Spin Cycle

Asked who he's name Treasury Secretary -- which is a kind of weird question from Brokaw -- McCain mentions Buffett, "a supporter of Sen. Obama."

A weird answer.

McCain throws the first elbow at Obama for not agreeing to mor town hall debates:

"Sen. Obama, it's goo to be with you at a Town Hall meeting."

How's this idea for future debates as No. 2 approaches: If either candidate is deemed by the moderator-panel to have avoided the question asked, he or she loses answering time on the next round. This can be called the Dobie rule, after a colleague, Mike Dobie, who proposes it. By the end, we suspect, neither candidate will have any time left to answer anything, and you can switch to Family Guy.

If Obama really wanted to shake McCain up tonight, he'd come out looking like this:

The Neighborhood Retail Alliance has been posting some hard-hitting comments on the effort to keep Mayor Bloomberg from having to obey the term-limit law and to stick to his word, repeated over and over year after year, that he would depart when his second term ends next year.

Based on the organization's entry today, we compare two filings from the New York Times. One is a paragraph from a story published today. The second is an abstract of a story from February 1976 about a then-Assemblyman from the Bronx who ended up in jail.

Behavioral parallels, anyone?

TODAY:
"When Mr. Bloomberg learned of Mr. Lauder’s frustration, he and his aides suggested a deal in which Mr. Lauder would sit on a 2010 charter commission committee, which would have the authority to change the law back to a two-term limit. In return, Mr. Lauder would agree to not fight the mayor’s plans to alter the law. But Mr. Lauder, after appearing to back such a deal, balked on Sunday night, people familiar with the matter said. His reversal left City Hall staff members confused, as one said, and flustered."

THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO:
“NYS Assemblyman Alan Hochberg reports he has been indicted on charges of official misconduct and violating state election law, news conf. Denies charges. Charles Rosen, leader of protesting residents of Co-op City, holds Hochberg tried to bribe him several mos ago to keep him from running for Hochberg's Bronx Assembly seat. Charges Hochberg offered him $20,000 no-show Assembly job and $5,000 contribution to any up-coming election that he might run in.....

It offering a government role to someone for a political favor — whether you’re doing it for power or for money -- even legal?

The Nassau Democrats say they’ve reached a milestone for which there’s been an extended political drumroll over many years: their party members surpass those of Republicans, capping a trend that has continued through the decade.

“It has been reached. We now exceed them in number,” declared Jay Jacobs, the Nassau Democratic chairman, who cited a margin of about 200 people. When he took over his current post in 2001 with the election of Tom Suozzi as county executive, Jacobs said, the Republican edge was 79,000. “In 1980 it was 84,000...We’ve been steadily climbing,” he said. “We’ve had voter registration programs over the years, and of course enrollment has accelerated in the later part of this year.

“We expected this to happen in December or January, but it’s happening sooner as a function of all the excitement currently with Obama, and all the rest. I think this will impact the state Senate race,” Jacobs said, with GOP Sen. Kemp Hannon’s district having lost close to 8,000 Republicans and gained about 8,000 Democrats since 2004.

More exact numbers, and response, as we parse it...If the numbers hold up it is historic given the center of Republican power that Nassau has been in the past. Rick Brand reported on the trends Monday, in this posting.

Just a little pre-debate thought exercise — and there are no right answers, only honest or dishonest ones:

Given the acrid cries at McCain-Palin rallies of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and even a yelp of “Kill him!” — never mind the racial slur hurled at the sound man — what do you guess the overall reaction would be if, at an Obama rally the same day, folks in the crowd had been stirred to shout “Racist!”, or “Stick him!” or “Siddown, white boy”?

Swampland has a nice compilation of then-and-now quotes from High-Road McCain to Low-Road McCain. Including this one:

John McCain, August 20: "Let me be very clear. I am not questioning [Obama's] patriotism. I am questioning his judgment."

Sarah Palin, Oct. 6: "I am just so fearful that [Obama] is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America, as the greatest source for good in this world. I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country."

McCain and his campaign have a lot of excuses for why they've had to change their approach. One is that Obama refused to do a series of Town Hall debates, like the one tonight. As if they represent some apotheosis of democracy.

But it always seems a little self-serving -- the best way to do democracy just happened to be the forum where John McCain was most comfortable, and if Obama refused to go along he was the cause of McCain running a dirty campaign? Whereas, more formal Lincoln-Douglas style debates, of the sort Obama suggested, were just no good at all?

