I'm sure you all have been aware of the recent comments from the McCain campaign essentially calling Obama a "socialist" due to his "spread the wealth" comment to the Joe the plumber. Well, I think it's pretty clear that Obama's economic plan isn't socialist. Obama's explanation simply was that he wants to give families of the working class making less than $250,000 no increases on their taxes. People may agree or disagree with the plan, but socialism isn't the right description for it. And apparently, McCain used to think so too.
Click here to view a video of McCain answering a question from the Hardball College Tour on October 12, 2000.
Question: Why is it that someone like my father, who goes to school for 13 years, gets penalized in a huge tax bracket because he's a doctor? Why is that -- why does he have to pay higher taxes than everybody else, just because he makes more money? Why -- how is that fair?
McCain: I think your question -- questioning the fundamentals of a progressive tax system where people who make more money pay more intaxes than a flat, across-the-board percentage. I think it's to some degree because we feel, obviously, that wealthy people can afford more.
(skip a few and...)
Question: I still don't see...how that's fair...are we getting closer and closer to, like, socialism and stuff, when you have -- you have some people paying 60 percent overall in a year of their money to taxes. That's their money, not the government's. How is that fair?
McCain: So, look, here's what I really believe, that when you...reach a certain level of comfort, there's nothing wrong with paying somewhat more...And frankly, I think the first people who deserve a tax cut are working Americans with children that need to educate their children, and they're the ones that I would support tax cuts for first.
hmmm. Well, according to McCain's responses to these questions, he used to pretty much agree with Obama. The question is: what happened? Answer: He lost the nomination in 2000 and he won the nomination in 2008. In this 2008 presidential campaign, he has changed his views by conforming to the demands of his own party.
Thoughts? Anyone have anything to say about this?
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5 comments:
Politicians keep exaggerating everything. They always take a small part of their opponent's record or platform and make it seem way more extreme than it really is.
It's good to know that there are people out there who find these exaggerations and expose them as false to the public.
Obama is fighting back in a similar way though. Race is a touchy subject and the advantage goes to Obama.
The problem with McCain's campaign is that his campaign leaders and campaign contributors are too scared to have him show up as too liberal or too moderate, so what they are doing is actually making McCain take up more conservative viewpoints. It's kinda pitiful to see McCain, who is a moderate, get pushed into submission like this.
Also, Is it me or did mccain put on a huge amount of weight from 1997 to now?
Yeah, we know that candidates change their platforms and ideas to get voters since that's the main objective -- to get elected. If anti-McCain people promoted this, maybe some would-be McCain supporters would stop supporting him. I'd think it would be a huge blow to the legitimacy of his platform. Does he really believe in it or is he just saying that so people are on his side? Those ideas he had in 2000 were, in my opinion, quite democratic, what with sharing the wealth and helping the less fortunate..
I have a hard time faulting McCain for changing his mind. I feel like every politician acts like a pendulum depending on what is best for his/her career at any given moment. Take Biden for example, when he was competing against Obama for the presidential nomination, he may have said some negative things about Obama in order to secure the nomination. Now he is is Obama's running mate, and people have commented on his change of heart towards Obama between the primaries and his nomination as V.P. It's just part of politics that politicians need to do what benefits them best at the time. When McCain was trying to distance himself from the good ol' boy Bush, he cold afford to be more socialist. Now that he is trying to distance himself form a somewhat liberal democrat, the rules of the game have changed and he cannot afford to come across supporting Obama's veiws, socialistic or not. Something that occured to me the other day, is that McCain did run agaist Bush. Yeah, duh Aimee. But if you think about it, that means he was second place to Bush. Do we really want a president who was at one point considered inferior to BUSH?????
All of the above--I agree. It's inevitable for candidates to shift their positions in order to get votes or seem more appealing to certain groups of people. But the thing is, I was pretty amazed watching the clip because McCain's views have apparently changed drastically. (what he was fighting for before is now what he says he's against) The Biden-Obama relationship that Aimee brought up is, I agree, an awkward one because they used to be running against each other. Yet, I find their reconciliation to be more believable than McCain's total flip of views. It makes me wonder...
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