John McCain Still Not Back

John McCain announced yesterday morning that he was going to suspend his campaign. He claimed it was urgent for him to rush back to Washington to work on the finance bailout. It is 24 hours later and John McCain is still not here in Washington. In fact, John McCain will not being getting back to Washington until late this afternoon. Despite having his own plane and “suspending” his campaign It will take him 30 hours to get to Washington to deal with the crisis. Not what I call swift leadership.

The Only New Regulation We Really Need

Clearly the current financial meltdown has proven that our set of business and banking regulations are horribly broken. A new set of modern, well-executed regulations are needed to prevent or at least mitigate the impact of future market failures. That being said, I believe that with only one new regulation we can dramatically reduce the need for taxpayers to bailout poorly run companies.
I call the regulation the “you broke it, you pay for it” rule. The rule is simple: If any business needs to be bailed out with taxpayer money, all top executive (CEO, CFO, President, Vice President, Etc...) must pay to the government every single dollar they earned from their failed company. The rule will affect any top executive who ran the company in question during the 3 years leading up to the bailout. If an executive is unable to pay back all the money he or she earned, they must forfeit all their assets. I'm not a monster-- executives who can't pay should be left with a net worth no greater than $500,000. That is more than generous. With this rule in place I picture a dramatic reduction in the number of companies the federal government needs to bail out.

Dead Even, But for How Long?

The first “real” poll numbers are coming in today and they point to a dead even race. Both the Gallup and Rasmussen daily tracking polls have McCain with a statistically insignificant 1 point advantage. At this point the election is still anyones game.

While the polls are currently as close as possible it might not be for long. The tone of the campaign has quickly turned from the absurdly silly to the deadly serious. Face with the worst economy in decades, huge debt, and two wars the stakes for the nation could not be higher. The country is in serious trouble and needs real leadership. I suspect that a broad consensus will eventually form about one or both of the candidates. American is either going to decided that Barack Obama lacks the experience need to guide our nation through trouble waters, or that John McCain does not understand how to fix the problems facing the middle class.

Get Ready for the First Real Polls

Despite the shockingly long campaign season many American didn't start paying attention to the presidential race until the conventions. After both of the conventions we saw an impressive bounce for each candidate. It is only now that the presidential race has began in earnest that we will see polling numbers that really matter.

Many democrats are fretting Obama's current numbers and some Republicans have started popping the champagne prematurely. But, I suspect that it takes about a week for the McCain's happy convention aura to wear off. The polls which started contacting people today should give us our first real view of the state of the race. Polling is usually done over the course of 3-5 days, so the polls which are released this upcoming Monday and Tuesday will be very informative.

John McCain Knows Sexual Insensitivity

The John McCain campaign is accusing Barack Obama of sexual insensitivity for using the common political phrase “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.” Even though the phrase has been used by almost every politician in America, the John McCain campaign claims this time it was making reference to Governor Sarah Palin. The reason: Sarah Palin has publicly stated that she in fact wears lipstick.

Personally, I did not see anything wrong with what Barack Obama said, but clearly I don't understand sexual sensitivity as deeply as John McCain. After all, this is the man who joked, “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly-- because her father is Janet Reno?”

Now that is how you do sexual insensitivity. It is a simple joke but with many layers of sexism and crudeness. It is an onion of insensitivity. He starts by making fun of the appearance of a teenage girl. He then calls one of the most powerful women in America ugly, while implying that she is in reality a transvestite. Finally, he is claiming that Hillary Clinton was not only unfaithful to her husband, but is also a lesbian (or at least enjoys extramarital sex with a transvestite). Clearly, John McCain understands sexism on a very meaningful level.