« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Hard-Hitting New McCain Ad Highlights Obama’s Tax Hikes, Celebrity

McCain Talks To The Base of Yertle's Mighty Throne

By: Dan McLaughlin (Diary)  |  August 8th, 2008 at 04:46 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

I really like the new McCain ad (see here for Jonathan Martin’s take and Obama’s response):

The McCain ad people have really have found their voice in turning out-of-control Obamania against Obama, who will be picking his teeth out of his tonsils from this one. It’s a great ad in three ways.

First, it hits Obama on taxes, hard, and that’s a theme that is always an electoral winner for the GOP. Obama’s voted for tax hikes and proposed a dizzying array of hikes going forward, including hikes in the income tax, payroll tax, capital gains tax, estate tax, some corporate taxes, carbon taxes, as well as opposing McCain’s plans to cut corporate taxes and suspend the gas tax…I’m probably forgetting a few here. Obama responds by intoning that his tax plans aren’t aimed at people making less than $250,000, but he can’t run from his own votes and, among other things, he hasn’t proposed any such limitation on capital gains taxes, which as this ad emphasizes are often paid by older people selling assets to pay for retirement, and he’s been evasive on where he intends to set the bar on his proposed payroll tax hikes.

Second, the continuing theme of bashing runaway Obamania is effective because Obama can’t stop his supporters from acting like smitten schoolboys and the last thing he wants to spend time doing in mid-campaign is try to tell people not to like him so much.

And third, the ad actually ties the first two together – Obama’s gotten so carried away with his own grandeur that he’s lost sight of how the cost of all his proposals ideas will hit the people who have to pay for it.

Tags: , , , ,

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • Swamp_Yankee

    The Edwards scandle, the Olympics and Georgian issue put a wrinkle on all this. In some respects, Obama lucked out and took a good week off to take the spotlight off. If this is just viral, I’m not sure it will resonate like the others. On the other hand if this is a massive ad buy, then maybe it will simmer into the public’s mind with little response from the vactioning Obama and a media that has its hands full

  • Shoebox

    as continuing to be aggressive in the campaign…that never hurts in coalescing the base as he heads towards the convention.

    Taking a quick look at the left sites…they’re howling about how McCain can call O elitist when McCain owns more than a couple of homes. Of course they miss the point, that average viewers won’t, that it has nothing to do with assets and everything to do with attitude!

    • Dave_in_Fla

      Dukakis got beat around the head and soulders with Willie Horton.

      Bush I got beat black and blue with the economy.

      Kerry got beat up by the swift boat and flip flop ads.

      If you are reacting, you are losing.

      Obama is reacting.

  • Dave_in_Fla

    This one takes no prisoners.

    • Dan_McLaughlin

      That’s good.

      • streetwise

        they seem to be quite effective!

        • Rod_Patrick

          This one is more comprehensive and really takes no prisoners.

          It’s a very good strategy. Note that the central character of the ads is the Big O. People are already hurting of so much O in the MSM. The last survey has already concluded this kind of fall out.
          McCain camp is further doing the damage of forcing the people to hear more about the Big O [although this time, in a negative way.] Note that the emphasis on McCain will only be heard on the last part of the ad. Soon enough people will get burn out and say…. “Plsssss I have enough of Obama.”

          In the end the Big O will become an unwanted O.

          • obama_con

            seriously, this is not rhetorical

          • Dave_in_Fla

            Obama supported the budget resolutions that establish a budgetary framework based on the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. No where in his campaign promises does he offer plans to continue those cuts. Since those tax cuts do in fact affect the middle class, he is in fact supporting raising taxes on the middle class.

            You can use all the weaselwords you want, but at the end of the day, people making over $42,000 a year will be paying more in taxes. That is a simple fact.

          • obama_con

            Thanks you for the reply.

            No where did it say that Obama actually raised taxes on those making 42,000 dollars a year.

            This is off Obama’s web site. It appears he is for cutting taxes for middle class families, not raising them.

