Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Early in Tuesday’s substance-packed presidential town hall debate, U.S. Sen. John McCain made a remarkable admission. In worsening economic times, when the U.S. Treasury secretary has unprecedented powers, the GOP standard-bearer’s first suggestion to fill that money position is Warren Buffett, the so-called oracle of Omaha, who is perhaps U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s highest-profile supporter in the financial world.
McCain has surrendered on the economy in what was another losing debate for his campaign.
An analogy leaps to mind: Were times different and social and cultural issues in the fore, would Obama have suggested that the head cheerleader for Team McCain on those matters, Sarah Palin, be given a position at the tip of the spear on that front as, say, a nominee to the Supreme Court?
Here is McCain in response to a question from moderator Tom Brokaw about potential Treasury secretaries:
I think the first criteria, Tom, would have to be somebody who immediately Americans identify with, immediately say, we can trust that individual.
A supporter of Sen. Obama’s is Warren Buffett [chairman of Berkshire Hathaway]. He has already weighed in and helped stabilize some of the difficulties in the markets and with companies and corporations, institutions today.
As soon as the debate format for Nashville, Tenn., was announced, conventional wisdom held that the town hall setting would favor McCain. This is apparently based on pundits reading other pundits who believe this — not the product of journalists in Iowa who saw both men ably handle these sorts of sessions in places like Le Mars and Audubon just last year.
But Tuesday, McCain couldn’t resist attacking Obama early and often, failing to connect with those who asked him questions. It was uncomfortable: akin to watching someone failing to accept a handshake.
In one of the earliest exchanges of the night, on an in-house audience question about the recent passage of the financial bailout bill, McCain attacked Obama and lectured the questioner himself, telling him that he should call the congressional package a “rescue” — not a bailout.
Obama’s first words on that question, in contrast, were, “Well, Oliver, first, let me tell you what’s in the rescue package for you.”
To be fair, it’s not like McCain didn’t address the issue. In fact he made news by suggesting that the government restructure home loan agreements, an idea that troubles traditional conservatives because it means even more government intervention. Here is McCain:
I think if we act effectively, if we stabilize the housing market — which I believe we can — if we go out and buy up these bad loans, so that people can have a new mortgage at the new value of their home.
It will undoubtedly be written many other places, so I won’t pile on with the age issue here, but it was striking. Obama, 47, appeared as the candidate of vigor, with confidence in the force of his ideas. McCain, 72, projected a sense of entitlement, showing contempt for Obama and offering up an unbecoming laundry list of “I dids” as if he were some old man in a nursing home justifying his life to an obliged family visitor.
As McCain’s fortunes fall in the polls, the barbs he aimed at Obama showed his desperation. “Sen. Obama likes to talk loudly,” McCain said in reference to the Illinois senator’s suggestion that the United States should pursue Osama bin Laden into Pakistan on its own in the absence of Pakistani cooperation.
McCain wanted to make Obama look irresponsible for saying it, but Obama’s retort was pitch perfect:
Sen. McCain, this is the guy who sang, “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,” who called for the annihilation of North Korea. That I don’t think is an example of “speaking softly.”
This is the person who, after we had — we hadn’t even finished Afghanistan, where he said, “Next up, Baghdad.”
In terms of how the debate plays in rural Iowa, McCain’s feverish pitches for nuclear power might hurt him where he is already weak. Telling people in Iowa that nuclear is the answer is like telling people to eat more wheat and less corn. In the first debate, McCain said ethanol subsidies should be killed, and Tuesday he followed up by advocating nuclear energy.
In these serious times, Obama conveyed an ability to juggle many issues simultaneously better than McCain. Case in point, when Brokaw asked the candidates to prioritize health care, energy and entitlement issues McCain had to ask for the question to be repeated. He then wrote some notes and relied on them while Obama responded extemporaneously.
McCain’s two references to former President Reagan and House Speaker Thomas “Tip” O’Neill made one feel as if the radio dial had slipped to an all 80s-station. Which, in the end, is what McCain’s campaign is becoming, at attempt to masquerade the past as future.
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