Obama's Running Mate

[strandinthewind]

I think it was just a social call. Clearly, they do those kinds of things and the article said they were friends, etc.

But, that could be what La Dowd refers to in this, for want of a better term, anecdote:

August 20, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Two Against The One

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

In the dead of night in a small hideaway office in the deserted Capitol, a clandestine meeting takes place between two senators with one goal.

They grin at each other as they lift their celebratory shots of brutally cold Stolichnaya.

“Our toast to The One,” they say in unison, “is that he’s toast.”

“Obama should have picked you, Hillary,” John McCain tells her. “It isn’t fair, my friend. But it just makes it easier for me to whup him.”

“Don’t worry, John, I’ve put it behind me,” Hillary replies. “I’m looking toward the future now, a future that looks very bright, once we send Twig Legs back to the back bench.”

They chortle with delight.

“He’s a bright young man, but he got ahead of himself,” McCain says. “He needs to be taught a lesson, and we’re the ones to do it. Have you seen the new Bloomberg poll? Obama’s dropped and we’re even again. The Bullet’s getting all the credit, but you and I know, Hillary, that it’s these top-secret counseling sessions we’re having. And thanks again for BlackBerrying me the Rick Warren questions while I was in the so-called cone of silence.”

“Oh, John, you know I love you and I’m happy to help,” Hillary says. “The themes you took from me are working great — painting Obama as an elitist and out-of-touch celebrity, when we’re rich celebrities, too. Turning his big rallies and pretty words into character flaws, charging him with playing the race card — that one always cracks me up. And accusing the media, especially NBC, of playing favorites. It’s easy to get the stupid press to navel-gaze; they’re so insecure.”

“They’re all pinko Commies,” McCain laughs. “Especially since they deserted me for The Messiah. Seriously, Hill, that Paris-Britney ad you came up with was brilliant. I owe you.”

Looking pleased, Hillary expertly downs another shot. “His secret fear is being seen as a dumb blonde,” she says. “He wants to take a short cut to the top and pose on glossy magazine covers, but he doesn’t want to be seen as a glib pretty boy.”

McCain lifts his glass to her admiringly. “If I do say so myself, while the rookie was surfing in Hawaii, I ate his pupus for lunch. Pictures of him pushing around a golf ball while I’m pushing around Putin. Priceless.”

“I have a little secret to tell you about that, John. Bill made it happen. He loves you so much. He called Putin and told him that if he invaded Georgia, he could count on being invited to the Clinton Global Initiative every year for the rest of his life.”

“Wow. Should I call him? I saw your husband’s kind words about me in Las Vegas on Monday, saying I’d be just as good as Obama on climate change.”

“I think he’d like that,” Hillary smiles. “He’s still boiling at Obama. And you don’t have to worry about my army of angry women. We’ve spread the word in the feminist underground — as opposed to that wacky Obama Weather Underground — that ‘catharsis’ is code for ‘No surrender.’ My gals know when I say ‘We may have started on two separate paths but we’re on one journey now’ that Skinny’s journey is to the nearest exit.”

“But Obama’s says he’s finally ready to hit back,” McCain says, frowning. “He’s starting a blistering TV campaign and attacking me for attacking his patriotism.”

“Now, John, you know that every time he tries to get tough, he quickly runs out of gas. Sometimes in debates, he’d be exhausted by the third question. He must use up all his energy in the gym. He doesn’t have any stamina, and he certainly doesn’t have our bloodlust. Besides, you can throw that Mark Penn stuff at him that I couldn’t use in a Democratic primary about how he’s not fundamentally American in his thinking and values. While he’s up on his high-minded pedestal, you’ll scoot past him in your Ferragamos.”

“How can I ever thank you, my friend?”

“You can announce that you won’t be running for re-election because you’d be 76, and you can pick somebody really lame to run with, like your pal Lieberman. That means one term for you, and two for me.”

“It’s a deal,” McCain says, sticking out his hand to shake on it. “That was inspired to snatch his convention away — makes him look so weak. Listen, why don’t you stop in Sedona on the way to Denver? Wear a black wig and I’ll spirit you up to the cabin for the night. I’ll catch a catfish in the mill pond and grill it for you. It will be an adventure.” There’s a knock on the door. Jesse Jackson sticks his head into the meeting.

“Is it over?” he asks his co-conspirators.

