Charles Krauthammer delivers a scorching criticism of John Edward's lack of apparant principles. In short, he stands for nothing but the moment.

Then there is John Edwards. He's not going to be president, either. He stays in the race because, with the Democrats' proportional representation system, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton might end up in a very close delegate race -- perhaps allowing an also-ran with, say, 10 percent of the delegates to act as kingmaker at the convention.

It's a prize of sorts; it might even be tradeable for a Cabinet position. But at considerable cost. His campaign has been a spectacle.

Edwards has made much of his renunciation of his Iraq war vote. But he has not stopped there. His entire campaign has been an orgy of regret and renunciation:

* As senator, he voted in 2001 for a bankruptcy bill that he now denounces.

* As senator, he voted for storing nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Twice. He is now fiercely opposed.

* As senator, he voted for the Bush-Kennedy No Child Left Behind education reform. He now campaigns against it, promising to have it "radically overhauled."

* As senator, he voted for the Patriot Act, calling it "a good bill . . . and I am pleased to support it." He now attacks it.

* As senator, he voted to give China normalized trade relations. Need I say? He now campaigns against liberalized trade with China as a sellout of the middle class to the great multinational agents of greed, etc.

Breathtaking. People can change their minds about something. But everything? The man served one term in the Senate. He left not a single substantial piece of legislation to his name, only an endless string of votes on trade, education, civil liberties, energy, bankruptcy and, of course, war that now he not only renounces but inveighs against.
John Edward's flipflopping would make even John Kerry blush.

Labels: 2008, john edwards

On many key policies by Congress, John McCain has partnered up with some very disconcerting bedfellows. Summary by Investors Business Daily:

Consider Michigan, home of the beleaguered American auto industry. McCain, together with Democrat John Kerry, were initial co-sponsors of the 35-mpg Corporate Average Fuel Economy mandate that just passed Congress. Estimates are that it will cost the domestic auto industry $85 billion over a decade and imperil thousands of jobs.

McCain's campaign says he has never voted to increase taxes. Yet General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz says the bill will add an average of $6,000 to the price of a new car, in effect a 21.4% tax hike on current average car prices.

It gets worse. McCain supports an energy tax in the form of a bill co-sponsored with Joe Lieberman that would cap the amount of carbon dioxide that energy-producing companies could emit. It is essentially an energy-rationing scheme not unlike Bill Clinton's infamous BTU tax.

Companies wishing to increase energy production above the cap would have to purchase unused emission credits from other companies. In a letter to McCain in July 2007, the EPA estimated that the "tax" would amount to 26 cents per gallon by 2010 and 68 cents by 2050. The EPA says the McCain energy tax would increase electric bills by 22% in 2030. This is hardly the way to avoid a recession.

It gets worse. In April 2002, McCain joined John Edwards and Hillary Clinton in defeating a measure to open an area the size of Washington-Dulles Airport in the frozen tundra of ANWR to energy production.

He has voted against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge no fewer than four times. In expressing his opposition, McCain equated ANWR with the Grand Canyon, a national monument. But as we have said repeatedly, the drilling area is in fact what hell would look like if it froze over.

Aside from supporting higher taxes and energy dependence, McCain shares the disdain of Democrats for America's pharmaceutical industry. Never mind the miracles it has produced.

In ABC's New Hampshire debate. McCain asked: "Why shouldn't we be able to re-import drugs from Canada?" He blamed high drug costs not on regulation and litigation, but on "the power of the pharmaceutical companies." When Mitt Romney argued that they weren't "the big bad guys," McCain replied, "Well, they are."

McCain has joined forces with Ted Kennedy to support amnesty for illegal aliens and with Russ Feingold to restrict political speech. He also backed the Sarbanes-Oxley monstrosity that makes American business less productive and competitive.

"John McCain was not only against us, but leading the charge on the other side," former Sen. Rick Santorum noted recently. "There's nothing worse than having a Democratic Congress and a Republican president who would act like a Democrat in matters that are important to conservatives." And to all Americans.

