all the subjects from those contentions that you have declared unwise over time from now on forward. It's clear that they've been taken aback by the speed with which the race argument, specifically, escalated last week, and so they dialled down the tone significantly in this last debate. But depending on how the results of the next few primaries turn out, you can bet that a more contentious tone will return, and some of the issues you consider undesirable for discussion (eg, perceived dirty campaign tricks from each other's campaigns and proxies, or Hillary's personality and trustworthiness) will return.

Uh, yes, have you seen the Republican debates?

okie wrote:

Watching this debate is nothing but listenting to platitudes. I have yet to hear anything specific in terms of policy.

okie wrote:

They are trying to get the candidates to take a stand on something, anything, please. They don't want to. They would rather ride the fence. [..] None of the candidates have any answers.

okie wrote:

The debate was pretty much a flop in my opinion, big on platitudes, weak on details.

I've got to take issue with you here Okie.

First off, for sure, I too thought that the debate was rather boring - and I thought George's description was apt. Out of fear of escalating tensions, the candidates were so cautious and eager to underline all their commonalities that they made little headway in actually making clear what their differences were, beyond one or two specific issues (like nuclear energy). If this is what responsible debating by Blatham's prescription is like, then it's of little benefit to the actual primary voter trying to make an informed decision.

But what you said here several times about there not being anything concrete, specific or substantive in the debate is just plain wrong. It was right there for those who wanted to hear. Lots of specifics. The positions the candidates took often differed only in nuance and often overlapped, but each candidate brought a long list of specific, concrete and substantive ideas and proposals.

Here, let me go by the transcript Butrflynet provided. Of course, you will starkly disagree with most of these policy proposals, as a committed conservative. But you can not say that there just wasnt anything specific present in terms of policy. In fact, I dare say you'd be hard-fetched to extract a similar amount of concrete proposals from any one Republican debate. Or from earlier Democratic debates where there were still seven, eight candidates jockeying for speaking time, for that matter.

On the mortgages crisis:

Hillary Clinton

• "a moratorium on foreclosures for 90 days"
  
  
• "freezing interest rates for five years"

[*] The foreclosures are also starting to cause "a slowdown in property tax receipts" for local governments, which "means police services and other services start to deteriorate". Therefore there should be "a fund of about $30 billion that communities and states could go to work [with] in order to prevent foreclosures and the consequences of foreclosures."[/list]

Barack Obama

• provisions for the mortgage industry that he already proposed a year ago but that "the mortgage industry spen[t] $185 million lobbying" to defeat, would force them to "disclose properly what kinds of loans [they're] giving to people on mortgages." "You've got to disclose [it] if you've got a teaser rate and suddenly their mortgage payments are going to jack up and they can't pay for them."

John Edwards

• "we have to release people who are in bankruptcy as a consequence of health care"
  
  
• "a $10 billion housing fund that can help bridge people who have been responsible in making their payments."
  
  
• "a national law cracking down on predatory and payday lenders"

Minimum wage / Unemployment

John Edwards

"The national minimum wage should be at least nine and a half dollars an hour. It ought to be indexed to go up on its own."

Hillary Clinton

• "make sure the unemployment compensation system is there for people as they begin to get laid off"
  
  
• "have about $5 billion put to work right now to employ people in green-collar jobs", for example with "electrical workers being trained to put in solar panels."

Education

John Edwards

"Any young person in America who's willing to work when they're in college, at least 10 hours a week, we'll pay for their tuition and books at a state university or community college. And that can be paid for by getting rid of big banks as the intermediary in student loans. They make $4 billion or $5 billion a year. That money ought to be going to sending kids to college."

Taxes

Barack Obama

• Right now, a CEO of a Fortune 500 company pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. "[P]art of the reason is because he primarily gets his income from dividends and capital gains, and he's taxed at a lower rate." That would change in the "shift that I'm proposing in our tax rates".
  
  
• Tax relief, on the other hand, will be provided to lower and middle income people. "If you're making less than $75,000 a year, we are proposing that we offset the payroll tax to give you relief, $1,000 for the average family."
  
  
• If you're "a senior citizen who is making less than $50,000 a year, or getting less than $50,000 in Social Security benefits, then you shouldn't have to pay taxes on that Social Security income."
  
  
• "Homeowners who do not itemize their deductions [will get] a mortgage deduction credit"
  
  
• potentially "exempt middle income folks [..] from increases in capital gains and dividends"
  
  
• "we're going to pay for that by closing loopholes, closing tax havens, and yes, rolling back some of these [tax] breaks that have gone disproportionately to the wealthiest Americans."

