From McCain-Palin Senior Policy Adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin:
“The American people continue to learn more about Barack Obama. Now we know that the slogans ‘change you can believe in’ and ‘change we need’ are code words for Barack Obama’s ultimate goal: ‘redistributive change.’ In a previously uncovered interview from September 6, 2001, Barack Obama expressed his regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t been more ‘radical’ and described as a ‘tragedy’ the Court’s refusal to take up ‘the issues of redistribution of wealth.’ No wonder he wants to appoint judges that legislate from the bench – as insurance in case a unified Democratic government under his control fails to meet his basic goal: taking money away from people who work for it and giving it to people who Barack Obama believes deserve it. Europeans call it socialism, Americans call it welfare, and Barack Obama calls it change.” — McCain-Palin Senior Policy Adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin
In case you missed it, here is what all of the fuss is about:
“You know if you look at the victories and the failures of the Civil Rights movement and its litigation strategy in the Court, I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples so that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I would be okay. But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical, it didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and the Warren Court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf and that hasn’t shifted. And one of the I think the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court focused I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change and in some ways we still suffer from that.” – Barack Obama, 2001 radio interview with Chicago Public Radio (all emphasis mine)
October 27th, 2008 at 11:02 am
This issue is not going to resonate outside the base.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Big S, I fear your are right. Outside the base few people either understand or care about the Constitution or liberty.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:06 am
#1 you are wrong. Many undecideds are that way because they are suspicious of what they heard about Obama’s firtation with socialism. This tape confirms for them that this was more than a adolescent flirtation; it was an adult infatuation and love affair with ‘redistrubting income’.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:10 am
#1… I dunno, it’s all how it’s phrased. You can’t phrase it around “Constitution and liberty” (pace #2) because that’s too abstract. The campaign has to find a way – today – to take Obama’s words and turn it into a gut-level messaging. To tell the truth, I don’t have a clue how to do that. Hopefully, they do.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:13 am
“Now we know that the slogans ‘change you can believe in’ and ‘change we need’ are code words for Barack Obama’s ultimate goal: ‘redistributive change.’”
Yeah… ummm… There were a lot of people here earlier. There’s still some cake left we just put back in the fridge. I can get it if you want, but we were actually just about to leave to meet up with everyone at a bar once we find out where they’re going. You guys wanna come? I mean I’m glad you guys came, it’s just we’re trying to close down here to go out. Everyone that left got here AWHILE ago!
October 27th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Even if it merely rallies the base, that’s a plus. Rallying Republicans is important as there are too many that are currently voting for Obama. Any is too many, but the number is significantly higher than the Dems voting for McCain. If McCain can peel them away with stuff like this and peel away some of the right-leaning Independents in the same stroke, then that’ll be a step in the right direction.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:21 am
This is going to be of interest beyond the base! Awesome that Team McCain is taking this up and isn’t botching it! (Sad they even need kudos for taking this up.)
The big question is will the MSM cover it. I think this might grow into something they simply have to.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:22 am
#6
Is there any limit to the extent to which the base can be rallied? Sarah Palin was supposed to rally the base, as were the Ayers connections, Joe the Plumber, etc., etc. – and McCain’s still losing big time. As I have said many times, the base is not enough this year.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Problem is that the MSM probably won’t cover this.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Big S is there a little rain cloud following you around? Are you ever happy?
October 27th, 2008 at 11:24 am
THIS IS THE OCTOBER GAMECHANGER!!!!!!!
October 27th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Gary,
With all due respect I believe in my heart that you’re wrong.
Plenty of people care about the Constitution and liberty. When times are tough people can lose sight of their love of liberty, but when Obama consistently shows a desire and the will to take from someone who works for a living and gives it to someone who doesn’t people wake up.
Take a look at the polls. I don’t believe Limbaugh’s conspiracy theory assessment that says the polls will narrow because of polling companies’ reputations. I would argue that in spite of the fact that McCain is viewed as a ‘negative’ campaigner, the message is hitting home.
This radio interview is much more solid proof of the hypothesis that the McCain campaign put forth soon after the ‘Joe the Plumber’ interaction. In a 30 second sound bite, sometimes people don’t say things the way that they want to. When a person spends 5 minutes discussing how they think redistributing income is a good idea, it buttresses that hypothesis and changes it from hypothesis to ideological belief.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:27 am
#9
Even if they did, the McCain campaign would have its message diluted by former Palin quotes in favor of collective ownership and wealth redistribution in Alaska. It’s not going to work.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:28 am
#10
I’ve got reasons to be pessimistic.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Big S are you an Obama camp plant ?
October 27th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I’m with the people who thinks this resonates outside of the base. No way independent-minded people will want a Democratic White House, a Democratic House, a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate, AND an activist Supreme Court who “breaks free from the constraints of the Constitution” in order to enforce economic “justice”.