There have been other excuses, too. You keep reading about how McCain and his team really don't want to run this kind of campaign, but they've been forced into it -- by the media, by the economy, by the prospect of losing. The idea seems to be that McCain is really a principled guy -- if only he was winning, and Obama did Town Halls, and the media portrayed McCain as a war-hero-country-first-maverick, and the economy hadn't tanked.

Principled doesn't mean you do the right thing when it doesn't hurt you. It means you do the right thing when it does.

Members of Suffolk's largest union, Association of Municipal Employees, plan to demonstrate tonight at the Suffolk Democratic Party dinner, headlined by Gov. David Paterson, to protest County Executive Steve Levy's plan to shutter the county's nursing home in Yaphank.

Union officials say they expect between 100 and 150 workers to turn out to Mama Lombardi's in Holbrook with picket signs and chants lambasting the county executive, whose budget has called for laying off the 270 nursing home workers come Jan. 1.

Cheryl Felice, who heads the union, said demonstrators will cheer or applaud legislators who have supported saving the nursing home -- and let the others, such as Levy, know how they feel as well.

Rick Brand

State elections officials acknolwedge they got complaints in the last month about Spanish language voter registration forms that ask whether a potential voter is a "citizen of North America" rather than a U.S. citizen.

Robert Brehm, a state elections boards spokeman, said the offending forms that were printed between 2003 and 2007 and may still be in circulation in some places even though the forms were changed last year. He said the term "norteamericano is" can be used in translation as an American citizen but concedes the use of a U.S. citizen is more precise.

The first question on those forms asks in Spanish "Are you a citizen of North America?" and tells potential voters to go no further if the answer is no. But Brehm emphasized at the bottom of the form that those registering to vote are also asked to sign their names attesting that they are citizens of the United States. In light of the complaints, Brehm said state election officials have sent a new batch of forms to both Nassau and Suffolk Counties.

But Republican Assembly candidate John Bugler called the mistake "very purposeful," and aimed at allowing non-citizens to vote. And he added bercause of the discrepancy at the top and bottom of the form, "No judge in the country would ever find anyone guilty."

Rick Brand

Two videos that may be of interest.

First, here's former United Mineworkers president Richard Trumka speaking at a labor conference this summer, talking about race and the union vote. It's a powerful speech, arguing that labor has to put aside racial division and vote for its economic interest, and it's getting a lot of play among Obama backers:

From the other side, here's Sean Hannity recent "documentary" asserting (we kid you not) that the absence of information about Obama's undergrad years and admission to Harvard Law School proves that he is a secret radical. Just to be clear, it is not something we vouch for:

Yesterday, someone in McCain's crowd yelled "terrorist" when he asked "Who is the real Barack Obama." Today, Sarah Palin drew out the poison when she claimed Obama accused US troops of "air raiding villages and killing civilians" in Afghanistan.

"Treason," shouts a fired up member of her crowd. See video at left.

Now, you have to cut Sarah Palin a little slack, because she doesn't know that much. But the US, with limited troops, has had to use too much air power in Afghanistan for a long time. The result is civilian deaths. Bush has lamented it, Karzai has lamented it, everyone in touch with reality understands that it's a problem.

So Obama brought it up in a speech last year: "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there." It was, as AP said at the time, a true statement. At that point in 2007, Western forces had killed 286 Afghan civilians.

The GOP playbook, however, says that any criticism of military strategy -- who cares if it's true? -- will be treated as a slur on the troops. Shame! Dishonor! Unpatriotic!

Thus John McCain and Sarah Palin, putting country first, seek to bring us together.

"Terrorist."

"Treason."

Via TPM.

Not to be too depressing, but the Dow is down 385 today.

Maybe you should be talking to your broker instead of reading this blog...

The New York League of Conservation Voters releases its endorsements. One surprise: No endorsement in the Craig Johnson- Barbara Donno state Senate race in Nassau.

Overall, the NYLCV endorsed 9 Republicans and 57 Democrats. But incumbent Dem Johnson didn’t get a nod – likely because he didn’t support two of the NYLCV’s biggest priorities, congestion pricing and an LIRR third track.

Those who did win endorsements: Incumbent House members Israel, Bishop, McCarthy, Ackerman – but not Peter King. In the state Senate, Dem Brian Foley – running against incumbent Caesar Trunzo in Suffolk – got the nod. Incumbent Republicans Ken Lavalle in Suffolk and Frank Padavan in Queens also won endorsements.

Assembly races: Steve Englebright, Charles Lavine, Joseph Saladino, Michelle Schimel, Robert Sweeney, Rob Walker.

Yesterday we described city lawyer Michael Cardozo's claim that letting the voters vote on term limits in a referendum might violate everyone's civil rights, and his refusal to provide a single case or precedent in support of that idea.

