Republicans

(Via Yahoo! News.)

Democratic Rep. John Murtha said Wednesday that Republican Sen. John McCain is too old to be president. Murtha is 75, four years older than McCain. He says they are nearly the same age, and the rigors and stress of running the country is too much for guys their age.

“I’ve served with seven presidents,” Murtha told a union audience. “When they come in, they all make mistakes. They all get older.”

“This one guy running is about as old as me,” he said, drawing laughter and applause. “Let me tell you something, it’s no old man’s job.”

If elected, McCain would be the oldest man to become president at age 72. Ronald Reagan became president at age 69, but he served as president for eight years and was just a few weeks shy of his 78th birthday when he left office.

McCain, in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, said, “All I can tell you is that I admire and respect Jack Murtha. Speak for yourself, Jack. I’m doing fine. Thanks.”

Full story here.

(Via Political Wire.)

According to The Hill, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) “is leaving open the possibility of giving a keynote address on behalf of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) at the Republican National Convention in September.”

“Republicans close to the McCain campaign say Lieberman’s appearance at the convention, possibly before a national primetime audience, could help make the case that the presumptive GOP nominee has a record of crossing the aisle. That could appeal to much-needed independent voters.”

(Via To The Letter Writer.)

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America. Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation.

White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to. This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American. Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans.

Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks - with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

(Via msnbc.com.)

John McCain says he believes it’s a recession.

Speaking at The Associated Press annual meeting in Washington today, McCain said economists may have a technical definition of a recession, but from his perspective the important factor is “that Americans are hurting.”

He also said Barack Obama’s comments that some small-town voters are bitter over their economic situation were “elitist.” He said those are the same people whose children are overseas defending the nation.

Full story here.

(Via Crooks and Liars.)

Much to everyone’s surprise, House Democrats simply wouldn’t budge when the Bush administration demanded that Congress pass a permanent “Protect America Act” — with retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. The law expired, the president threw a fit, and lawmakers broke for a two-week spring recess.

Despite claims that congressional inaction was responsible for increased threats against Americans, and despite demands that the president would never accept a compromise on surveillance power and telecom immunity, the White House indicated recently that the Bush gang might be willing to chat with Democratic leaders after all.

Just a few days ago, The Hill reported that House Republicans, who had been shouting that the sky was falling as a result of the PAA’s expiration, have apparently decided to accept the status quo and turn their attention elsewhere.

House Republicans are poised to shift their focus from national security to the economy, hoping to rally opposition to what they claim are Democratic plans to raise taxes amid the economic downturn.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is expected to announce Thursday that the House GOP floor emphasis will transition away from passing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and earmark reform to “stop the tax hike.”

Given this, it’s worth pausing to wonder if House Dems just won the FISA/immunity fight. Glenn Greenwald makes the case that Republicans failed on this one.

(Via The Associated Press.)

Democratic Party officials want a federal judge to order an investigation into whether Sen. John McCain violated election laws by withdrawing from public financing, saying federal regulators are too weak to act on their own.

A lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission, to be filed Monday in U.S. District Court, questions the agency’s ability to enforce the law and review McCain’s decision to opt out of the system. The Republican presidential candidate, who had been entitled to $5.8 million in federal funds for the primary campaign, decided earlier this year to give up that money so he could avoid strict spending limits between now and the GOP’s national convention in September.

During a conference call with reporters Sunday, DNC officials said the FEC is unable to act because four of its six seats are vacant. They want a judge to either order the FEC to begin an immediate review, or allow the Democratic Party to file a lawsuit against McCain’s campaign challenging his decision.

(Via Crooks and Liars.)

Just a couple of months ago, John McCain acknowledged, “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.” For some reason, he’s been trying to prove this point ever since.

Yesterday, for example, McCain made a campaign stop at an investment firm in Westport, Conn., where a voter asked how McCain plans to balance the federal budget. (McCain has vowed, repeatedly, to eliminate the deficit by the end of his first term in office.)

“Basically, which is it?” the man asked Mr. McCain. “Straight talk: Do you want to raise taxes, cut entitlement spending, cut defense spending, or have a deficit?”

Mr. McCain did not explain how he plans to balance the budget, but spoke generally about hoping to stimulate the economy — and cited President Reagan.

“I don’t believe in a static economy,” Mr. McCain said. “I believe that when there’s stimulus for growth, when there’s opportunity, when people keep more of their money — and the government is the least efficient way to spend your money — that economies improve.”

“When Ronald Reagan came to office,” he said, noting that few in the audience were old enough to remember, “we had 10 percent unemployment, 20 percent interest rates, and 10 percent inflation, if I’ve got those numbers right. That was when Ronald Reagan came to office in 1980. And so what did we do? We didn’t raise taxes, and we didn’t cut entitlements. What we did was we cut taxes and we put in governmental reductions in regulations, stimulus to the economy….”

