“I’d rather win this election, than lose a war.”

The Harry Reid quote could today read:

“I believe…that this election is lost”
– Kathleen Parker, David Brooks, Bill Kristol, George Will, Peggy Noonan

Such pessimism. It’s not like our Party hasn’t found itself in this predicament before. Remember: “My friends, we’ve got them just where we want them.”

Of course, McCain needs an election surge strategy, buttressed by an Ohio State Awakening. He needs to start fighting for American votes like it’s a war. (“I’d rather win an election, than lose a war.”). He needs to win the hearts and minds of those American voters who have not gone so far off the deep end that they are willing to hand the steering wheel to this country’s future over to Obama, Nancy, and Reid.

It’s not enough for conservative pundits, bloggers, talking heads, conservative thinkers, and talk radio hosts to drag old man McCain over the finish line. He needs to stand up, and start his sprint. Hammer Senator Obama and hammer him hard. He should have started doing this yesterday, already; but since yesterday is over, and I don’t want to be stuck on stupid arguing coulda-shoulda-woulda, tomorrow night would be a good place to start taking Obama to the woodshed.

Senator Obama and Senator Biden both threw down the gauntlet, basically double-daring Senator McCain to bring up Ayers to Obama’s face, rather than merely doing so on the campaign trail amongst constituents. I whole-heartedly agree. McCain needs to “get in his face”, and point out Obama’s history of associations to mentors and allies of dubious character. Ayers, Dohrn, Wright, Pfleger, Frank Marshall Davis, Rezko, Rashid Khalidi, etc. These are radical extremists who express sentiments and ideologies outside of the American mainstream. It’s not so much “guilt by association” as it is “guilt by alliance”.

Since when does character and judgment issues constitute “negative smears”?

Thomas Sowell:

Why then is “negative advertising” such a big deal these days? The dirty little secret is this: Liberal candidates have needed to escape their past and pretend that they are not liberals, because so many voters have had it with liberals.

If there is veracity in raising the question, I see them as “positive attacks”, and not off the tables. These aren’t “distractions”. If they’re easy to refute, then refute them.

Obama needs to answer for his connections to Ayers and their work on funding radicalized political activism over real education; and how that is connected to the economic crisis we face today. McCain should hit Obama hard, where it hurts:

Did you know that:

Barack Obama has multiple ties to those responsible for the present economic crisis?:

Franklin Raines, the immediate past CEO of Fannie Mae – who has collected a $90 million golden parachute while driving Fannie into the ground – has advised Obama on housing issues.

Jim Johnson, yet another former Fannie Mae CEO, resigned from Obama’s vice presidential search team when it was revealed he had received a sweetheart home mortgage deal.

Despite serving in the Senate for only four years, Obama himself has been the second-largest recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac largesse in the entire Congress, ahead even of former presidential candidate John Kerry, who’s spent two decades in the Senate?

Obama’s long-time political ally, radical group ACORN, played a key role in pressuring banks to offer loans to those who were unlikely to be able to pay them back. ACORN has taken credit for pressuring banks to accept undocumented income as a basis for offering loans, for offering loans without using credit scores, and for making 100% financed loans available to low-income people.

ACORN’s rap sheet.

I believe that in the last debate, McCain did mention that Obama in his 3 short years serving as a U.S. Senator has received more money from Fannie Mae than any other Senator save for Chris Dodd; but he needs to say this often, and he needs to say it loudly until it sinks into the American psyche; not just saying it in passing.

Carol Platt Liebau also reminds us:

That, in apparent defiance of federal election law, the Obama campaign refuses to identify individual donors who have provided almost half the funds for his campaign, including obvious fakes like “Mr. Good Will” and “Mr. Doodad Pro”? And that 11,500 donations to his campaign – totaling almost $34 million – may have come from overseas? Or that two Palestinians living in a Hamas-controlled refugee camp spent $31,300 in Obama’s online store? Who are all these people, and why won’t the Obama campaign obey the law and identify them?

The economy should not be a losing issue for Republicans.

The truth about Senator Obama’s 95% tax cuts is one of stealth socialism and disincentive to work harder:

One of Barack Obama’s most potent campaign claims is that he’ll cut taxes for no less than 95% of “working families.” He’s even promising to cut taxes enough that the government’s tax share of GDP will be no more than 18.2% — which is lower than it is today.

It’s a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he’s also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of “tax cut.”

~~~

The total annual expenditures on refundable “tax credits” would rise over the next 10 years by $647 billion to $1.054 trillion, according to the Tax Policy Center. This means that the tax-credit welfare state would soon cost four times actual cash welfare. By redefining such income payments as “tax credits,” the Obama campaign also redefines them away as a tax share of GDP. Presto, the federal tax burden looks much smaller than it really is.

The political left defends “refundability” on grounds that these payments help to offset the payroll tax. And that was at least plausible when the only major refundable credit was the earned-income tax credit. Taken together, however, these tax credit payments would exceed payroll levies for most low-income workers.

It is also true that John McCain proposes a refundable tax credit — his $5,000 to help individuals buy health insurance. We’ve written before that we prefer a tax deduction for individual health care, rather than a credit. But the big difference with Mr. Obama is that Mr. McCain’s proposal replaces the tax subsidy for employer-sponsored health insurance that individuals don’t now receive if they buy on their own. It merely changes the nature of the tax subsidy; it doesn’t create a new one.

There’s another catch: Because Mr. Obama’s tax credits are phased out as incomes rise, they impose a huge “marginal” tax rate increase on low-income workers. The marginal tax rate refers to the rate on the next dollar of income earned. As the nearby chart illustrates, the marginal rate for millions of low- and middle-income workers would spike as they earn more income.

Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of “making work pay,” but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you’re a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year. One mystery — among many — of the McCain campaign is why it has allowed Mr. Obama’s 95% illusion to go unanswered.

Obamanomics can be summed up by what Senator Obama tells a tax-burdened plumber who asks him the question:

“It’s not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a chance for success too. I think spreading the wealth around is good for America”

Socialist methods of “spreading the wealth around” only succeeds at impoverishing EVERYONE. It is a recipe for recession.

MataHarley:

We have Obama’s money handling supporting ACORN not only thru Woods Fund, but also thru the CAC. We also have his personal involvement with ACORN as an organizer trainer. We have proof that he used his legal career – both personally and as an employee – to support keeping risky loans alive and well.

Obama is directly linked to those key to our economic crisis we have today. But the until causes of the financial crash of 2008 gets sorted out from the BS the media and Congress are spreading, the US electorate will not see this 6 degrees of separation between Obama and the economic bail out.

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I’m not sure where McCain’s going to go with his Ayers “one-two” punch. But I sure know where he can’t go. If he stops at “guilt by association”, it’s an Obama score. If he plays the ACORN and CRA card too heavily, they will accuse him of using the minority to scape goat for Wall Street.

But if he can drive home the links between Obama, Ayers, the Woods Fund, the CAC, ACORN and the subprime financial crash… he’ll come out a winner.

Readers, what have I left out?

Losing this election, is to lose a crucial culture and ideological war. On SCotUS…on foreign policy and how the War on Terror is waged; education vs. political activism and indoctrination; on how our economy is run.

C’mon McCain! Give us a surge of positive attacks, and go get ‘im!