Today's candidate for City Hall Sycophant seems to be Esther Fuchs, a former aide to Bloomberg and now a professor at Columbia. Here's what she said in a debate yesterday, as recounted in the NYObserver:

“ 'What's so sacrosanct about referendums? I don't understand the point,' she said.

“ 'We can look at how many examples of direct democracy screw up the public interest,' Fuchs went on, arguing that civil rights laws would have initially failed in a referendum."

Remarkably inept special pleading on behalf of an indefensible proposition. Why not have the Columbia faculty decide between Obama and McCain? What's so sacrosanct about direct democracy? The people might screw it up by choosing whoever Ester Fuchs doesn't like.

Here's the point: Just because a Columbia professor thinks something is not in the public interest doesn't make it so. Most people not interested in sucking up to Bloomberg grasp the idea that the public does a better job of determining the public interest than... Ester Fuchs.

But her argument is doubly idiotic in this situation, because the only alternative to having the public vote in a referendum is having two interested parties -- City Councilors and Bloomberg -- vote on whether they can keep their own jobs for another term. Whatever flaws there are in direct democracy, letting people vote on themselves is hardly a good substitute.

But don't take our word for it -- it was Bloomberg who called that very idea an "absolute disgrace" back before he wanted to run.

UPDATE: It's particularly worthy to note that Prof. Fuchs headed Bloomberg's 2005 charter-revision commission which put questions on the ballot about ethics codes and finances that voters chose to approve.

From the commission's statement after wrapping up work in August of that year:

“We had serious work to do, and we did it over the course of the past 11 months, and I know we can be proud of the work we did,” Chairwoman Ester R. Fuchs said. “It is substantive and it is important and it’s something that needed to be done for the future functioning of the City of New York.”

Asked by a reporter what he thought of Supervisor Patrick Vecchio’s 2009 budget, Smithtown Highway Superintendent Dan Ryan said, “I haven’t seen it yet.”

The board members, and reporters, were given a copy of the budget last week.

Ryan said the town clerk is to give him a copy this afternoon. But for the moment, Ryan said, “I only know what I read in the papers.”

Ryan, a Democrat, and Vecchio, a Republican, have clashed in the past over funding of the highway department -- specifically, road repair.

Stacey Altherr

For a second time, Smithtown Supervisor Patrick Vecchio, a Republican, at left, has endorsed U.S. Rep. Tim Bishop, a Democrat, at right, for re-election.

Standing on the steps of Smithtown Town Hall, Vecchio called Bishop a “friend to Smithtown,” citing $4.5 million the Congressman secured for Smithtown road repairs.

“I have been through five congressmen, and not one (besides Bishop) has ever picked up the phone to say, what do you need,” said Vecchio, who has been town supervisor for 30 years. “He is good for Smithtown, and that’s why I support him.”

Bishop added that his friendship with Vecchio “serves the constituents we both represent.”

When asked why he went against the town’s Republican party, which has endorsed Bishop’s opponent, Lee Zeldin, Vecchio said he often goes against the party’s pick, to endorse who he believes is best, and said Bishop “brings home the bacon.”

“It would be foolhardy of me not to endorse the Congressman.” The photo is posted on Bishop's Web site.

As he waited outside before Vecchio’s cross-endorsement, Bishop spoke about the presidential election, saying it was time for the candidates to stop the attacks and get down to the people’s business.

“The issues are so important and the difference between the two candidates is so stark, that the public deserves a full and honest discussion on the issues, without continuing on these peripheral matters,” Bishop said.

Stacey Altherr

Here's Mayor Michael Bloomberg in June answering a question on his high-paid butlers' stealth polling on term limits, as posted by Azi. Listen carefully to what Hizzoner is saying, and try speculating on the key question: Just how long has this third-term ploy been planned? And are we supposed to believe it is a coincidence that he announced his move last week -- once it was deemed by his city-paid lawyer to be safe from voter input? The deception is the most fascinating aspect.

Ever since McCain decided to focus his campaign on Obama's association with Bill Ayers, the left has been buzzing about the US Council for World Freedom -- a right-wing anti-communist group that McCain associated with as a board member in the early 1980s.

The council was headed by Gen. John Singlaub (left), a friend of McCain's father, and achieved notoriety when it was exposed as a front for the Reagan/Ollie North White House's illegal arms shipments to Nicaragua's Contras, designed to circumvent a Congressional ban.

But the group also has some more embarrassing connections -- to former Nazi collaborators, right wing death squads in Latin America. McCain was never tied directly to those activities and says he resigned in the mid-1980s, but there are questions about exactly when.

