Capital Commerce
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The McCain Speech: A Do or Die Mission
Continue reading… 11 CommentsJimmy P. at the RNC— Can John McCain give a good speech? Indeed, he can. His 2000 and 2004 speeches to the Republican National Convention were pretty compelling. (The former, though, may rank as the most melancholy ever given at a political convention. The closing line was less than rousing, "And I am haunted by the vision of what will be.") Both played to his strong suits. One focused on government reform, the other foreign policy. And those two subjects will surely be important themes in what he says tonight.
But McCain will have to do something else: Persuasively outline an agenda to restore America to prosperity. That was one thing Sarah Palin did not fully accomplish last night. He needs to go beyond showing empathy to middle class folks. He needs to demonstrate how his economic plan will make their lives better and give them the tools to make their lives better. And the key to that, I think, is energy. High oil and gas prices have been a pernicious tax on the economy, slowing growth and reducing real incomes. As McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin told me here in St. Paul, "Americans have elevated energy to their number one issue."
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McCain's Tax Cut Problem
Continue reading… 8 CommentsJimmy P. at the RNC—If you're a Republican and you let a Democrat get to your right on taxes, you're probably going to have plenty of free time to ponder just how that happened. And to many economic conservatives, McCain is at risk of letting that happen. Now it's not so much that McCain doesn't have hefty tax cut package, it's just that Obama's seems more direct and family focused. While Obama emphasizes putting money into people pocket's right away, McCain focuses on growing the economy and creating jobs by keeping the Bush tax cuts and cutting corporate tax rates. (We currently have the second highest corporate tax rate on the planet.) Obama wants to create jobs primarily through his energy and infrastructure spending initiatives. Two different philosophies. But Fred Thompson showed in his speech last night that it is possible to sell the McCain approach to non-economists:
"We need a President who understands that you don't make citizens prosperous by making Washington richer, and you don't lift an economic downturn by imposing one of the largest tax increases in American history. Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases. They tell you they are not going to tax your family. No, they're just going to tax "businesses"! So unless you buy something from a "business", like groceries or clothes or gasoline...or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small "business", don't worry...it's not going to affect you. They say they are not going to take any water out of your side of the bucket, just the "other" side of the bucket! That's their idea of tax reform."
Me: McCain may yet offer a new tax twist to his economic plan — we still have two months to go until Election Day — but the key will be to create a plan that wouldn't severely affect the budget over the near term.
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The Palin Effect Spreads
Continue reading… 4 CommentsJimmy P. at the RNC—Anyone who has spent even a minute or two chatting with delegates knows that McCain's veep selection of Sarah Palin has totally pumped people up here. It would take a political catastrophe for her to get dropped from the ticket. I am even more persuaded of that after talking to McCain advisers. The same folks who at the start of the summer were telling me things like "I still think we can win" or "We probably have better than a puncher's chance" or now decidedly more confident. The qualifiers are gone from their statements.
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Palin? Call Her 'Sarah America'
Continue reading… 75 CommentsJimmy P. at the RNC— "Sarah America." That's what I heard one GOP delegate call Sarah Palin. (It rhymes.) Any gamblers out there might want to see about shorting that new TradeSports contract where you can bet on Palin dropping off the ticket. And here is the latest from pollster Rasmussen (bold is mine):
After a long weekend of Democratic criticism of John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, over half of voters (52 percent) still have at least a somewhat favorable opinion of the Alaska governor. Thirty-one percent (31 percent) view her very favorably. Voters are evenly divided on whether Palin was the right choice for McCain and whether her selection makes them more or less likely to vote for the Republican candidate. But 69 percent of GOP voters believe the choice was a good one, while nearly as many Democrats (63 percent) disagree. Unaffiliated voters are evenly divided as well. While the initial polling reaction to Palin has been fairly positive, the most significant numbers will be those following the Republican National Convention. Because she is so new to the national scene, Palin's speech may be the most important moment at that event. Prior to McCain's announcement, 67 percent said that they didn't know enough about Palin to have an opinion.
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RNC InstaPoll: Cut Our Taxes
Continue reading… 4 CommentsJimmy P. at the RNC— I polled 24 delegates on this question: "What should we do to boost the economy?" Here is what they said:
—Cut capital gains taxes 13 percent
—Cut corporate taxes 29 percent
—Cut personal income taxes 58 percent
—Increase government spending 0 percent
Two notes:
1) The idea of cutting personal income taxes is still a powerful one, especially since most people consider themselves middle class.
2) If I had given them the option, most of the people I chatted with would have chosen "all of the above" when it came to tax cuts. Heh.
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Republicans Sticking With Palin
Continue reading… 2 CommentsJimmy P. at the RNC— Any second thoughts about Sarah Palin for veep? Not from former Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay. He still considers the pick "Awesome, absolutely awesome." I think that pretty well reflects the sentiment of the delegates, too.
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A First Look at (Sarah) Palinomics
Continue reading… 13 CommentsJimmy P. at the RNC —"Oh yeah, she gets it," is how one economic conservative described to me last night the economic philosophy of Sarah Palin. By "get it," this person meant that Palin sees the value of low taxes and reduced spending. This, for instance, from her 2006 campaign:
As Mayor and CEO of the booming city of Wasilla, my team invited investment and encouraged business growth by eliminating small business inventory taxes, eliminated personal property taxes, reduced real property tax mill levies every year I was in office, reduced fees, and built the infrastructure our businesses needed to grow and prosper
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The 401k Election
Continue reading… 12 CommentsJimmy P. at the RNC — I chatted this morning with tax opponent Grover Norquist, and he had an interesting response when I asked him whether John McCain should offer a giant middle-class tax cut. (Barack Obama has been bashing him on this issue, and some conservatives have been pushing McCain to do something bold such as suggest a massive increase in the child tax credit.) Actually, Norquist had two responses:
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Democrat Depression
Continue reading… 4 CommentsJimmy P. at the RNC - Before firing up to cover things here in St. Paul, I wanted to clear out my notebook from the DNC. This is one of my favorite bits, the final poll I took of Democratic delegates. (Other polls are here and here.) I asked 24 of them whether the economy was in an expansion, a recession, or in a depression. The results are stunning, I think, given that on the same day I took the informal survey, the Commerce Department reported that the economy grew at a revised 3.3 percent annual pace in the second quarter. The numbers:
1) 12 percent said "expansion"
2) 25 percent said "recession."
3) 63 percent said "depression."
A quick fact check: We've only had one quarter of negative economic growth in the past year, unemployment is still below 6 percent, incomes were growing briskly from 2003-2007, and productivity has averaged more than 2.5 percent a quarter during the past year and a half.
