Yes, they are ready for their close ups! 500 + in the audience, a great show -- enjoy! And comment, please!

JOIN US @KCRW.COM--LIVE LRC BROADCAST, AUDIO/VIDEO WEBCAST AND PODCAST ON SUNDAY, NOV. 9 at 6pm PACIFIC TIME (*we may start some of the behind-the-scenes stuff on our videocast at 5:45 pm PT*) FROM THE BROAD STAGE IN SANTA MONICA!

Obama's Lead; Which Way GOP; Greenspan’s Goof?

 

A heckuva show today, Tony’s a trifle testy over unfair allegations he says are being made against Republicans, the McCain campaign and Sarah Palin. And what about that wardrobe budget? Tony predicts the next conservative revolution will be populist, not intellectual. Plus: is “socialism” code for racism? Is “family values”? Who’s really using the race card and how? And a big discussion about capitalism, the (so-called?) free market, concentration of capital, corporate fascism and Euro-Socialism. And did Greenspan undermine the theory of capitalism by admitting his surprise about how little oversight was being exercised at top financial institutions? (Sorry to say, Arianna was unavailable today.)

LINKS

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2008/10/23/updated-report/

UPDATED REPORT: McCain’s Tax Plan Would Have Saved The McCains $730,000»

An updated analysis of the Obama and McCain tax plans by the Center for American Progress Action Fund finds that John and Cindy McCain would have saved $730,000 over 2006 and 2007 under McCain’s tax plan. Under Obama’s proposed plan, the McCains would have saved $62,000 over the same two years. Read the full analysis here.

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EJ Dionne

Civil War on the Right  10.24.08

 

WASHINGTON — Conservatives are at each other’s throats, and here’s what’s revealing about how divided they are: The critics of John McCain and the critics of Sarah Palin represent entirely different camps.

Skeptical social conservatives are precisely the people McCain was trying to mollify by picking Palin as his running mate. These include the faithful of the religious right who remember McCain as their enemy in 2000, and parts of the gun crowd who always saw McCain as soft on their issues.

That McCain felt a need to make such an outlandishly risky choice speaks to how insecure his hold was on the core Republican vote. A candidate is supposed to rally the base during the primaries and reach out to the middle at election time. McCain got it backward, and it’s hurting him. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/opinions/?nid=top_opinions

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NYTimes Magazine Preview,

The Making (and Remaking) of McCain

 

By ROBERT DRAPER

Published: October 22, 2008

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/magazine/26mccain-t.html?_r=1&scp=5&sq=Sunday%20Magazine%20Preview&st=cse&oref=slogin

 

On the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 24, John McCain convened a meeting in his suite at the Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Among the handful of campaign officials in attendance were McCain’s chief campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt, and his other two top advisers: Rick Davis, the campaign manager; and Mark Salter, McCain’s longtime speechwriter. The senator’s ears were already throbbing with bad news from economic advisers and from House Republican leaders who had told him that only a small handful in their ranks were willing to support the $700 billion bailout of the banking industry proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The meeting was to focus on how McCain should respond to the crisis — but also, as one participant later told me, “to try to see this as a big-picture, leadership thing.”

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October 24, 2008

McCain for President

By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- Contrarian that I am, I'm voting for John McCain. I'm not talking about bucking the polls or the media consensus that it's over before it's over. I'm talking about bucking the rush of wet-fingered conservatives leaping to Barack Obama before they're left out in the cold without a single state dinner for the next four years. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/security_first_why_im_voting_f.html

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October 22, 2008

The Birth of the Me-Too Conservative By Tony Blankley

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/10/the_birth_of_the_metoo_conserv.html

With the rise to enduring power of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in 1933, a new type of Republican emerged in reaction to FDR's attractive and overawing power: the me-too Republican. Until the election of President Reagan five decades later, these me-too Republicans supported, rather than opposed, Democratic Party policies but claimed they would administer them better. Of course, this led to a half-century of Democratic dominance of American government and politics.

Moderator's note: I find it quite striking that the Palin-ization of the campaign sparked a blog riot here for two weeks in a row. And now that this week's episode concerned an actual ISSUE in all our lives -- i.e., the economy -- there are far fewer posts. Our blog commenters are an engaged group of citizens (we're really glad you've joined us), and they're here, alongside a very few new post-ers...but this week, far fewer new people have come on board. I wonder if this is a reflection of the bigger notion that issues don't determine elections, it's all about personalities and people's feelings about the candidates. I wonder what that portends for November 4th? By the way, I have just heard about this independently operated (math-obsessed) poll aggregating site that does mathematical analysis and weighting of all polls: I am going to visit it for the first time, and wanted to share it with you: www.fivethirtyeight.com.

UPDATE TO MY ORIGINAL POST:

First: Keep it civil. This is intended for political discussion not personal attacks. We welcome intelligent dialogue from all sides of the spectrum but not ad hominem abuse or any other kinds of vitriolic nastiness between people who post here.

Second: For those commenting on Matt Miller--he is the show's moderator because of his skills in moving the conversation along, but unlike other analytical/opinion programs, he occupies a known position in the dialogue. He is the centrist and as such, expresses his opinions. He is participant, not just the moderator. If your comments involve his opinions, they're there because they are part of the show -- he is the "Center" in "Left, Right & Center." And to the gentleman who mis-identified the think tank he is connected to, it is the liberal-oriented Center for American Progress not the neocon-oriented Project for a New American Century.