The AP explores the turf here. Also look here and here:

"McCain's association with a group that reportedly circumvented law, financed right-wing military institutions, and engaged in sometimes brutal anti-communist tactics, could be telling for some voters. At the very least his time on the board of the U.S. Council of World Freedom provides a window of sorts into the foreign policy vision that he held back in the 1980s and one that he still seemingly holds today."

Two striking numbers in a new NBC/WSJ poll that has Obama up 49-43 nationally:

By a 50-29 margin, voters believe Obama and Biden have beaten McCain and Palin in the first two debates. And voters who think the economy is the most important issue rank Obama as the one best equipped to handle it 54-39.

For McCain: While Obama has a solid lead nationally, the race is still even in key battleground states.

The latest video from Alaska, 1984: Sarah Heath (Palin) competing in the evening gown competition. She says:

"God has made us this promise. If we will commit our hearts to him, we will succeed. Our lives can be enhanced by applying this and by thinking optimistically. In Alaska we have mosquitoes. We also have the most beautiful mountains in the world. The choice is ours as to which we'll focus on."

Which did she choose?

Thanks, RB.

Nielsen posts some data and results from its real-time monitoring of undecided voters during the Biden-Palin debate. It found that the highest and lowest responses -- shown in the graph below came with Biden talking about plans to leave Iraq (highest) followed by Palin condemning that as the "white flag of surrender" (lowest):

In this video, from yesterday, McCain asks "Who is the real Barack Obama?" It's getting a lot of attention because a member of the crowd seems to yell "Terrorist!" Is McCain's reaction appropriate? You'd like to hear him say, "No -- we're better than that!" He doesn't. But you don't know how clearly he heard it, although he does seem to react to it.

Anyhow, it's making the rounds, so we thought you might like to see it:

A new Obama ad hits McCain for trying to shift attention away from the economy. It calls McCain "out of ideas" and "out of touch":

The Dow dropped 3.6 percent yesterday and Asian shares lost 3 percent, but European markets stabilized overnight, suggesting the carnage might be less savage today. Still, the worldwide financial turmoil and evidence of a global recession now makes the bailout passed just last week look like "a pebble tossed in a churning sea."

Obama and McCain said they were going to run a classy campaign, but McCain's character attacks and Obama's responses have moved both into attack mode as the two candidates prepare for their second debate tonight.

Handicapping the debate in Nashville tonight, the Town Hall format favors McCain, but the domestic policy/economy subject matter favors Obama. Brune in Newsday says McCain must raise doubts about Obama, but going harshly negative in a Town Hall format with undecided voters could backfire. Five things to watch for. Also, here.

Sarah Palin talked about William Ayers yesterday, and Obama's campaign talked about Charles Keating. The documentary Obama released about McCain's role in the "Keating 5" S&L scandal is a "useful primer" but is not entirely fair to McCain, the Times says.

McCain played an outrage card, claiming that Obama "abetted" the subprime lending mess, but his speech contained about 10 misrepresentations of fact.

Obama continues to make gains in battleground states, according to the polls. Ex-Hillary-aide and Fox personality Howard Wolfson, who spent six months trying to beat Obama by tying him to Bill Ayers, says Ayers won't work and the race is over.

Fox, moving into frenzied anti-Obama mode, broadcast a "documentary" asserting that Obama was "training for the radical overthrow of the government" while he was working as a community organizer in Chicago. The host was Sean Hannity.

Dana Milbank: Palin "makes a pit bull look tame."

Palin's husband and aides have agreed to cooperate with a Troopergate probe in Alaska, after a judge upheld it.

The GOP, working on every front to darkly raise questions about Obama, charged in an FEC complaint that he was receiving a lot of money from foreign sources.

A bill to allow Bloomberg to run for a third term will be introduced in City Council today, and his lawyer isn't answering questions about his curious claim that a spring referendum to allow voters to decide might be illegal. Term-limits champion Ron Lauder is still not on board.

Suffolk's land preservation efforts have cost the eye-popping sum of $3.5 billion.

McCain's ad mix is 100 percent about Obama now -- literally -- and here is a new attack that begins with the now omnipresent question, "Who is Barack Obama?"

Of course, after 12 months of saturation coverage, everyone knows who Obama is. So, the slogan is designed to trigger and evoke hidden fears of what might lurk in the heart of a black man with a foreign sounding name who burst somewhat suddenly on the national scene.

