The 'Socialist' Scare

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: The 'Socialist' Scare
By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, October 22, 2008; Page A19

WOODBRIDGE -- John McCain should not have to be here, not on a crisp October Saturday scarcely two weeks before the election. Prince William County is the electoral Maginot line between the Washington suburbs and what a McCain spokeswoman has just unhelpfully described as "real Virginia." George W. Bush twice won 53 percent of the vote in this booming exurb, mirroring his statewide totals. But here is McCain, in front of one sign reading "Phil the Bricklayer" and another proclaiming "Rose the Teacher."

If there are any undecided voters here, I have not found them, and McCain does not seem to be looking. His red-meat message is not pitched to the wavering. "Senator Obama's economic goal is, as he told Joe, quote, spread the wealth around," McCain warns, to angry cries of "Socialist!" Obama's tax plan "is not a tax cut -- it's just another government giveaway," McCain warns. "I won't let that happen to you. You're paying enough taxes."

Outside the rally, a man is handing out "Obama for Change" bumper stickers -- with a Soviet red star and the "g" rendered as a hammer-and-sickle.

There is an ugliness to the McCain campaign's closing days. Sarah Palin talks about "pro-America areas of this great nation." Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann pronounces herself "very concerned that (Obama) may have anti-American views." Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich, ordinarily much more sensible, says, "With all due respect, the man is a socialist."

And McCain is the stoker in chief of the argument that Obama is Eugene V. Debs revisited. "Obama raises taxes on seniors, hardworking families to give 'welfare' to those who pay none," a McCain ad warns. "Joe, in his plain-spoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism," McCain said in a recent radio address. "And a lot of Americans are thinking along those same lines."...

***

"I make over $250,000 a year, between my wife and I," Thomas Jacoby, a 62-year-old contractor, tells me in Woodbridge. "I don't want to share it with anybody." As any parent understands, sharing is not the most natural of human instincts. But government is fundamentally about sharing for the common good; taxes are, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, the price of a civilized society.

McCain is running a campaign both uncivil and uncivilizing -- one I expect he will rue, win or lose.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/21/AR2008102102254.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[John Q. Citizen]

1. Correction - 'We will live to rue..' McCain will be dead soon.

[azurnoir]

2. So just what percentage of US households

have annual taxable incomes of 250,000+? The median icome in 2007 was about 1/5 of that/

In 2007, the median annual household income rose 1.3% to $50,233.00 according to the Census Bureau.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

Seems the McFailin pair are speaking to a select few.

[clear eye]

3. Obama's plan raises taxes slightly on those making over

$250K individually and over $500K per family. But McCain intentionally confused that in his ads, so I guess he'll get the gullible vote.