9.13.08 PPS: I want to call everyone's attention to an article that I think you might want to read and comment on:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/08/11/080811crat_atlarge_lemann

A Critic at Large

Conflict of Interests

Does the wrangling of interest groups corrupt politics—or constitute it?

by Nicholas Lemann

Economy; Palin on ABC; Obama Gets Tough? McCain v. Taxes 

This week Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were essentially nationalized. And Lehman Brothers has gone belly up with talk of the taxpayers bearing the cost. Today Bob, Matt and Tony take on the question of whether deregulation created this scenario wherein which the federal government is bailing out America’s housing market…and of course, there’s plenty of disagreement to go around. Then: Sarah Palin gets her primetime spotlight – did she shine? Did Charlie Gibson cave and give her a pass or was he sneering down his nose at her? How’d she really do? Lastly, Tony repeats a phrase that will surely infuriate many: Obama’s campaign has been likened to a dead frog whose legs keep kicking… ouch. More when you listen to today’s show. I'll be on vacation, Blogger Andi will post for the next two weeks but I will be following the conversation so PLEASE share your comments!!!!

 

Hey all: Producer Sarah is going to be on vacation 9.19 and 9.26. Andi Albers will be posting in my stead. PLEASE keep talking to each other -- I'll check in from time to time and see how the conversation is going.

And Joe Klein blogs about Matt Miller, here's the link and here's a short excerpt of the text:

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September 12, 2008 8:27
The McCain Tax Increases--Continued

Posted by Joe Klein | Comments (25) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Director of the Congressional Budget Office and current chief McCain economic advisor, is an honest man--which means he's something of a liability on the Straight Talk Express. A few months ago, he admitted to my colleague, Michael Scherer, that Barack Obama's economic plan would reduce taxes for most people. And now, in a forthcoming book by Fortune columnist Matt Miller, he makes it clear that the next President is going to have to raise taxes.

"If you do nothing on the spending side, you're going to have to raise taxes whether you're a Republican, a Democrat or a Martian," he tells Miller...and then he immediately makes it clear that the "spending side" part of the argument is nothing more than a political fig-leaf.

 

"It's arithmetic." Federal revenue today is 18.8 percent of GDP and federal spending is 20 percent. Holtz-Eakin observes that "the pressure are there" to lift spending [on entitlement programs, mostly] and taxes to 23 or 24 percent of GDP by around 2020, and to as much as 27 percent if health costs remain out of control. 

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McCain Comes Out Swinging; Is Palin this year's Rorschach Test?

I hope today’s show will engender a good deal of discussion because we get into the question of the "liberal media" and how Republicans have been able to use that accusation so successfully for so long. Tony says it’s been extraordinary week, and an election campaign without precedent, but “we don’t know yet whether Palin will be gold dust or Kryptonite to McCain. Assuming that there is nothing completely shocking in her background, it’s clear a new star was born.” Before her selection, “maybe 80% of the base was going to vote for McCain – now it’s at least 92%...but independents will still be a battleground.”  And, says Tony, now the NRA is planning to put a lot of big buck firepower into the campaign. Bob says she’s a successful speaker but she never even got a passport till 18 months ago, and Alaska is dependent on windfall oil profits; he calls it “The People’s Republic of Alaska.” She still differs from McCain on sharing oil profit revenues with the rest of America. Arianna says the Democrats will lose if they focus on Palin’s experience or the soap opera, “As Bristol and Levi Turn,” but should focus instead on Palin’s belief in creationism, her book banning at a local library -- “she’s antediluvian but a compelling antediluvian character.” And Matt’s hoping that the Dems will focus on the issues, not personalities: “The Republicans genius is that they have been able to make elections about the personal and personalities, detached from the effect of the party’s policies on average Americans.”

 

 

The Dems’ Denver Surge; McCain’s Palin Surprise

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Conventions/story?id=5686244&page=1  (link to news and video of Palin, Obama and McCain announcing Palin)

Sorry kids, no Arianna today, and Tony had to join us by phone, or we risked not having him (he had a major health issue interfere with his life in the past month and he needed to rest before heading to the Republican Convention). By the way: a plug for our other Convention coverage, which I urge you to tune into on our live stream next week or listen to in archives (available as a podcast too): http://www.kcrw.com/news/democratic-national-convention-2008...One of the cool features is that we've sent our producers off with specialized Nokia Phones that have software allowing for video recording and INSTANT uploading via KyteTV to our website -- for behind the scenes non-televised views of the conventions. 

Okay, now on to LRC:

John McCain exploded the news agenda today with the announcement of his surprising choice of running mate, Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska. And it nearly blew Obama’s speech and the Democratic Convention right out of the headlines. Is she, as Bob said, “Hillary’s worst nightmare – a young Phyllis Schlafley breaking through the cracks in her glass ceiling”? Or was a brilliant move to wrest those alienated blue-collar women away from Hillary and over to the Republicans? But first: the Democrats! Bill Clinton gave an impassioned speech, something he’s a natural at doing, the panelists agreed. And the Clintons did their part in endorsing  him – but did they really “credential” Obama? Tony said he’d be relieved if Obama proposed Bill Clinton’s economic policies but instead, calls his program  a throwback to a pre-Clintonian pro-liberal agenda; Tony’s worried about the implied protectionism in a global economy. Matt’s worried that if elected, the expectations Obama is setting up with his ambitious agenda cannot be paid for…And Bob says, bring on the regulation for all those banking villains who’ve bankrupted America.