Thursday Morning: A Referendum Within A Referendum; McCain Still Finessing Tax Issues; and HRC Will Speak Tuesday at DNC

Good morning.

This morning's political news can perhaps be best-characterized as a referendum on McCain's attempt to paint the election as a referendum on Obama. Yesterday's "Celeb" ad threw more fuel on that fire and has liberal op-ed writers' drawers in a twist wondering where John "Respectful Campaign" McCain disappeared to. Even (disgruntled) former McCain strategist John Weaver hopped on the bandwagon, telling Marc Ambinder that the ad is "childish" and "tomfoolery." The Obama campaign is taking a scolding line as well with this response ad that shows footage of McCain standing next to President Bush and accuses him of the "same old politics, same failed policies." (Hey, that's kind of negative too...) Obama himself told an audience in Missouri:

John McCain and the Republicans, they don't have any new ideas, that's why they're spending all their time talking about me.

The WSJ examines the risk that McCain is taking:

Analysts said the danger to Sen. McCain's approach, such as with his new ad, is it can be seen as whining about Sen. Obama's successes rather than promoting Sen. McCain's own. And it remains unclear if it will stoke voter concerns about Sen. Obama or reinforce his front-runner status.

But they add that Obama's counter-approach comes with its own hazards:

Democratic Sen. Obama, who has taken to openly musing about the likelihood that he will be elected, risks coming off as arrogant and presumptuous.

Which is exactly what the McCain campaign counts on exploiting with the ads. The RNC is on board as well with a smorgasboard of anti-Obama buildouts on their "Meet Barack Obama" website, most notably with the "Audacity Watch" page that debuted yesterday. In fact, the slideshow banner on the RNC's frontpage includes two photos of Obama and only one of McCain. Hmm.

McCain is also still playing defense with conservatives after seemingly leaving open the possibility of raising the cap on Social Security payroll taxes -- which got him into trouble with the anti-tax group the Club for Growth earlier this week. Yesterday at a town hall meeting at the with employees of the Wagner Equipment Company in Aurora, Colorado McCain said, "I want to look you in the eye: I will not raise your taxes nor support a tax increase."

The Swamp points out that this promise echoes another no-taxes campaign promise...one that proved hard to keep for an earlier Republican President facing a recession while haggling with a Democratic Congress. Are we over-parsing if we wonder whether "YOUR taxes" is a potential loophole for McCain with the factory crowd, since a change to the payroll tax cap would only affect workers making more than $90,000? Maybe not. A few hours later, at a fundraiser in Kansas City, McCain left the door open a crack:

[I]n any negotiation that I might have, when I go in, my position will be that I am opposed to raising taxes. But we have to work together to save Social Security.

McCain is wise not to make promises he'll have a hard time keeping with potentially difficult entitlement negotiations looming and a Congress that's likely to stay Democratic. But given his rocky history with evangelicals, he can't afford to also anger fiscal conservatives with fuzzy tax promises. Tricky.

And finally, Hillary Clinton will reportedly deliver the Tuesday night speech at the Democratic Convention in Denver....notably not during Wednesday's VP slot. The date, August 26th, markes the 88th anniversary of the day the 19th Amendment passed, giving women the right to vote.

-- Evie Stone

10:00 AM ET | 07-31-2008 | permalink

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