I have to agree that Obama won the economic debate last night. McCain should have won handily on foreign policy – that was no contest, and Obama only had to be credible in the end. Given the current situation, the economic trumps all else as we start to see the effects trickle down to Main Street. What does McCain need to do?

(1) McCain needs to confront credible Obama’s 95% tax cut rhetoric. If he doesn’t debunk this, he needs to explain why taxing the rich more is a bad idea. Recalling Senator Mitchell and the yacht industry would be bold.

(2) McCain needs to explain that this bailout isn’t the final verdict on Bush Policy, but rather Democratic lending policy. Is this connection isn’t made – if we cede that this downturn is the result of Bush and trickle-down, great damage will be done long-term. This must be challenged aggressively. We’re in this pickle because of easy money to sketchy homeowners – precisely the policy that Democrats to this moment want to pursue even further. Until this chicken comes home to roost, nothing is resolved.

(3) McCain needs to be bold and assert that Bush’s policies are the right ones, and that income distribution doesn’t work for Europe. If it did why don’t we see Europe as the land of opportunity instead of the United States?

Last night I drove the minivan with the kids in search of gas. I looked in 4 municipalities in 2 counties. I passed 12 gas stations. Not one had fuel. None. This is insane. Tonight my wife called gas stations to see who had fuel. Talk about funny accents. One guy commented that he couldn’t understand my wife’s accent, which is funnier since she has no accent. (Perhaps if she was from the south he would have understood her.)

Tonight, the same situation: no gas at any gas stations, except Wal-Mart’s operation. We passed it and it looked like a Soviet supermarket. Lines so long I suspect passers-by got in line just because. The word was that there was a two-hour wait. And for you economists, there was no price increase, and no limit on your purchase, so no incentive for people to take just what you need.

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I don’t know why the McCain campaign isn’t fighting back against the MSM smears yet. Good thing Brit Hume is willing to do the job for the campaign.

The bill Obama supported explicitly permits education on sexually transmitted diseases for kindergartners. It doesn’t get plainer than this:

But it appears those critics have not read the bill, which Obama backed as an Illinois state senator in 2003. It says curriculum in “any of grades K-12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV.”

Obama supports San Francisco Values, and as President with a Democratic Congress we would get those values shoved down our throats. Plain and simple.

Open Secrets reports that Barack Obama took in the third-highest amount of PAC money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from 1989 through 2008.

This is quite an accomplishment given the fact that Obama has only been in the Senate since 2005, or 16% of that period of time. (The two who did better were Kerry and Dodd.)

This is pertinent because whomever gets elected will have to finish the job of reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Who would you trust with this job? Someone who has taken the 3rd highest amount of PAC money, or a reformer who has a long record of saying no to special interests?

Let’s not get caught up in tales of lipstick and sexism. Let’s focus on what the Federal Government urgently needs – REFORM – and determine who is best to deliver it.

This case sticks out as a phenomenal example of the insanity which is Department of Defense procurement.

It’s not good enough that someone found the exact matching marble to replace a cracked piece at our nation’s most revered monument. It’s not enough that the person is willing to donate the piece to the government. It’s not even enough that the replacement piece has sat uninstalled since 2003. But the gall is that the government insists on a costly process to seek bids and procure replacement marble.

This is DISGRACEFUL.

I have a classmate who consults with DoD procurement and he noted the extreme amount of process duplication. As an employee at a major for-profit company that knows how to pinch a penny, I have seen waste in our procurement. So if there’s waste in my outfit, I can only imagine the staggering waste in the Pentagon. This must end.

Only McCain can reform the military. McCain/Palin have no fear of the Pentagon’s sacred cows. Any implied argument about being “against the troops” will fall flat on McCain – unless your idea of troops is 200,000 procurement officers in the DoD.

It’s pretty awesome that Redstate has hit the big time – at least 2 links posted on Drudge. Pretty exciting that this site has been getting worldwide large-scale visibility.

Unfortunately I have come to accept that my chief experience with Redstate from here on out is the 500 Internal Something or Other Error. Hopefully posting a diary will become an easier affair in the near future so we can take a little part in enjoying the increase in traffic.

Just spotted Noonan’s piece on Drudge: must-read. The best quote on the media:

Dig deep into Sarah Palin, get all you can, talk to everybody, get every vote, every quote, tell us of her career and life, she may be the next vice president. But don’t play games. And leave her kid alone, bitch.

Then there’s this video that’s getting a lot of attention on Fark. Some will instantly make parallels to the Reverend Wright video – this thing could be a real MSM attention-getter. She asks people to gasp pray for a pipeline. Mixing of Church and State also came up. So the usual idiocy. Watch the MSM run with it…

The greatest strength that Palin reinforces on the GOP ticket is Reform. Reform is going to be a main theme in the candidacy. McCain is doubling down on something that people of all political parties want. If you want a liberal government, fine, but at least spend those dollars as you intend. If you want a conservative government, fine, then at least send those dollars back to the taxpayers in a fair manner.

I predict this theme will be the main theme only because 1) people like it, 2) we haven’t heard a thing about it, and 3) it negates the “Change” for change’s sake theme of Obama.

I am so thrilled that McCain is going to win big…

The focus of the Democratic argument against McCain is that he’s for the Bush tax cuts. Let’s think about what tax cuts mean for the economy. We have a housing problem – too many houses are up for sale and too few people can afford to keep their home or buy the ones on the market. As a result, people in desperation to unload their house will sell it at a firesale price, thus hurting everyone’s expected property value, thus putting further pressure on all our HELOCs, which are based on this expected value. To solve the housing crisis we want housing prices to stabilize and to start growing again through free market forces, not government meddling.

SO: Will increasing taxes help or hurt this problem? They will HURT because people will be giving more money to Uncle Sam and will have less money to build up a down payment and buy a house. It’s that simple. Assuming that Obama will give you those dollars back eventually, that doesn’t do any good – the crisis is now, not in 2 years when you get your tax refund!

Well, Obama wants to tax JUST rich people, right? This is not true by the way, but let that bide. Well, if you have a house that you can’t afford and you want to sell, can’t a rich person buy it as easily as a poor person? Would you rather have a rich person buy the house since they probably don’t have to get a big mortgage? So how does taxing rich people more help the housing problem? It doesn’t, so don’t let him do it.

I really don’t have more to say about this except that it’s a great idea! I think I’ll order some for family!