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Monday, October 20, 2008

Time for McCain to Sharpen the Socialist Attacks

I read this piece on CNN and it gave me an idea about the manner in which John McCain should proceed in the last fifteen days.

Gov. Sarah Palin continued the GOP offensive Sunday, attacking Sen. Barack Obama's tax plan as "socialist," and though Sen. John McCain tempered his allegations, his message was the same.

The Palin-McCain line of attack was also echoed at an Orlando, Florida, event by their GOP colleague, Sen. Mel Martinez, who likened Obama's tax plan to communist Cuba.

"Where I come from, where I was raised, they tried wealth redistribution," the Cuban-American senator said. "We don't need that here. That's called socialism, communism -- not Americanism."

McCain dodged a question from Fox News' Chris Wallace about whether Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, was a socialist himself, but McCain criticized Obama's tax plan, which he dubbed an effort "to spread the wealth."

Now, reading this piece got me thinking. If the McCain campaign makes the last fifteen days into an effective examination of Obama's policies and links them to socialism, they will win. That's because despite his eloquence his policies are largely socialistic in nature. That said, simply repeating over and over that he wants to "spread the wealth" and using that as proof of his socialism is not nearly enough. It appears that Dick Morris is again an oracle.

Follow this election cycle. Between the summer of 2007 and the end of February of 2008, all focus was on Hillary Clinton’s ups and downs. And Obama defeated her decisively. Then in March and April of 2008, Obama was in the focus and Rev Wright and the surrounding controversy propelled Hillary to victory. Then during the summer of 2008, all eyes were on Obama and he gained. In September, McCain was on the griddle. At first his selection of Sarah Palin let him move ahead. But then his “suspension” of his campaign and subsequent complicity in the bailout package cost him his lead and moved Obama to an advantage just short of double digits.
Now the attention should logically shift to Obama. He is way ahead and McCain is nowhere to be seen. Few give McCain any chance and the debate is over whether the race is over already. This is, of course, the ideal environment for a McCain surge. All attention would normally focus on the Democrat. But it isn’t. Every American checks the market before they check the polls. The ongoing anxiety over the stock market is not only giving more and more people reason to hate the Republicans of Wall Street and their allies in Washington, but it is keeping us from focusing on Obama.

In fact, as the race nears the end, with Obama in the lead, the focus is in fact now flatly on the front runner. This gives the McCain campaign an opportunity to massage the news cycle so that it focuses on Obama's policies in a manner that is optimum for the McCain campaign. If all the McCain campaign does is repeat Joe the Plumber, spread the wealth, and socialism over and over it won't be enough. It won't be near enough. In order for this to work, they must create a narrative and a narrative can be created that will leave no doubt that Barack Obama is much closer to a socialist than he is to a capitalist.

Soon, Sarah Palin must point out that Barack Obama believes that health care is a right. John McCain believes it is a responsibility. That was each of their answers at the second debate. Palin needs to forcefully point out that it was never the founding fathers intention to make health care a right. If it was, that's exactly what they would have done. When health care is a right that means the government imposes that "right". That's exactly what happens in Socialist societies. In fact, it isn't only in Cuba and Venezuela, but as Europe has moved more socialist, they have also created such rights as health care. John McCain should welcome a debate on whether or not it makes sense to make health care a right. He needs to use Sarah Palin to move the debate from Joe the Plumber to whether or not our country should make health care a right.

Then, the McCain campaign should point out that the center piece of Barack Obama's plan to create jobs the government to spend nearly a quarter million Dollars to create them. Remember, the center piece of Ronald Reagan's plan to create jobs was to cut taxes so that the private sector could create them. You can't get a more opposite philosophy than that. Of course, when the government spends more in order to create jobs, that is another center piece of Socialism, and again, Sarah Palin, the attack dog, must forcefully say it. The McCain campaign campaign must ask the simple question: Do we want a society in which the private sector leads in job creation or the government? If it's the first, vote for McCain, if it's the latter, vote for Obama.

Finally, the McCain campaign will need to wrap up the narrative in the last week in three ways. First, they must point out that Barack Obama's economic plan punishes each and every driver of capitalism: the entrepeneur, the investor, and the corporation. Barack Obama wants to raise the corporate tax, taxes on the highest earners, many of whom are successful small business owners, and the capital gains tax. Furthermore, he once told Charlie Gibson in a debate that he wants to raise the capital gains tax in the interest of "fairness". Of course, using tax policy to promote "fairness" is another bedrock of Socialism.

Second, they must soon begin to anticipate Obama's responses and use them against him. This was actually best done in this scene in the movie 8 Mile.



In it, Eminem's character anticipates all the insults his opponent will use in his own free style mix and thus takes away all the attacks from him. It isn't that difficult to anticipate what Barack Obama will say in response because he says the same thing over and over.

Lately, [McCain] and Governor Palin have actually accused me of -- get this -- socialism," Obama said. "It's kind of hard to figure how Warren Buffett endorsed me, Colin Powell endorsed me, and John McCain thinks I'm socialist."

Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who pay them -- in roads and airports and hospitals and schools," President Bush's former secretary of state said. "And taxes are necessary for the common good, and there's nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more, who should be paying less.

"For us to say that makes you a socialist, I think, is an unfortunate characterization that isn't accurate

Barack Obama always responds by proclaiming that his tax policy will give more back to the middle class.

Here is how Sarah Palin should anticipate his response.

Folks, make no mistake. If Socialism is sold eloquently and with charisma, it can be made to sound like a great policy, but it will be Socialism nonetheless. Our opponent will tell you that he isn't a Socialist. In fact, he will say that all he is doing is providing more relief to the middle class. Folks, ask yourself this question: Where is he getting the money he is providing to the middle class. He's getting it from those at the top. That's income redistribution. He'll tell you that his plan will create jobs. Ask yourself how he wants to go about creating jobs. He will spend government money to do it. When government spends money to create jobs, that's socialism. He's going to tell you that health care is a right. Ask yourself what sort of person creates a right to health care, and of course that person is a Socialist.


Finally, the McCain campaign needs to wrap this up by tying Obama's Socialist leanings to many of his radical ties like Bill Ayers, the New Party, ACORN, and Frank Marshall Davis (his communist mentor in Hawaii). By tying his Socialist leanings to his radical set of friends and associates, they can make the connection why his past associations matter. It's because they have lead him to the ideology in which he wants to put America on a path to Socialism.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're an idiot.
Line by line why...

Group your first 3 paragraphs.
This is at best an ad hominem, at worst character assassination. You call his policies socialist, but give no analysis as to why that is bad. Secondly, with no analysis I can now simply say, no they are not socialist. Since you were the first to go on offense the burden of proof is on your shoulders, not mine (i.e. the status quo). My rebuttal to this section is that you sir, are a bigot. You are a bigot because you are obstinately opposed to ideas that you do not share. You do not know because you cannot know if these ideas are good, or would work here in our country. And the only reason that you could attack them is that you are scared of them, or you are just toeing the GOP. Either way you are a hack.

4th paragraph:
It's nice to see McCain actually stick to issues now instead of relying on attacking "that one". Unfortunately, this is more of the same, just calling it something does not make it true. This is a red herring. "I cannot attack Obama's polices in principle. But I can attack the vague idea of socialism. I'll attack socialism as un-American, and then say these policies of 'that one's' are socialist." You see how dumb that sounds?

5th paragraph:
Do you even know what socialism is? You just proved my point in the last paragraph. McCain has to link Obama to Socialism. Why? Because he nor his policies are inherently socialist!

I'm done with you, troll.
Begone.

mike volpe said...

You came to my site and called me a troll. That's interesting. No, an ad hominem attack is to call someone an idiot. To point out that someone's policies are socialist is to make a policy observation. Now, if I called him a socialist and didn't back it up, then, maybe that would be an ad hominem attack. Yet, I backed it up with all sorts of things.

He wants to tax the wealthy and give that money to poorer folks. That's income redistribution, a tenet of socialism.

He wants the government to spend money to create jobs. When it is the government leading the way in job creation, that's socialism.

He thinks that health care is a right. Socialists think health care is a right.

Finally, Socialism is a bad idea because it has been tried and failed in places like Cuba and Venezuela. I believe capitalism is the best system.

If you want to have a debate over which system is best, I am willing to have that.

Anonymous said...

This election reminds me of talking with my kids. Everything they see on television they want. It looks good so they ask for it. Obama looks good on television he has put out an unbelievable about of money on television adds. I just hope that Americans are not as easily influenced as my 5 year old. Obama is socialist. Increasing welfare and creating a permanament depend class for democrats to rely on for years to come. No thank you Obama. I prefer to work for what I earn, and as long as you do not get in I will keep working as hard as I can to reach my dreams. My dream and America's dream is work hard and be rewarded fairly. Not work hard and be punished.
I do not want the money from others that have earned it. I want what I earn. And that is all I deserve. That is all anyone deserves.

Unknown said...

I believe you could also make the argument that many of Obama's policy proposals are also unconstitutional. The founding fathers were against an income tax, thus explaining why it was unconstitutional until the early 1900's. Nowhere in the constitution does it give the federal government the right to take one persons property and give it to another, although our supremes have seemingly created such a right in the hideous Kelo decision.

Health care is not a right as it requires someone else in order to provide it, thus denying that person the right to his own labor. A right is something that every person has and does not require the intervention of another to provide it. Remember, these rights were granted by our "creator", not by our government.

Lastly, Socialism has been an abject failure everywhere it has been tried. Over a hundred million people died in the last century for the dream of socialism/communism. That is more than enough bloodshed for me to conclude it will not work. The principal reason being that it goes against our natural instincts. Human beings are born like every other animal with a drive for self preservation. We take care of ourselves and our family units first, our neighbors are a distant second. The person on the other side of the country, he doesn't make the list except when we give to charity, and that is something we generally only do when all of our other needs have been met.