Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Editorial: Palin wows 'em with the party line
No one can deny that Alaska's governor has stage presence. But in Salem she dished up GOP orthodoxy, delivered very well.
From the RoundTable blog
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Sarah Palin energized the party faithful Monday with a rousing speech in Salem. The GOP vice presidential candidate can connect with an audience, and the estimated 16,000 who packed into the stadium cheered her on.
Her well-worn tale of Joe the Plumber vs. "Barack the wealth spreader" was a particular crowd-pleaser.
But Palin and the man she so easily overshadows when they share a stage -- the man at the top of the Republican ticket, remember, presidential candidate John McCain -- still hope to capture undecided voters, the moderate middle that in Virginia has backed Republicans for president lo these many decades.
Yet, if polls are to be believed, in this presidential campaign the moderate middle is taking on the hue of Democratic blue. How can this be?
After all, good old Joe fears above all that if a Democrat wins the White House, his taxes will increase -- the last thing America's besieged middle class needs.
Maybe moderate voters know that, while Joe's well-publicized anxiety makes good political theater, his fear is misplaced. In real life, independent analysts figure, Joe would make out better under Democrat Barack Obama's tax plan. So would most working Americans.
The Republican ticket's repeated evocations of Joe are, in reality, simple celebrations of the GOP's same old, discredited trickle-down economic theory, dressed down to broaden its appeal among wage earners struggling to get or remain in the middle class.
Listen to Obama's full response to Joe Wurzelbacher. "Barack the wealth spreader" sounds more like someone who wants to spread opportunity around, much as Palin now likes to describe her running mate.
The difference is that Obama would raise taxes slightly on high incomes -- a marginal increase of 3 percentage points only on income above $250,000 -- to pay for tax breaks for people who make less.
The familiar Republican strategy to pay for tax cuts is to let them pay for themselves, through economic growth. It's their theory and they're sticking to it. In reality, the Bush tax cuts have driven the nation deeper into debt.
Palin's promise was to do more of the same, plus "take on" the $10 trillion national debt, and balance the federal budget in four years, and "clean up Wall Street," but not with regulations. Oh, yes, and help families with children who have special needs.
On that we can agree. Some families face special burdens. Their children start out at a disadvantage. But every person should have the opportunity to live life as fully as possible. Sometimes, they need society's help.
