John McCain Needs to Reiterate Democrats' Failures on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
In the second presidential debate last night, John McCain finally attacked the Democrats and Obama for opposing tighter regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—I have been puzzled why he has not been doing this for the past three weeks—and presented something like the mortgage proposals advanced by conservative economist Martin Feldstein and Lawrence Lindsey. To be effective, such themes must be reiterated again and again.
It's not clear that McCain has the discipline to do this in campaigning or the funds to do it in television ads. Obama has been outspending him something like 3 to 1 in target states over the past few weeks. Obama's message has been that the economy is messed up because of eight years of George W. Bush policies and deregulation and that McCain would provide more of the same. That seems to me to be a flawed argument in several ways, but it appears to be having an effect. I have noted earlier in the cycle that TV advertising had not seemed to be as effective as in previous cycles. Obama heavily outspent Hillary Clinton in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania but didn't move the numbers much; Clinton won all three. But now, as the public is in search of a narrative in unprecedented times, Obama's advertising does appear to be having the intended effect. It's hard to explain his lead in current polls in Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida in any other way.
Tags: debates | presidential election 2008 | John McCain | campaign strategy | Fannie Mae | Freddie Mac
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John McCain Needs to Reiterate Democrats' Failures on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
This is all that I have to say:
Hagel's S. 190 [109th]: Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005.
McCain would not support the bill when it was introduced in January 2005. McCain waited!
On May 25, 2006, John McCain spoke forcefully on behalf of S.190 [109th] Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005. On this day, Obama was introducing S.3159: a bill to suspend temporarily the duty on gibberellic acid.
The US Senate Banking committee that killed the bill was chaired by Republican Richard Shelby. The committee had 11 Republican and 9 Democrat members. A simple majority vote when at least half the committee members were present was required before the bill could be sent to the full Senate for debate and vote.
Nothing the 9 Democrats working together could stop the 11 Republicans from sending the bill to the full Senate, if the Republicans wanted to send the bill to the full Senate.
In addition to Sen Hagel sponsoring the bill, co-sponsors Sen Dole and Sen Sununu were also on the US Senate Banking Committee, so they had 3 votes to send the bill to the full Senate without any help.
The ranking Democrat on the Banking Committee was Paul Sarbanes.
108th Congress: Republicans 51 seats, Democrats 44, Independents 1
Both sides are playing us!
Failure in the Fourth Estate Reiterated by Repeating Mccain's Lies
Again our free press is in crisis as columnists repeat the mud slinging and lies of candidates. What happened to the virtues of the free press - I guess they've been bought off for partisan purposes.
To repeat the lies suggesting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have caused this current credit crisis, while any good reporter or media practitioner should know that the financial derivatives created to avoid regulations are at the heart of the crisis. Still banks don't know the depth that these fraudulent assets are in the balance sheets of financial institutions, thus the continued misgivings to extend credit to other banks.
Unfortunately slimeballs in Mccain campaign have decided to put a false scapegoat out there so they can try to smear it on the democrats. Worse yet is when partisan commentators repeat the garbage, what they fully know is lies meant to deceive.
John McCain Needs to Reiterate Democrats' Failures on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Mr. Baron'e suggestion of blaming Democrats is unsustainable, as McCain's closest advisers were paid lobbyists of Fannie and Freddie throughout this decade including this election year! Obama's ads have driven home that inconvenient truth.
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