“Yes, he’s over,” they respond in unison.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/op...hp&oref=slogin

[gldstwmn]

I just got home from running some errands and saw the Secret Service cruising around ( I live pretty close to Invesco Mile High, where Obama will give his acceptance speech).

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

I just got home from running some errands and saw the Secret Service cruising around ( I live pretty close to Invesco Mile High, where Obama will give his acceptance speech).

Perhaps it's time for the foil to go on the windows?

A little lead might not be a bad idea either!

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Perhaps it's time for the foil to go on the windows?

A little lead might not be a bad idea either!

Such a card you are. Or is it cad?

[Stephanie]

ooh I fancy greed and wealth you guys are talking about!

I agree with the initial thought of this thread, obama is fading.

[BombaySapphire3]

Originally Posted by Stephanie

ooh I fancy greed and wealth you guys are talking about!

well if you fancy greed I can completely understand why you are supporting a Republican.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by Stephanie

ooh I fancy greed and wealth you guys are talking about! . . . .

LOL - I hate taxes and love money too

Interestingly, according to the Treas. Dept., unless you make over about $200,000 a year, Obama's tax plan will not make you pay more taxes, to wit (emphasis supplied) :

August 22, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Now That’s Rich

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Last weekend, Pastor Rick Warren asked both presidential candidates to define the income at which “you move from middle class to rich.” The context of the question was, of course, the difference in the candidates’ tax policies. Barack Obama wants to put tax rates on higher-income Americans more or less back to what they were under Bill Clinton; John McCain, who was against the Bush tax cuts before he was for them, says that means raising taxes on the middle class.

Mr. Obama answered the question seriously, defining middle class as meaning an income below $150,000. Mr. McCain, at first, made it into a joke, saying “how about $5 million?” Then he declared that it didn’t matter because he wouldn’t raise anyone’s taxes. That wasn’t just an evasion, it was a falsehood: Mr. McCain’s health care plan, by limiting the deductibility of employer-paid insurance premiums, would effectively raise taxes on a number of people.

The real problem, however, was with the question itself.

When we think about the middle class, we tend to think of Americans whose lives are decent but not luxurious: they have houses, cars and health insurance, but they still worry about making ends meet, especially when the time comes to send the kids to college.

Meanwhile, when we think about the rich, we tend to think about the handful of people who are really, really rich — people with servants, people with so much money that, like Mr. McCain, they don’t know how many houses they own. (Remember how Republicans jeered at John Kerry for being too rich?)

The trouble with Mr. Warren’s question was that it seemed to imply that everyone except the poor belongs to one of these two categories: either you’re clearly rich, or you’re an ordinary member of the middle class. And that’s just wrong.

In his entertaining book “Richistan,” Robert Frank of The Wall Street Journal declares that the rich aren’t just different from you and me, they live in a different, parallel country. But that country is divided into levels, and only the inhabitants of upper Richistan live like aristocrats; the inhabitants of middle Richistan lead ample but not gilded lives; and lower Richistanis live in McMansions, drive around in S.U.V.’s, and are likely to think of themselves as “affluent” rather than rich.

Even these arguably not-rich, however, live in a different financial universe from that inhabited by ordinary members of the middle class: they have lots of disposable income after paying for the essentials, and they don’t lose sleep over expenses, like insurance co-pays and tuition bills, that can seem daunting to many working American families.

Which brings us to the dispute about tax policy.

Mr. McCain wants to preserve almost all the Bush tax cuts, and add to them by cutting taxes on corporations. Mr. Obama wants to roll back the high-end Bush tax cuts — the cuts in tax rates on the top two income brackets and the cuts in tax rates on income from dividends and capital gains — and use some of that money to reduce taxes lower down the scale.

According to estimates prepared by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, those Obama tax increases would fall overwhelmingly on people with incomes of more than $200,000 a year. Are such people rich? Well, maybe not: some of those Mr. Obama proposes taxing are only denizens of lower Richistan, although the really big tax increases would fall on upper Richistan. But one thing’s for sure: Mr. Obama isn’t planning to raise taxes on the middle class, by any reasonable definition — even that of the Bush administration.

O.K., the Bush administration hasn’t actually offered a definition of “middle class.” But in May, the Treasury Department — which used to do serious tax studies, but these days just churns out Bush administration propaganda — released a report purporting to show, by looking at the tax bills of four hypothetical families, how the middle and working class would be hurt if the Bush tax cuts aren’t made permanent.

