Here’s an old political consultant trick: You want attack your opponent for supporting Policy X, because your pollsters tell you such an attack would help your candidate. But there’s a problem. Your opponent doesn’t clearly support Policy X. So you send off researchers to find an old legislative vote that you can use in an ad to mislead the public about your opponent’s plans, without lying outright. Instead of saying “My opponent supports Policy X,” all you have to say is “My opponent once voted for something that sounded a lot like Policy X. Be very afraid.”
Both John McCain and Barack Obama are playing this game. McCain loves citing the fact that Obama “voted” for a bill that supported increasing taxes on everyone making more than $42,000. Never mind the fact that Obama does not actually support increasing taxes on everyone making more than $42,000. It’s a deception, based on an old vote, which is, presumably, better than an outright lie–not much better, but at least technically defensible.
In the last couple days, Obama has shown an increased enthusiasm for playing this same dodgy game. But since his new ads are running in specific states, they have mostly flown under the radar. Two of the ads were posted on YouTube by Politico’s Ben Smith. In the first, Obama says that McCain voted three times to privatize Social Security, and that he is willing to risk the nation’s retirement program on the risky stock market. Now, it is true that McCain did support President Bush’s effort to privatize a portion of Social Security. But it is not true that McCain is running for president on a platform of turning Social Security over to Wall Street.
Here is what his campaign says: “John McCain supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts–but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept. John McCain will reach across the aisle to address these challenges, but if the Democrats do not act, he will.” (About midway down this interview from today, McCain adviser Mark Salter expands on what McCain supports: “He’s not for raising taxes, he has said – not privatization of social security, but a small percentage, even at a bond fund, would yield greater return over time than the government gets.”)
The second Obama ad is even more egregious in misleading people about McCain’s positions. The ad says McCain “voted against tax incentives for alternative energy–against ethanol, against fuel cells, against hybrids, against electric cars, against wind and solar, against geothermal.” Then the ad says McCain wants to give $4 billion in tax breaks to oil companies. This is all a nifty bit of misdirection. The oil company tax breaks the ad refers to are a corporate tax cut McCain favors, which would apply to almost all profitable companies, not just oil companies–including those companies that work on wind, solar and biofuels.
And McCain does support specific tax incentives for alternatives to oil. In fact, he has a habit of mentioning his plan to promote alternative energy with tax incentives and subsidies at nearly every campaign stop. The McCain policy prescription is, on the whole, not as generous, or costly to taxpayers, as the plan advanced by Obama. But you can read all about it here.
UPDATE: How dare I criticize Obama!!! What an outrage!!!! Haven’t I learned my lesson, from the unbiased watchdogs at Media Matters (and their linkers Atrios and Josh Marshall): an honest journalist criticizes Obama at his peril, lest he bring a swarm of alleged lazy hackery and “wanker” labels from the left blog crowd. I quake in my office chair, and rebut after the jump.
To those coming to this with fresh eyes, I will ask you to consider the following. 1) Read what I have written above, and decide if I am trying to hide the fact that McCain wants to pursue a plan to invest Social Security funds in the markets, which is the main allegation by Media Matters. I make this fact very clear. (The “privatize” word debate is a distraction in this case, like “amnesty” with the immigration debate, since the two sides differ on what the word means.) 2) The ad says McCain favors “risking social security on the stock market,” which is what I paraphrased as Obama’s claim that McCain wants to “turn social security over to Wall Street,” which the unbiased folks at Media Matters calls a strawman. I think it’s a fair–though not exactly precise–characterization of the Obama claim. 3) The post mentions three ads that all share the same problem, which is clearly identified in the first paragraph. To wit, instead of talking about the opponents’ plans, the ads talk about the opponents’ past votes. This process obstructs the debate that should be happening about the candidate’s plans. The Obama social security ad says McCain wants to do what Bush did. This is not what McCain now says he wants to do. That’s the point. Candidates should argue with what their opponents say they will do, not with what can be inferred from a vote a decade ago. 4) I find it telling that the good people of Media Matters/Atrios/TPM found no objection to the much more significant distortion I identify in the second Obama ad about McCain’s plans for alternative energy. I am sure they are all working on their own posts to chastise Obama about this distortion presently.