But I don’t believe that it will resonate enough outside the base to change anything now. I firmly believe we’re looking at an Obama presidency, barring some MAJOR upset, like Obama getting caught raping a goat while drinking blood that he stole from the Red Cross or something.
And even if he did get caught doing that, I’m still not sure it would change anything… because I’m pretty sure most journalists would claim it’s not “newsworthy” and that it would be “racist” to bring it up.
(“Oh, what are you saying? He’s just some goat-loving, blood-drinking BLACK MAN? Would you be upset about this if he were a white guy? Would you care if Sarah Palin did it?”)
October 27th, 2008 at 11:32 am
#15
Nope. I’ve been commenting here for a long time, and enthusiastically supported Giuliani, then McCain for the presidency – that is, until the Disasta from Alaska landed on the McCain campaign and began to suffocate it’s chances.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Big S – people ultimately vote for President not the VP…
October 27th, 2008 at 11:35 am
17
The Disasta from Alaska is the ONLY reason McCain is still in this. The ONLY reason. The GOTV and the fundraising would be at least a 1/3 less with almost any other VP pick.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:45 am
The Disasta from Alaska – you have got to be kidding! Sarah Palin IS the only reason this election is as close as it is for McCain. Sarah, and Sarah alone, has provided the energy and excitement there is to try and drag McCain across the finish line. Those of us not supporting McCain in the primaries tried to warn of Bob Dole version 2.0 by nominating McCain – the Sarah Palin VP pick is the only reason many will be voting for McCain instead of just sitting this one out.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:46 am
#18
There are a lot of people who are not voting for McCain because of Palin and all that she represents. Colin Powell, Charles Fried, etc. etc. When McCain’s own advisors are jumping ship and citing the selection of Sarah Palin as a major reason for their change of heart, you know you’ve got a problem.
#19
McCain is not really “in this” anymore.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:46 am
If it takes 2 points from Obama and adds 2 to McCain, we basically have a deadheat, and an awful lot of battleground states shift.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Those optimistic that this will make a difference are giving too much credit to the same American voter who poll after poll and Obama mega rally after mega rally prove don’t deserve any credit for reason and intelligence.
I’ll remain pessimistic and pray to be proved wrong.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Big S, Sarah Palin is the only reason McCain is not 20 or 30 points behind.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:49 am
If we can get the national numbers to within 3% we can still win this. There will be a Bradley Effect most places – I am almost certain. I have talked to many 04 Kerry supporters here in FL that are voting McCain that convince me of that.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:50 am
#20
Sure, the VP nominee with the negative favorable-unfavorable ratings nationally is helping the campaign.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:53 am
I agree with Big S, Palin is a negative.
McCain needed to appeal to the middle and to have a potent argument that Obama was too inexperienced.
Both vanished with Palin.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Big S, Colin Powell is not more that an ungraceful traitor. He never had the gut to run for office, he was the single worst Secretary of State in history. The only reason he’s voting for Obama is because of race.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:58 am
#27
In addition to that, the steady stream of mini-scandals and gaffes have hurt the McCain campaign’s ability to get its message out.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
27
True, but then the hardcore conservatives stay home as a result of deflated GOTV and lower fundraising. It’s McCain;s job to appeal to independents and he’s done that horribly with canned “Democrats and Republicans serve in my administration” instead of “Hey independents, this other guy has middle-of-the-road rhetoric and but his steering wheel tilts way to the left once you take your eyes off that middle road.”
I just made that up as I typed and it’s better than 80% of what McCain has said since 9/15.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
#27 Either you or your cohorts who think Sarah Palin is a ‘negative’ are Obama brainwashed trolls or you’re part of a small select group who call themselves Republicans who are completely delusional. Without Sarah Palin on the ticket the IBD/TIPP and the Battleground polls would not be showing McCain only 3 points back of Obama-it would be somewhere around 15 points. Fortunately most of us are rational and we see things with our own eyes and we have ears and finally we have a drug-free brain that clarifies and integrates. Nobody who is a negative on a Presidential campaign receives SRO audiences of 10000+ whereever he or she goes. Your gig is up my friends.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I don’t think Palin was had as great of an impact as either side seems to think. She obviously rallied the base. She also obviously turned off a lot of voters. I think all of McCain’s realistic alternatives would have had similar effects (e.g. Lieberman would have appealed to more outside voters but really turned off the base). In the end, I think part of the problem is that people on both sides are making this an election about Palin when she’s really not important and isn’t going to have that big of an impact on a McCain presidency. Her effect on the election has been as divided and divisive as everything else in this election, and I don’t think it’s fair to blame her for it.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I’d be forever indebted to the first Palinophobe who links to the photo of a mass Mac rally prior to Mac’s veep selection.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
#30
When McCain selected Palin, and touted her as something like a political soul-mate, he lost a lot of his moderate cred. From outside the conservative echo chamber, she looks like a less articulate, less empirically-driven version of George W. Bush. McCain hitched his wagon to her in an ill-advised effort to appeal to the base and Hillary Clinton voters (!?) at the same time. This demonstrated that the campaign understood the base pretty well, but had no idea how to appeal to moderates or even liberals aside from the reputation McCain built based on his 2000 run for the presidency.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
I thought McCain was suppose to attract independent voters to vote for him (isn’t that what we were told in the primary?). Not the VP pick (McCain needed a VP as a base pleaser, not to attract independents.)
