At the Saddleback Church forum on Saturday, it was interesting to hear the candidates’ differing responses to pastor Rick Warren’s question about how they would define “rich.” He asked for a number.
John McCain said $5 million.
Barack Obama said $250,000.
McCain seemed to realize that his figure could look high.
“I’m sure that comment will be distorted,” he said. “The point is we want to keep people’s taxes low.”
It’s a revealing look at how the two parties view wealth. For Republicans, apparently, mere millionaires don’t qualify. Don’t be surprised if Democrats use McCain’s remark this fall against charges that Obama is an “elitist.”
It’s hard to work up many tears over today’s resignation of Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf, who abused the Bush administration’s trust in him by firing judges and tolerating the presence of al-Qaida and the Taliban within Pakistan’s borders, among other offenses. “Today, the shadow of dictatorship that has prevailed for long over this country, that chapter has been closed,” said Information Minister Sherry Rehman. Still, Musharraf was a known quantity. Will whatever is next for this nuclear power so vital to U.S. regional interests be better or worse?
John McCain leads Barack Obama by 14 percentage points among hunters and fishermen, according to a Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation poll released last week. Though the lead is sizable, it is about half the 27-point edge poll respondents gave George W. Bush over John Kerry four years ago.
Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Topeka, is having some success keeping out-of-state money out of her re-election race: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has scrapped earlier plans to spend $1.2 million on pro-Boyda ads. “I hope my opponent will join me to demand that these out-of-state groups keep out of Kansas,” Boyda said.
Answered GOP candidate Lynn Jenkins: “It’s free speech. Let anybody come tell their story and let the voters sort it out.” But when the anti-tax Club for Growth funded ads early in her primary campaign against Rep. Jim Ryun, Jenkins had a different take on the issue: In June she criticized Ryun for having “had his Washington, D.C., buddies spend $120,000 distorting my record.”
Noting that a National Women’s Law Center poll shows women are more concerned than men about economic security, MarketWatch columnist Darrell Delamaide recently wondered if Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ eight years as an aggressively pro-consumer Kansas insurance commissioner “could tip the scale in her favor” in the Democratic veepstakes. “After all, insurance is all about financial security. During her tenure as insurance commissioner, Sebelius often stood up to the insurance industry, as when she blocked Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas from merging with an Indiana company, arguing that it would raise health-insurance premiums in Kansas.”
At the Saddleback Church forum on Saturday, it was interesting to hear the candidates’ differing responses to pastor Rick Warren’s question about how they would define “rich.” He asked for a number.
