I really got mad at this because we all age differently inside. I know people who are in their 40s that are older inside than he is. Still, there it is, age discrimination. I really think that is what cost him the election.

I don’t think this has much traction as an argument since it’s what we already do all the time.

Obama’s plan would provide a $500 refundable tax credit to low- and middle-income Americans. It’s not a new concept and is very similar to the existing Earned Income Tax Credit that has been been part of the federal tax law since 1975.

Like Obama’s new credit, the EITC is a refundable federal income tax credit for low-income working individuals and families. When the EITC exceeds the amount of taxes owed, it results in a tax refund to those who claim and qualify for the credit, meaning it gives “rebates to those who don’t pay taxes.” In pracitce, the EITC is the largest federal poverty program. In 2004, almost 21 million American families received more than $36 billion in refunds through the EITC. In addition, as of 2006, some 20 states and the District of Columbia had their own EITCs.

The Tax Foundation, a non-partisan, non-profit research organization that monitors tax policy, described and criticized the Obama Plan as follows:

“Obama’s tax plan [includes] a “Making Work Pay” credit that would offset payroll taxes on the first $8,100 of earnings, generating up to $500 per person or $1,000 per family. The campaign said that would eliminate income taxes for 10 million low-income Americans.

…There is really no need for a new credit for low-income people. If Obama wants to accomplish the end he is aiming for, then the “Making Work Pay” credit could just be coupled with reforming/expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and an expansion of the standard deduction rather than having some new credit designed to lower income taxes on low-income earners. Or he could move in the direction of the Tax Reform Panel and make a uniform Family Credit to replace the standard deduction, personal exemptions, and the child tax credit, and a uniform Work Credit to replace the complex EITC.”

This is the first campaign she’s ever run where she’s been promoting someone else’s position and not her own. Okay, she hasn’t had a few years at Harvard Law or twenty-plus years in the Senate to learn how to lie convincingly, as Biden did two dozen times during the debate.

When she started speaking for herself she carried all before her, sometimes to the discomfort of the McCain staff who were disinclined to rock boats.

The campaign was Pearl Harbored by the press after the Palin announcement, and now the campaign staff who were asleep at the radar display are blaming the victim.

Palin was the right choice for VP but the campaign management failed utterly to predict or to properly handle the disgraceful media riot that ensued. An Axelrod would have had a lawyer perched atop every dumpster in Wasilla.

No campaign advisor should have been permitted to discuss Palin with the press until they’d met her; instead, we got the ridiculous Carly Fiorina incident.

Now we find out that the campaign actively prevented her from speaking to friendly media outlets, e.g. O’Reilly, before the Gibson and Couric interviews. Patent stupidity.

Palin has won more seriously contested elections on her own initiative than McCain has; it’s not to wonder after treatment like what she got that she’d conclude the campaign was run by idiots.

Then came the financial-industry meltdown, and once again the campaign was caught flatfooted; the government takeover of FNMA and FHMLC dropped a golden opportunity in their lap, the opportunity to run against Frank, Dodd, and Obama as the Democrat Enablers Of Disaster, but they didn’t take it. They could have taken a simple message and hammered it all the way to the White House, but all we heard for six weeks was “Wall Street greed.” Idiots.

How much of this foolishness came from Schmidt et al and how much from McCain himself is hard to judge at this point, but it’s clear that the campaign had no focused commitment to winning.

Palin put a hundred percent into dragging this mess across the finish line; the campaign buffoons who would now attack her should be dragged into an alley and beaten.

Did the hurricane disrupt your travel plans?

I was also in favor of Meg Whitman, who is the only self-made female billionaire, but who would have had even more trouble with the press, which was going to go right after any McCain choice.

I know that people like Susan Collins don’t appeal to the base, and McCain needed to do that, but was Palin the only choice out there? Bay Buchanan, for instance? I mean, say what you want about her, at least she would have held her own in an interview with Katy Couric.

Bay Buchanan is not a Republican in the usual sense of the term. Palin was a great choice. She was susceptible to the sort of attack she was subjected to because she had not been in the area about international issues. She will be better the next time.

The hate politics of women hating her is still the most interesting part of the story. I used to see this with women physicians. They were so worried that they would be mistaken for nurses that they were absolute assh**es to nurses and were hated. They eventually settled down and it is not a problem any longer but it was for a while.

I think there is an issue with people like Nicolle Wallace who think they are more qualified than any female candidate and resent the attention someone like Sarah Palin gets.

Yes, McCain exacerbated the problem by trying to hide Palin from the press and over coaching her. But it seems from post-election reports she was also pretty hard to work with.

Reports from women with a problem.

If McCain had just let her do her thing, would she really have been more gaffe-prone than Biden? But couple McCain’s heavy hand with Palin being a complete unknown and a slow study, and the media fest was inevitable.

Comment by Marty

You are depending on people, like Nicolle Wallace who have problems with female candidates, for your information. I think your premise is flawed.

the MSM was in the tank for him [Obama]

ok – guys, don’t hate me too much for what I’m about to say. But I say it out of love.

I think it’s a bit of a danger for Republicans to blame ALL this on the media. Yes, the bias against McCain/Palin got strong toward the end, particularly on late-night, but that was AFTER the Palin pick and AFTER, really, a lot of the tactics of McCain’s campaign strategy begin to look a bit…ok, again, don’t kill me…but a bit of an overreach, especially when people actually compared how the two men (McCain, Obama) came off on TV (which is to day, I think Obama looked more reasonable than McCain on TV, which was an unexpected switch for people, I think).

Listen, I understand there are hard feelings, but it’s easy to blame everything on the media. I would echo Another Drew’s point that you also need to look at the kind of campaign McCain ran. I just don’t think the public is going to respond to a culture-war campaign any more. But there’s plenty of evidence that the conservative economic campaign still works. So I think McCain got things backwards until the very last week, when he finally seemed to have a strong consistent attack. Now if only he had started with a positive economic message to couple with that with from the beginning, he might have had a good chance. Instead, just like Hillary Clinton, he underestimated Obama’s capability to be consistent over the long haul, and he let that unnerve him.