The last three charges in this ad -- that Obama put up misleading ads about McCain's positions on Social Security, stem cell research and health care reform -- are arguably true, although McCain has put up similarly misleading attacks against Obama. The first charge is a hilarious and gargantuan distortion, aka a "whopper:" Obama's campaign recruited supportive Missouri law enforcement officials to work on a "truth squad," responding to misleading commercials, not -- as the ad intimates -- to intimidate foes:

Who knew? The story behind this 2004 foto of John McCain and Tina Fey is here:

Today was an interesting day.

McCain's campaign over the weekend announced that it was going to begin attacking Obama on character issues to "turn the page" on the economy, and proceeded to do so, with Sarah Palin bringing up Obama's acquaintance with ex-radical William Ayers.

Obama, today, responded with a frontal assault on McCain's relationship with fraudster Charles Keating. Although Obama once said Keating was not "germane" to the campaign, he clearly was ready to bring him up -- they didn't produce a 13-minute documentary over the weekend, did they?

Maybe Keating is now "germane" because a financial scandal has now become the country's number 1 issue. But today, as Obama was attacking Keating, the Dow was dropping 500 points. And the news reports we saw reported a kind of equivalency -- McCain's campaign talked about Ayers and Obama's talked about Keating while voters worried about their retirement and college savings.

The trick now is getting it just right. If you fight too little you're a wimp, but if your response -- Obama on Keating, today -- is too strong, you appear to be ignoring the issues. There's points to be lost if you aren't in the mud, but there's points to be scored if you're above it all.

Who can be Goldilocks?

As we noted on Friday, Gov. Palin's tax returns did not report as income any of the $16,951 she received as $60 a day per diem travel payments for spending 312 days during her first 19 months in office at home and working in nearby Anchorage instead of reporting to her "duty station" in Juneau, the capital.

The payments were unusual in the first place: Most employers do not pay employee commuting costs, and do not pay extra when employees stay at home instead of reporting to their workplace. Based on the tax returns, not only did Palin get paid $60 a day for incurring less expense than if she had gone to Juneau -- she also received the payments tax free.

A tax lawyer hired by the campaign vouched for the treatment, because Alaska didn't put the per diems on Palin's W-2, but they have run into some rough sailing over the past few days. Sheldon Cohen, a former IRS commissioner, questioned the claim that they weren't taxable. Two tax lawyers writing on the Tax Prof Blog agreed that Palin had wrongfully excluded some or all of $43,000 she received in payments for her husband's and children's travel (a separate issue), and that blog also located a State of Alaska policy statement indicating that Palin's per diems should be taxed.

The Alaska Department of Finance document, Income Tax Implications of Long-Term Per Diem (here), says essentially that when an employee spends more than 50 percent of their time away from their "duty station," they acquire a new "tax home" and their travel per diems become taxable. Since Palin got 312 per diems in 19 months, she was over 50 percent.

We spent the weekend asking why that policy didn't apply to Palin, and this afternoon ended up on a phone call with a Palin press officer and Kim Garnero, Alaska's finance director. Here's the answer: You only acquire a new "tax home" when you're "assigned" by a supervisor to work at a location remote from your duty station, and since Palin was the governor she -- uniquely -- had no supervisor and was never "assigned." Even though she got per diems long-term, she was never assigned to Long Term Per Diem status.

Garnero: "They (governors) are in a different category because they answer to no supervisor. They answer to the people of the state. So the governor is in a different category."

We asked Garnero if, maybe, Gov. Palin -- when she decided she wanted to work in Anchorage -- was "assigning" herself, and therefore had the responsibility for filling out the paperwork that would have put her in Long Term Per Diem status.

" I understand your question, John," said Garnero. Shortly thereafter, the conversation came to an amicable conclusion -- without, however, any further explanation.

So there it is. It's not clear that Palin did anything wrong -- but she got $60 a day for not commuting, and didn't have to pay tax on it because she never put herself in the status that would have made it taxable.

Nice work if you can get it.

McCain, speaking in Florida, asserts that “as recently as September of last year,” Mr. Obama “said that subprime loans had been, quote ‘a good idea.’” But what he actually said in September, 2007, was:

“Subprime lending started off as a good idea helping Americans buy homes who couldn’t previously afford to." And he added, “As certain lenders and brokers began to see how much money could be made, they began to lower their standards. Some appraisers began inflating their estimates to get the deals done. Some borrowers started claiming income they didn’t have just to qualify for the loans, and some were engaging in irresponsible speculation. But many borrowers were tricked into glossing over the fine print.”

The NYTimes rips him for this and roughly ten other misrepresentations and distortions on housing, taxes and health care in his speech.

Meanwhile, factcheck.org looks at McCain's latest ad and -- as Spin Cycle did this morning -- finds that it is based on misrepresenting an Obama vote on troop funding and an Obama statement on Afghanistan.