            His speaking ability and desire to cut taxes for working Americans seems very Reaganesque!

            (See below)

            Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief

            Obama will cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families to offset the payroll tax they pay.

            • Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama will create a new “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.

            • Eliminate Income Taxes for Seniors Making Less than $50,000: Barack Obama will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year. This proposal will eliminate income taxes for 7 million seniors and provide these seniors with an average savings of $1,400 each year. Under the Obama plan, 27 million American seniors will also not need to file an income tax return.

            • Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.

          • Dave_in_Fla

            It also happens to be empty words. In 2010, under an Obama presidency, the tax burden on the middle class will be higher. That is the simple fact, because no amount of gimmicks will compensate for the expiration of the tax cuts.

  • obama_con

    From China? I’m all for tax cuts, but how will we afford making the Bush tax cuts permanent. We’ll have to keep running larger and larger budget deficits. This will lead to inflation and higher interest rates, which on balance will not save the middle class money, but will be a hidden tax hike that will cripple working americans.

    John McCain was against tax cuts before he was for them, with good reason!

    • Dave_in_Fla

      We’ve been tolerating you, since you are amusing. But don’t start down this road, you will get savaged.

      The money collected by the federal government has GONE UP since the Bush tax cuts. They are at record levels. Elimination of the tax cuts will result in loss of federal revenue due to reduction in economic growth, shifting of investment overseas and higher incentive to move capital into non-taxable finacial instruments. Don’t be stupid.

      • Neil_Stevens
        • SteveLA

          but how will we afford making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

          Easy, spend less money…something you probably overlooked.

          • Trelaina

            Where will we get the money for all the government programs Obama is proposing?

            You don’t think the same thing will happen when we’re spending billions and billions of dollars to increase government invervention in our lives and pull from the rich the money that would feed the economy?

          • Dave_in_Fla

            I’ve really got to respond to this Obama plan.

            This is it? This is the whole plan? WTF?!?!

            $1000, Seniors making less than $50K stop paying taxes, and simplified forms? This is a plan? No wonder he talks in empty rhetoric, because he’s got nothing.

            Where is the relief for the actual middle class that is paying actual taxes? You know, the ones that actually work and contribute to the GDP?

  • Flagstaff

    above to Jonathon Martin’s take at the Politico, and then read some of the comments after that Politico column. Just now, there are 455 of them.

    Read the early ones, then hit “end” and read the latest ones. It is amazing, but all the pro-Obama comments seem to be able to say about the McCain ad are “it lies” or “McCain has a bunch of houses and wears expensive shoes.” The pro-McCain responses are almost all cogent, fact-based, and calmly reasonable, and by the end are overwhelming the anti-McCain rants.

    They give me hope that most people are actually thinking about the situation and not going to vote based on celebrity or slick oratory.

    While you’re there, click on McCain, Obama claims stretch the truth or do it here.

    You’ll find that, try as they might to present themselves as unbiased, The Politico is in the tank for Obama, just like the rest of the MSM. The comments that follow that article show that people are clearly not fooled.

    • Flagstaff

      Most married couples, old or young, making less than $50,000 per year pay little in the way of taxes to begin with.

      Many seniors are living off their investments, which means they are realizing capital gains every month to pay their bills. Obama plans to double the tax on capital gains. This rate will be the same for everyone, no matter what their age, or how much other income they make.

      And why should us seniors get a better tax break than younger folks just starting to raise their families, anyway? EVERYBODY IS ALREADY PAYING TOO MUCH TAX. LET’S CUT SPENDING AND TAX RATES INSTEAD. I propose we start by eliminating the current subsidies for the NEA and the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, for corn-based ethanol and other farm subsidies, and go from there.

      And, as a bit of information to those of you who may not realize it, we who are in the “distribution phase” of our retirement plans incur income tax on the money we withdraw from the plans FOR TAX PAYMENT PURPOSES. We get to pay tax on the tax payments we send in. (And so does everybody who is working, too. It just hurts more now.)