And when the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looked at the report, it made an interesting catch. It turns out that Treasury’s hypothetical families got all their gains from the so-called middle-class provisions of the Bush tax cuts: the Child Tax Credit, the reduced tax bracket for lower incomes and marriage penalty relief.

These all happen to be provisions that Mr. Obama proposes leaving in place. In other words, the Bush administration itself implicitly defines the middle class as consisting of people making too little to end up paying additional taxes under the Obama plan.

Of course, all the evidence in the world won’t stop Republicans from claiming, as they always do, that Democrats are going to impose a crippling tax burden on ordinary hard-working Americans. But it just ain’t so.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/op...vM5Rz4AEaJtkPA
_______________________________________________

Note -- I am for the fairtax (www.fairtax.org) -- but, I think people just assume Obama is going to raise their taxes to some horrible, unsustainable level when that just is not true. If you make over $200,000 a year (which I think hardly qualifies you as rich and I'd raise it to $500,000) -- you will be taxed at about the level you were in the Clinton era, which was the era when the US had trillions in surpluses as opposed to the trillions in debt W got us into -- mind you, that took spending the triollions in surplus and then borrowing that much (roughly). To me, it is a no brainer historically which party is better for the economy. So, if I am going to be that greedy, I am voting D.

Of course, your love of Tori Spelling makes us kindred spirits

[BTFLCHLD]

How come we choose from just two people to run for president and over fifty for Miss America?

[dontlookdown]

Hill would be a great choice to rally the Democratic Party.
But ultimately Joe Biden is the wiser pick.
He's got a great resume and would make a fine president.
Hillary's baggage is filled to the brim with sketchy Bill Clinton business deals.

[ajmccarrell]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

LOL - I hate taxes and love money too

Interestingly, according to the Treas. Dept., unless you make over about $200,000 a year, Obama's tax plan will not make you pay more taxes, to wit (emphasis supplied) :

August 22, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Now That’s Rich

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Last weekend, Pastor Rick Warren asked both presidential candidates to define the income at which “you move from middle class to rich.” The context of the question was, of course, the difference in the candidates’ tax policies. Barack Obama wants to put tax rates on higher-income Americans more or less back to what they were under Bill Clinton; John McCain, who was against the Bush tax cuts before he was for them, says that means raising taxes on the middle class.

Mr. Obama answered the question seriously, defining middle class as meaning an income below $150,000. Mr. McCain, at first, made it into a joke, saying “how about $5 million?” Then he declared that it didn’t matter because he wouldn’t raise anyone’s taxes. That wasn’t just an evasion, it was a falsehood: Mr. McCain’s health care plan, by limiting the deductibility of employer-paid insurance premiums, would effectively raise taxes on a number of people.

The real problem, however, was with the question itself.

When we think about the middle class, we tend to think of Americans whose lives are decent but not luxurious: they have houses, cars and health insurance, but they still worry about making ends meet, especially when the time comes to send the kids to college.

Meanwhile, when we think about the rich, we tend to think about the handful of people who are really, really rich — people with servants, people with so much money that, like Mr. McCain, they don’t know how many houses they own. (Remember how Republicans jeered at John Kerry for being too rich?)

The trouble with Mr. Warren’s question was that it seemed to imply that everyone except the poor belongs to one of these two categories: either you’re clearly rich, or you’re an ordinary member of the middle class. And that’s just wrong.

In his entertaining book “Richistan,” Robert Frank of The Wall Street Journal declares that the rich aren’t just different from you and me, they live in a different, parallel country. But that country is divided into levels, and only the inhabitants of upper Richistan live like aristocrats; the inhabitants of middle Richistan lead ample but not gilded lives; and lower Richistanis live in McMansions, drive around in S.U.V.’s, and are likely to think of themselves as “affluent” rather than rich.

Even these arguably not-rich, however, live in a different financial universe from that inhabited by ordinary members of the middle class: they have lots of disposable income after paying for the essentials, and they don’t lose sleep over expenses, like insurance co-pays and tuition bills, that can seem daunting to many working American families.

Which brings us to the dispute about tax policy.

Mr. McCain wants to preserve almost all the Bush tax cuts, and add to them by cutting taxes on corporations. Mr. Obama wants to roll back the high-end Bush tax cuts — the cuts in tax rates on the top two income brackets and the cuts in tax rates on income from dividends and capital gains — and use some of that money to reduce taxes lower down the scale.