Hillary Clinton

"tax rebates for middle class and working families, not for the wealthy who've already done very well under George Bush."

Campaign finance

Barack Obama

• "Part of the reason that you know who's bundling money for various candidates is because of a law I passed this year, which says: Lobbyists, if you are taking money from anybody and putting it together and then giving it to a member of Congress, that has to be disclosed."
  
  
• "I'm a cosponsor of [a] proposal that's in the Senate [for] a system of public financing of campaigns"

War in Iraq

Hillary Clinton

• "I've introduced legislation that clearly requires President Bush to come to the United States Congress" before "entering] into an agreement with the Iraqi government" about "continu[ing] America's presence in Iraq, long after [he] leaves office". He has "to come to the United States Congress to get anything that he's trying to do, including permanent bases, numbers of troops, all the other commitments he's talking about as he's traveling in that region."
  
  
• "[When] I become president, we will start withdrawing within 60 days [..], one to two brigades a month, [..] and we'll have nearly all the troops out by the end of the year"

John Edwards

• "I will have all combat troops out in the first year that I'm president".
  
  
• "I will end combat missions."
  
  
• "while I'm president, there will be no permanent military bases in Iraq."
  
  
• "as long as you keep combat troops in Iraq, you continue the occupation. If you keep military bases in Iraq, you're continuing the occupation. The occupation must end."
  
  
• But "I would keep a quick reaction force in Kuwait in case it became necessary" to strike at Al Qaida.

Barack Obama

• "get our troops out by the end of 2009."
  
  
• "My first job as president [..] is going to be to call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff and say, "You've got a new mission," and that is to responsibly, carefully, but deliberately start to phase out our involvement there"
  
  
• no "permanent bases" in Iraq
  
  
• "But [..] we are going to have to protect our embassy. We're going to have to protect our civilians. We're engaged in humanitarian activity there."
  
  
• "We are [also] going to have to have some presence that allows us to strike if Al Qaida is creating bases inside of Iraq" [..] in which case there would potentially be a combat aspect" [..]

The US Military

Hillary Clinton

• "a new, 21st-century G.I. Bill of Rights [that will give] our young veterans [..] the money to get to college and to buy a home and start a business."
  
  
• "the Bush administration [had] the Pentagon trying to take away the signing bonuses when a soldier gets wounded and ends up in the hospital, something that I'm working with a Republican senator to try to make sure never can happen again."
  
  
• "expand civilian national service"

Barack Obama

• "increase [..] our force structure, particularly around the Army and the Marines, [so that we can] put an end to people going on three, four, five tours of duty"
  
  
• "I've put forward a national service program that is tied to my tuition credit for students who want to go to college. You get $4000 every year to help you go to college. In return, you have to engage in some form of national service. Military service has to be an option."
  
  
• Under the Bush administration, "the wounded warriors who [came] back" were "still paying for their meals and their phone calls while in Walter Reed, while rehabbing". "I was able to gain the cooperation of a Republican-controlled Senate at the time and pass a bill that would eliminate that."

John Edwards

• "narrow [the] gap between civilian pay and military pay, and help [military] families with their child care."
  
  
• "a guaranteed stream of funding for the Veterans Administration so we don't have veterans waiting six months or a year to get the health care that they deserve."
  
  
• "Every man and woman who comes back from Iraq or Afghanistan deserves to have a thorough comprehensive evaluation of their medical needs, including mental health needs and physical health needs. Every one of them ought to get job training if they need it, and additional education if they need it."

All candidates

Answered "yes" to Russert's question whether they would "vigorously enforce the statute to cut off federal funding [to] a college or university [that] does not provide space for military recruiters or provide a ROTC program for its students".

(Only Hillary, when questioned about "the top 10 rated schools, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, [who] do not have ROTC programs on campus" suggested more ambiguously that "there are ways they can work out fulfilling that obligation".)

-------------------------------------------

And on it goes.. I'm tired of typing now, but here's the other issues that individual candidates had concrete and specific things to say about:

• Energy policy, Yucca Mountain, nuclear energy, alternative energy resources
  
  
• Immigration policy, English as an official language, problems of African-Americans and Latinos
  
  
• More on Education policy
  
  
• Gun control
  
  
• Pakistan

...
The stakes have rarely been higher in a presidential election. The question is not if there will be change in American leadership, but what kind.