There’s so much wrong with this, it’s hard to know where to start.

First, citing Reagan as a model for deficit reduction is remarkably foolish. The deficit tripled under Reagan, and at the time, his deficits were the largest in American history. If he’s McCain’s standard for responsible budgeting, we’re in trouble.

Second, McCain hails Reagan’s example for not raising taxes, but this overlooks a key detail — Reagan did raise taxes, several times, to prevent his budget deficits from spiraling out of control and making the national debt even worse. Is McCain prepared to follow Reagan’s lead on this or not? (McCain did take a no-new-taxes pledge on national television a few weeks ago, though he has since said he may not have meant it.)

Third, McCain’s tax plan costs more than $2 trillion, on top of the $400 billion deficits he would inherit from Bush, and yet he still claims he will balance the budget in four years.

And fourth, McCain concluded, “I believe we can grow this economy, and reduce this deficit.” This is so utterly foolish, it’s hard to believe a serious presidential candidate would be willing to say it out loud.

In just the past couple of months, McCain has been confused about the relationship between taxes and revenues, confused about whether he thinks our current economy is strong or not, confused about why interest rates even exist, confused about his own no-new-taxes pledge, confused about his own Social Security policy, and confused about how he’d pay for yet another round of reckless tax cuts.

After a quarter-century in Congress, when it comes to the economy, the poor guy sounds like he has no idea what he’s talking about.

Maybe the senator could take a few weeks off, read a book or two, and get back to us?

(Via Crooks and Liars.)

About two weeks ago, John McCain, in a high-profile speech, unveiled his response to the mortgage crisis. Despite the seriousness of the issue, the GOP presidential nominee unveiled a classic YOYO policy: “You’re on your own.”

As the New York Times noted shortly after the speech, “The real core of his speech was his argument against government action to help dig distressed homeowners — or the country — out of the mortgage mess…. His suggestion that federal aid might wrongly reward ‘undeserving’ homeowners sounded both mean-spirited and economically naive. And then there is the double standard. He seemed less concerned about the government helping reckless bankers, endorsing its role in preventing the bankruptcy of Bear Stearns.”

Yesterday, in one of the quicker flip-flops in recent memory, McCain reversed course. The Washington Post, apparently anxious to give McCain a hand, said the senator was “refining” and “revising” his plan. That’s enormously generous of the newspaper, but in reality, McCain’s proposal was an embarrassing dud, so he gave up on it.

Senator John McCain, who drew criticism last month after he warned against broad government intervention to solve the deepening mortgage crisis, pivoted Thursday and called for the federal government to aid some homeowners in danger of losing their homes, by helping them to refinance and get federally guaranteed 30-year mortgages.

“There is nothing more important than keeping alive the American dream to own your home, and priority No. 1 is to keep well-meaning, deserving homeowners who are facing foreclosure in their homes,” Mr. McCain said in a speech on economic themes that he gave at a window company in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn.

Funny, two weeks ago he thought these same homeowners shouldn’t be “rewarded” for acting “irresponsibly.”

Perhaps the nation’s callous constituency is not quite as large as the McCain campaign had hoped.

(Via Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire.)

John Heilemann: “That Mitt Romney wishes to occupy the VP slot on the Republican ticket with John McCain comes as no surprise — but the blatantness of his campaign is highly amusing. As a general rule, the way one goes about these things is to be more or less subtle. You hint. You nudge. You get your pals to lobby quietly, behind the scenes. What you don’t do, for heaven’s sake, is just come out and ask. But basically this is what Romney has done — or, rather, is doing.”

(Via Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall.)

We’ve mentioned this before but it remains an interesting dynamic to watch.

You’ve got the John McCain of lore — the maverick riding the Straight Talk Express who flirted with caucusing with the Democrats, if not running with Sen. John Kerry on the Democratic ticket in 2004 — hitching his star to the right-wing noise machine, and the wingnuts hitching their star to him.

It makes for strange bedfellows and for trainwrecks just like this one.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis sent out a fund-raising letter this week trying to raise money off of George Soros’ funding of indy Dem groups: “He and his group of billionaire left-wing Democrats have pledged $40 million dollars of soft money to smear John McCain in a national television ad campaign,” Davis wrote in the letter.

The problem for McCain is that Soros has also funded groups like the Reform Institute, an advocate of campaign-finance reform that Davis himself served as president of from 2001-05 and for which McCain was honorary co-chairman. As TPM Election Central reports, Soros gave $150,000 to the McCain-Davis outfit back in 2003.

We’re hearing that McCain also benefited indirectly from Soros money that was used for litigation defending the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law.

More on that shortly.