ELECTION '08
Debate Wrap-Up

Yesterday, after the Dow Jones suffered the worst one-day point drop since 1987 -- falling 733 points or nearly 8 percent -- Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and John McCain (R-AZ) met for their third and final presidential debate. The same day, Commerce Department figures showed that consumer purchases "fell 1.2 percent in September, extending the decline to three straight months, the first time that's happened since comparable records began in 1992." Searching for a "game-changer" this week, McCain announced new economic policies that he touted as being aimed toward the middle class but in fact largely focus their benefits on the wealthy. Once again, McCain failed to mention the "middle class" a single time during the entire 90-minute debate, though he did reference Joe the Plumber 20 times.

'I AM NOT PRESIDENT BUSH': Halfway through the debate, McCain declared, "I am not President Bush. ... I'm going to give a new direction to this economy in this country." His campaign was "delighted" by the statement -- but it's less clear whether Americans will buy it. An LA Times poll released Tuesday found that a majority of Americans believe McCain would continue Bush's policies, a finding consistent with numerous other surveys. And with good reason: McCain has voted with Bush over 90 percent of the time, scoring a clean 100 percent Bush voting record in 2008. McCain himself declared in 2005, "The fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I've been totally in agreement and support of President Bush." On everything from tax breaks for the wealthy to a bellicose foreign policy to torture to executive power, it's clear McCain represents a third Bush term.

'HEALTH OF THE MOTHER': One of the most striking moments of the debate occurred during the discussion of abortion. McCain's party adopted an extreme position on abortion in its platform this year, refusing to allow for exceptions to an abortion ban even in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. During the debate, McCain belittled procedure bans that grant exemptions for the "health of the mother," mocking the phrase by framing it with air quotation marks. "'Health of the mother.' You know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything," McCain said. "Tonight, John McCain showed he doesn't care about women's health when he described protecting 'the health of the woman' as 'extreme,'" said Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund. "He blatantly showed that he doesn't trust women to decide what is in the best interest of their own health."

SPENDING FREEZE: Yesterday, McCain promised an "across-the-board spending freeze." However, in the past weeks his campaign has made exceptions for defense, veterans programs, entitlement programs, worker retraining, and "a special carve-out for spending on science." The exception-riddled spending freeze proposal is reminiscent of McCain's dramatic promise to abolish earmark projects. When it was pointed out that aid to Israel and funding for military housing were included in his tally as earmarks, McCain assured he would spare those programs. In the end, McCain could not identify a single earmark he would cut. A spending freeze would entail large per capita cuts in everything from education to the FBI and federal prisons to national parks, highway and bridge repair, food stamps, to name a few. Along with having a deleterious impact on people who rely on these programs, the cuts would cause economic growth to contract at a time when the country is in need of a second stimulus to forestall the risk of a deep recession.

SUPREME COURT: This was the only debate in which the candidates spoke at length about the Supeme Court, an important topic considering the next president is likely to appoint at least two new justices. McCain vowed not to impose "a litmus test" to determine his nominees, but also emphasized he would name those "who have a history of strict adherence to the Constitution" and who would not be "legislating from the bench." These are code phrases for the conservative wing of his party. As CNN's legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin noted, McCain "is getting his advice on the Court from the most extreme elements of the conservative movement." Indeed, the evangelical leader Gary Bauer said in 2005 that despite McCain's litmus test claims, "McCain, in private, assured me he would appoint pro-life judges." Many important principles hang in the balance of just one justice; a McCain Court with only one or two new appointees could overturn abortion rights, ignore privacy rights, refuse habeas corpus to terror detainees, end affirmative action, and ban gay marriage. McCain also reaffirmed his opposition to equal pay for equal work, defending his refusal to join a law making it easier to file suit for discriminatory pay by calling the law "a trial lawyer's dream." He has justified his opposition to the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act by claiming women just need "the education and job training." In fact as The American Prospect's Dana Goldstein pointed out, "Women account for 56 percent of the undergraduate student population and 59 percent of the graduate school population. Across all age groups, over half of all the people in the United States with a bachelor's degree or master's degree are women."

Under the Radar

ADMINISTRATION -- REPORT SAYS BUSH OFFICIALS PAID FOR CAMPAIGN TRIPS WITH TAXPAYER DOLLARS: A draft House Oversight Committee report released yesterday concludes that the White House "used the political affairs office to orchestrate an aggressive strategy to use taxpayer-funded trips to help elect Republican candidates for public office." Under federal law, the use of public funds or resources for partisan activities is illegal. But with the direction of  former White House political director Sara Taylor, the political affairs office identified struggling GOP candidates and arranged for cabinet members to make appearances on their behalf. "In some instances, the White House specifically requested that travel be billed to the taxpayers to save Republican campaigns money," the report notes. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez attended 59 events, former Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns attended 38, and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao attended 25. White House spokesperson Scott Stanzel did not deny the allegations, simply stating, that report was little more than an effort "to score political points" three weeks before Election Day. The report is the latest in a growing list of activities constituting politicization of government under the Bush administration.