And the change that is being offered has a focus and intelligence that is kindred to the best American traditions. It is embodied by one candidate in the Democratic Party who is offering a reinvigorated America: Senator Barack Obama.

The New York Observer urges New York Democrats to support Mr. Obama in the state's presidential primary on Feb. 5.

New Yorkers might ask why they should not pull a lever for our junior senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton. While Mrs. Clinton is an extraordinary United States senator for New York, we believe that Mr. Obama can be a great president for the United States of America.

Most of the other candidates have absorbed, assimilated or appropriated Mr. Obama's issue of change. It is a powerful concept. But a great deal of the argument for Mr. Obama's candidacy is about one great issue in American life: restoring and reinvigorating American democracy.

Democracy is the greatest strength of this still-young nation. Its living enactment is our gift to the world. It is the product of our best instincts and most powerful ideals. But it has been polluted, sullied and compromised by an obstructive administration that seems to have to have no particular regard for its attributes.

It is difficult to remember the last national candidate who has charged and jazzed the democratic system as Mr. Obama has. Partly as a result of his candidacy, college campuses have remembered why they are proud of the United States, kids are going door to door, runners are handing out leaflets on weekends, racial lines have been culturally melted and the electoral approach to presidential campaigning has been reborn.

And, as more than one commentator has said, America is being reintroduced to the world.

Because of who he is and what he stands for, a former constitutional law teacher with few ties to the Washington establishment yet a sophisticated respect for it, Mr. Obama stands the best chance of restoring the essential relationship between power and the American people. He is not flanked and blocked by an existing, entrenched power structure; his words are not muddied by layers of handlers; he still says what he means.

We believe that Mr. Obama's idealism and fresh ideas would ensure that the end of the Bush era would also mean an end to government by secrecy, Cheneyism, arrogance, oligarchy; an end to mindless armed unilateralism abroad; an end to the blustering, rank partisan disputes of the last quarter-century.


...

Obama Camp Complains to Nevada Dems

Jan 23 02:19 PM US/Eastern
By JIM KUHNHENN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Barack Obama's presidential campaign complained in a letter to the Nevada Democratic Party Wednesday that rival Hillary Rodham Clinton benefited from numerous violations of party rules during the state's caucuses on Saturday.

Clinton won the caucuses' popular vote by a margin of 51 percent to 45 percent. Under complicated delegate allocation rules, however, Obama could receive 13 delegates to Clinton's 12.

The letter to Nevada Democratic Chairwoman Jill Derby from Obama lawyer Robert Bauer lists instances of early door closings, obstruction of voters, and improper handling of voter preference cards. Obama aides said the campaign has received more than 1,600 complaints, including 300 that came in to a hotline at the time of the caucuses.

Bauer said the campaign is not challenging the outcome of the caucuses at the precinct level, but he asked Derby to conduct an inquiry into the Clinton campaign tactics during the caucuses. The campaign offered to provide the names and contact information of the individuals making the complaints as well as unedited copies of their accounts.

The Clinton campaign has also complained about behavior at the caucuses. On Sunday, Clinton senior adviser Dave Barnhart said he witnessed an enormous "gantlet" of Obama supporters at the Mirage casino-hotel caucus site who tried to intimidate Clinton backers.

Attached to the Obama complaint was an instruction sheet that Bauer's letter attributed to the Clinton campaign. The sheet offers guidance on how to persuade caucus goers to caucus for Clinton.

One line states: "It's not illegal unless they tell you so."

"This certainly suggests that, for the Clinton campaign, the operative standard was, simply and only, what it could get away with," Bauer wrote.

The letter complained that the Clinton camp distributed a caucus guide to supporters that said caucus site doors would close at 11:30 a.m. The party's rules stated that caucuses would be called to order at 11:30 a.m. but said attendees had to be signed in by noon.
Neither the Clinton campaign nor the Nevada Democratic Party had an immediate response to the Obama campaign letter.

This is all same old rehashed stuff, but you are right, it is policy. I doubt if I believe them, so I don't take it very serious.

Okay, good job, nimh. Most of the debate I saw, almost all the portion I saw was just how qualified am I compared to you, my experience is better than yours, on and on, it was amateurish at best, and childish. And most of the statements of policy have little rebuttal [..] injected into the mix, just my opinion.

It can't be dismissed as over zealous supporters just whining anymore. Lawyers are now involved, requesting reviews and inquiry into tactics used. Outcome of vote not contested.