According to estimates prepared by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, those Obama tax increases would fall overwhelmingly on people with incomes of more than $200,000 a year. Are such people rich? Well, maybe not: some of those Mr. Obama proposes taxing are only denizens of lower Richistan, although the really big tax increases would fall on upper Richistan. But one thing’s for sure: Mr. Obama isn’t planning to raise taxes on the middle class, by any reasonable definition — even that of the Bush administration.

O.K., the Bush administration hasn’t actually offered a definition of “middle class.” But in May, the Treasury Department — which used to do serious tax studies, but these days just churns out Bush administration propaganda — released a report purporting to show, by looking at the tax bills of four hypothetical families, how the middle and working class would be hurt if the Bush tax cuts aren’t made permanent.

And when the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looked at the report, it made an interesting catch. It turns out that Treasury’s hypothetical families got all their gains from the so-called middle-class provisions of the Bush tax cuts: the Child Tax Credit, the reduced tax bracket for lower incomes and marriage penalty relief.

These all happen to be provisions that Mr. Obama proposes leaving in place. In other words, the Bush administration itself implicitly defines the middle class as consisting of people making too little to end up paying additional taxes under the Obama plan.

Of course, all the evidence in the world won’t stop Republicans from claiming, as they always do, that Democrats are going to impose a crippling tax burden on ordinary hard-working Americans. But it just ain’t so.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/op...vM5Rz4AEaJtkPA
_______________________________________________

Note -- I am for the fairtax (www.fairtax.org) -- but, I think people just assume Obama is going to raise their taxes to some horrible, unsustainable level when that just is not true. If you make over $200,000 a year (which I think hardly qualifies you as rich and I'd raise it to $500,000) -- you will be taxed at about the level you were in the Clinton era, which was the era when the US had trillions in surpluses as opposed to the trillions in debt W got us into -- mind you, that took spending the triollions in surplus and then borrowing that much (roughly). To me, it is a no brainer historically which party is better for the economy. So, if I am going to be that greedy, I am voting D.

Of course, your love of Tori Spelling makes us kindred spirits

True the tax increases will not fall on the middle class by way of TAXES specifically, however the middle class will end up paying for it anyway. Krugman's argument is strictly ceteris paribus and shortsighted. Like with minimum wage increases, tax increases force prices up. So, we will still end up paying for it with less jobs, lower wages, less raises, and higher prices. It happens every single time you raise taxes.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by ajmccarrell

True the tax increases will not fall on the middle class by way of TAXES specifically, however the middle class will end up paying for it anyway. Krugman's argument is strictly ceteris paribus and shortsighted. Like with minimum wage increases, tax increases force prices up. So, we will still end up paying for it with less jobs, lower wages, less raises, and higher prices. It happens every single time you raise taxes.

And - you were just singing his praises the other day

Interestingly, the economy and just about everyone and the US economy (read surplus) was doing great during the Clinton year tax rates. Moreover, prices were hardly stagnant (hello $4.00+ for a gallon of gas) under the W tax cuts, which greatly favored the wealthy by percentage -- kind of blows your argument out of the water

[Musicman408]

Dude, I really wish it would turn out to be Hillary. In my opinion, she is the best choice for him politically, since many of her supporters refuse to support him and will vote for "McSame" (yes, I did just come up with that by the way.

[BombaySapphire3]

Originally Posted by Musicman408

Dude, I really wish it would turn out to be Hillary. In my opinion, she is the best choice for him politically, since many of her supporters refuse to support him and will vote for "McSame" (yes, I did just come up with that by the way.

I saw a poll yesterday that 21% of her supporters will vote for gramps ..This boggles and bewilder's my mind .Do these people not care about the ramifications of the Supreme Court appointees from a McCain administration like Roe vs.Wade being overturned?! among so many other things.I don't think he will pick Hillary but at this point I don't mind if he does.He could set her lose on McCain and the Republicans. She can get down and dirty like he seems to be unable to.BTW congrats on your 18th and don't forget to vote!

[BombaySapphire3]

Well it has been offered to and accepted by Joe Biden kind of a curmudgeon but I like him . He seems to balance out the ticket well as he is very experienced at 65 ..Still 7 years younger than gramps McCain.

[gldstwmn]

Lame!