NATIONAL SECURITY -- WHITE HOUSE REFUSES TO APPOINT 'WMD CZAR': Last year, Congress passed a law forcing the federal government to carry out all the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. The bill also called on the White House to create a new special office -- a "WMD czar" -- to coordinate anti-nuclear proliferation and counterterrorism efforts. The idea was that "the government needed one top official to cut through interagency disputes and make sure everybody was working together on how best to keep nukes and other weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists." But Newsweek reports that President Bush has yet to nominate anyone for the position. Sources tell Newsweek that David Addington, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, "recoiled at the idea of creating a new White House office whose director was answerable to Congress." The WMD czar "would not just have to be confirmed by the Senate," but Congress "would also be guaranteed access to any 'information, documents and studies' commissioned or written by the nuke czar. In addition, the law required that his or her deputies could be called to testify before Congress." Congressional oversight of the new position "set off Addington and other White House lawyers" because they believed "the concept would violate executive privilege."

HEALTH CARE -- U.S. FALLS BEHIND OTHER INDUSTRIALIZED NATIONS IN INFANT MORTALITY: According to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), infant mortality in the United States stalled "at the same level from 2000 through 2005 while other countries improved." The data "extends a worsening trend for the United States," as "the US ranking in infant mortality worsened to 29th worldwide, down from 27th in 2000 and 23rd in 1990." According to the CDC, "these years represent the first period of sustained lack of progress in the U.S. infant mortality rate since the 1950s." "This is really the first time that the U.S. infant mortality rate hasn't declined in a century. So we're quite concerned about this plateau," said the CDC's Marian MacDorman. In 2006, the most recent year for which data is available, there were 6.71 deaths per 1,000 live births in the United States. The CDC noted that the current rate "is about 50 percent higher than the national goal of 4.5 infant deaths per 1,000 births." The CDC also found that "the infant mortality rate for non-Hispanic black women was 2.4 times the rate for non-Hispanic white women."

Think Fast

Socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez "mocked US President George W. Bush as a 'comrade.'" "Bush is to the left of me now," Chavez told an audience of international intellectuals debating the benefits of socialism. "Comrade Bush announced he will buy shares in private banks."

More than 200,000 registered Ohio voters "may be blocked from casting regular ballots on Election Day because of a federal appeals court decision on Tuesday requiring the disclosure of lists of voters whose names did not match those on government databases." Once local officials receive the names, they may "ask partisan poll workers to challenge these voters on Election Day."

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R) is breaking with the conservative line on voter fraud and ACORN, saying yesterday, "'I think that there's probably less [registration fraud] than is being discussed. As we're coming into the closing days of any campaign, there are some who enjoy chaos."

A revised draft of the Iraq-U.S. security agreement "includes a previously discussed timeline for the withdrawal of American combat troops, with the troops moving out of Iraq's cities and towns by the middle of next summer and leaving the country in 2011," according to Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh.

Sen. Mitch McConell's (R-KY) third-largest donor "is a $14 billion New York City hedge-fund firm led by a man -- nicknamed 'the Vulture' -- who squeezes distressed companies and countries for their last dollars and boasted that the current U.S. economic crisis is 'the opportunity of a lifetime.'"

FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair criticized the federal government's bailout plan "for failing to take more aggressive steps to prevent Americans from losing their homes, highlighting a rift between her and other senior U.S. officials over terms of the $700 billion rescue package." "We're attacking it at the institution level as opposed to the borrower level, and it's the borrowers defaulting," said Bair.

Global markets tumbled yesterday "amid mounting anxiety that the world economy is plunging into a deep and protracted recession." "European stocks fell 3 percent by midday after Wall Street and Japan's Nikkei both suffered their worst one-day losses since the stock market crash of 1987, and the MSCI World stock index traded 3 percent lower."

Several of the nation's largest banks reported that consumers "are increasingly unable to pay off their credit cards," forcing them "to hoard cash to protect against future losses and lend to fewer people." According to J.P. Morgan, "the number of credit card loans in default rose 45 percent in the third quarter from the comparable period a year ago."

And finally: Think you might be feeling lonely on next Valentine's Day? Then consider joining right-wing luminaries such as former attorney general John Ashcroft and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) on a 10-night cruise hosted by the Young America’s Foundation. After all, who can resist sharing "pressing thoughts with individuals who have done so much to advance the Conservative Movement"?

Good News

"More than 55 million Americans will see a 5.8% boost in their monthly and supplemental Social Security benefits next year, the Social Security Administration announced Thursday."

State Watch

CALIFORNIA: California regulators would impose fees on the state's worst air polluters "as part of a bold proposal to slash emissions to 1990 levels."

TEXAS: Conservatives on the State Board of Education "have appointed three evolution critics to a six-member committee that will review proposed curriculum standards for science courses."

NEW YORK: State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo demands that AIG recover bonuses from its former executives.

Blog Watch

THINK PROGRESS: For at least the third time, officials take down a "No. 2" leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

WONK ROOM: Afghan defense minister: "Major increase" in foreign fighters to Afghanistan.

YGLESIAS: Predictions are hard, especially about the future.

WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT: Racist Fox News headline claims that former Secretary of State Colin Powell's "hip-hop dancing" is a hint that he will endorse Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).

Daily Grill

"America has the best health care system in the world, pure and simple."
-- President Bush, 5/1/06

VERSUS

"Latest international data show the US ranking in infant mortality worsened to 29th worldwide, down from 27th in 2000 and 23rd in 1990."
-- Bloomberg, 10/16/08