McCain supporters say he's the only one who could beat Hillary Clinton, but that might be a distinction without a difference.
Yeah, that's not good, is it.

I suppose McCain could surprise us once elected. None of these guys are that exciting, really. It's just -- as most career Senators/Congressmen -- McCain has a long history to scrutinize.

Along those lines, Rich Karlgaard, managing editor of Forbes.com, was on Bill Bennett's radio show this morning and said something I can relate to: "My head tells me to vote for Romney but my heart can't get behind him." He added that there's just something "too calculating" and "not genuine" about him, much in the same way people feel Hillary Clinton is not genuine.

Karlgaard actually had some pretty interesting takes regarding the election, and for conservatives most of the scenarios, at least from an economic standpoint, are pretty encouraging, even if it's Romney.

He acknowledged that people are hesitant on McCain, but countered that he has several true-blue conservatives serving as his advisors, including Phil Gramm and Jack Kemp -- these guys are some of the founding fathers of supply-side Reaganomics. He said that Giuliani comes from the Steve Forbes thought of business and economics, which is also good and supply-side driven. Karlgaard added that all of the republicans have run "flawed campaigns," and found it bizarre that none of them have said anything supportive of the small-business community, a huge traditionally-conservative voting block.

He brought up the flak from Obama's citation of Reagan, among other things, and wondered if Obama might not be as liberal as the left expected.

So, really the worst things for us (us being those who aren't nanny-state liberals) would be John Edwards, or, of course, Hillary Clinton. Karlgaard expects Clinton to slowly knock Obama out of the race, but I'm not so sure. People just don't like her, even people prone towards liberalism. Even a conservative has to acknowledge that Obama just has a charisma that Edwards (swarmy) and Clinton do not have.

Labels: 2008, Clinton, john edwards, mccain, Obama, romney

While the campaign of John Edwards - currently a distant third place - is all but irrelevant to next year's election, I couldn't help but note his selective definition of "lobbyist contributions," in a Washington Post story titled, "Edwards Emphasizes Lack of Corporate Funding Ties."

Former senator John Edwards ( N.C.) continued to swing hard at the Democratic front-runner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), saying: "I think she operates within a corrupt system and defends it. . . . And it's not okay. And it's costing America."

On ABC's "This Week," Edwards equated the lobbyist contributions that Clinton is receiving with "a bribe." He said of lobbyists: "Their job is to influence what happens in the Congress, to influence members of Congress. And they're giving and raising money for them." ..."When I'm the Democratic nominee," he said, "I will have beaten two celebrity candidates who've spent $200 to $250 million, and I'll be running against a Republican carrying George Bush's baggage. That's a fight I'm ready for, and I will win." He continued: "I will have taken a principled stand. They will be awash in this corporate and lobbyist money, and the distinction will be absolutely clear. We can't be a lighter version of them. We have to give Americans very clear choices in this election, and that's one of the choices."

Lest anyone forget, John Edwards is a personal injury lawyer millionaire, who made his fortune from lawsuits that would later be discovered as backed by junk science.

Meanwhile, the trial lawyer and the legal profession in general is just as big a lobbying sector as any corporate group. "The Association of Trial Lawyers of America—the "home office" of Trial Lawyers Inc.—, routinely ranks among the top five PACs in federal campaign donations, leaning strongly to Democrats," according to the Manhattan Institutes's Trial Lawyers, Inc. study, and, "Through individual and soft money contributions, as well as PAC donations, the lawsuit industry has surpassed all others in political giving in every electoral cycle since 1990 ."

Even the New York Times has Edwards pinned:

In fact, of his [Edwards'] campaign's top 20 donors, 15 are from law firms and 12 from the plaintiffs' bar. No other single industry accounted for more than 2 percent of the $23 million he raised through the first two quarters. Mr. Obama, who raised $59 million, and Mrs. Clinton, who raised $63 million, have tapped a far broader range of sectors.

So, who is the most beholden to a single advocacy group here? That would be John Edwards.

Labels: campaign finance, corruption, democrats, john edwards