It shows the state of the race when we complain that the VP pick should also be courting independents.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
30 “True, but then the hardcore conservatives…”
If a pro-life, pro-gun, pro- strict constructionist Justices, McCain, was not good enough for the hardcore- and they prefered – by them not voting for McCain, and getting to the polls even crawling over broken glass if need be- Socialist Obama who if he was to win would gut all their cherished issues for generations, then they should be ignored for the retards they are.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Conservatives aren’t going to stay home!!!!
We’re coming out in record numbers.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
bob,
I think the term you are looking for is RINO. There are quite a few on this site.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Thanks all for your myopic anecdotal evidence and unscientific analysis that Palin is bringing McCain millions of new votes. However, the polls have shown that she has net negatives for undecideds. Refute that.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
The impact of Palin is hard to quantify. It’s true that she draws huge crowds, mostly of the base. Personally, I love what she has to say. However, to ignore the polling showing her unfavables considerably higher than her favorables and the significant net drag on the ticket when asked the ‘more likely to vote for question’ shows that its only the base that was turned on. Not the women, as intended. McCain lost credibility by claiming he would choose someone who could lead from day one, then choosing the exact opposite. I like Palin folks, but many do not, and only a few die hards believe she is ready to step into the shoes of the presidency as McCain had promised.
Nevertheless, we have whom we have, and I think its still winnable, but not doing what we’ve been doing. We have to exploit Obama’s Marxist, rascist, and Terrorist associations to beat this guy. Just think, this guy is a first cousin of Odinga who is major terrorist, and Barack went to Kenya and campaigned for this guy, but who even knows it? Not even one percent. What a shame that our media is in the tank to take down our great nation.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Palin is going to assure that we get a truckload of enthusiastic volunteers on Election Day, but with her favorability ratings and 55-40 unprepared to be VP/prepared to be VP numbers, I think we could have found someone much better.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I am laughing at all of the people who believe that Obama’s self indictment of redistribution only stirs up the emotions of the Republican Party. Forget about the minority vote for most are in the bag for Obama however most white voters and I might add Democrats are not so keen with the idea of redistribution of wealth especially from a constitutional point of view. This IMO will be the deciding nail in the coffin. The other associations regarding Obama had very little of his own words to discredit his opinions. Today we find that what Obama said yesterday before this radio interview was uncovered that he wasn’t a socialist. We now have clear proof from 7 years ago of his radical thinking of which ties his associations more closely than ever before. Now once and for all you can connect the radical ideology through his past associations and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a late drove of money come into this campaign to prove the point of his radical social engineering with America. Independents are smart for they are not tied to one party and they usually do not move far left or far right so with the added evidence of Obama’s radical left wing theories you can now be assured that this race is dead even regardless of the polls. IMO all of the red states in question will no longer be in question and we could see some of the Obama strongholds start to crumble. This is big news and don’t think that it will be discounted by any one of the media outlets. The stage has been set for McCain to pick up more steam and I can see some major money coming in at the last minute to further highlight the Obama socialistic agenda. This is a rare gift for it dispels the notion that he isn’t a socialist and proves once and for all that Obama is nothing more than a big liar who will say anything to get elected however I have faith that the American people will finally see that Obama is a fraud and that he must be stopped at any cost to save America from socialism.
October 27th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Listing to a left leaning radio talk show host this morning in the SF Bay area who doesn’t like this idea of “redistribution of wealth” based on the radio interview….
October 27th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
The constraints of the Constitution were put there for a reason–to stop Obama and his liberal ideas.
October 27th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
“And to that extent as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical, it didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.”
that will hurt obama more i think than the part about redistributing wealth (though that part will rally more Reps and some more right-leaning independents to McCain) among independents and undecidesds.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
In 83 I was in the deths of the USSR. An American approached me (thinking I was Russian ) & handed me a copy of the Us Costitution. I only threw it out in a general clean up in 2005. I had been to all the Washington museums & seen it of course but this old man was so proud of it.
Really the constitution is the best ting USA as going for it in the bad times to come.
October 28th, 2008 at 6:51 am
As a woman I was initially impressed McCain chose Sarah Palin. Then the more I heard/saw her, the more it seemed like her selection was a cheap ploy to get the Hillary vote, without regard to substance. I don’t disrespect Palin as a person, but I’m a little nervous that she’ll be a heartbeat away from the presidency. At McCain’s age, maybe half a heartbeat away. I just think McCain could’ve made a better choice and I really don’t understand why everyone’s so excited about her.