get the message out? Obama ads easily outnumbed McCain/RNC ads this weekend in Richmond while watching football. I thought the RNC and the McCain camp were planning this $160M ad blitz for the last two weeks of the campaign? I suppose technically the last two weeks don’t start until tomorrow but frankly I’m not holding much hope. At this point there’s almost too much material on Obama to really get the public to notice.

I honestly think McCain’s whole approach to attacking Obama has been weak….even the way the substantive (meaning non-Ayers, ACORN, Odinga, CAC, etc..) issues have been addressed. It’s obvious McCain is not comfortable going after Obama on his radical associations and contrasting the economic and tax differences has been muddled at best. And now that Obama has illegally raised $150M in September, McCain should be playing ads repeating Obama’s broken promise to only take public financing.

Also, the fact that Obama has no public associations with people who love and want to defend this country is troubling if not frightening. His entire past is littered with associations with communists, marxists, socialists and other radicals bent on the destruction of traditional America. These are serious and troubling issues and McCain has failed to make the case.

His campaign is becoming more Dole-esque as each day passes.

My beef w/ Mcain and his economic team is that they seem to think that falling house prices are the disease when in fact they are the cure. Listening to the last debate made it sound like he wants to return to the “use-your-house-as-an-ATM” days…The fact is that housing is still overpriced in many parts of the country and the sooner its allowed to correct to normal levels, the better. But yea, the correction is going to be a bit painful.

Obama has done nothing more than pay lip service to the idea of balancing the budget. Cut and eliminate wasteful programs, he says. Tax the rich. But His spending plans are so outrageous that any talk of balancing the budget is truly laughable. So, on the balanced budget issue, advantage McCain.

But, as Holtz-Eakin implies, McCain can’t get elected without some plan to “help” people in this economy. Not with Obama promising them the sun and moon. I don’t like the homeowner mortgage plan for several reasons, not the least of which is that it’s a budget buster. But it may be McCain’s best alternative in a bad situation.

As a fiscal conservative, I was disappointed by McCain’s claim in the last debate that he could balance the budget in 4 years while cutting taxes and spending roughly $1Trillion on economic bailout.

Does anybody have a link to a position paper or other indication as to how he’s even going to get close to this? I understand that this is politics and there is a tendency to overstate things, but this seems too far beyond the pale for me.

tErick – a couple of weeks ago your “October Surprise” post intrigued me and gave me some hope. Given that a typical campaign narrative from now til election day will only seal an Obama landslide, are you still standing by that post?

I wouldn’t take anything too seriously from the Directors of the same site that displayed a red siren proclaiming “VP Nominee will be Tim Pawlenty” about 10 hours before Palin was named.

Unfortunately there is no magic bullet, no massive GOP ad buy, and no October surprise other than Powell backing Obamessiah. It is just up to the voters at this point.

I asked Doug about Obama’s tax cut and his claim to cut taxes for 95% of working families. He agreed with me that Obama is just trying to undo the 1996 welfare reform law through a backdoor. “How can you give a tax cut to people who don’t pay taxes?”

I am a little confused about this statement. I am a college student who is working to put himself through school. I make less than $20,000/yr yet I still pay 20% in taxes. Every year I get a refund of ~$1000 due to tuition credits, which still leaves me at 17.5% tax rate. I am living just above the poverty line (~$15,000/yrs where I live), but I am more than willing to pay my fair share to keep my community/country strong.

So how can you say “working families” will be getting welfare. Anyone who works even at minimum wage and files at W2 pays at least 15% tax rate. So I am not sure how a tax refund to these people is considered welfare. Who are these theoretical people who don’t pay taxes? I work with many people with kids who make what I make every year and they still pay taxes.

I am a Republican because I believe in a small government which stays out of citizens lives, keeps taxes low and maintains a common sense approach to governance.

Apparently today Repub means fighting against lower taxes. Rail against the tax hikes against small business owners all you want. You DO NOT raise taxes on anyone during a resession, ask Hoover about this kind of plan.

But a tax cut is not the same as welfare. I didn’t hear anyone calling the Bush stimulus tax cuts welfare (they were also tax credits, not refunds). Let’s stay focused on the real issue, the tax hikes.