January 29, 2008
John!
I am pretty grouchy with our buddies in the pollster business. The FOX31 weather team has a better record and they told me it was gonna snow today (blue skies and sun out my window).
It disturbs me that these guys who -- let's be fair -- don't know their ass from their elbow, are telling Florida voters that "it's a two man race." Primary voters might try to vote strategically. If I (still) lived in Florida, I would be tempted. All the lost votes will come out of the totals for my favored candidate, Mayor Giuliani.
Have I given up? No, but if the pollsters successfully predict or create a two man race, I am ready to switch my allegiance to Senator McCain. Stephen Moore has a nice piece on him in the Political Diary today, on his "economics education." He admits the votes against the Bush tax cuts were wrong, but:
But Mr. McCain has arguably the best stable of economic advisers in the race, with only Rudy Giuliani's team rivaling him in economic expertise. His primary confidant on the economy is former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm (who would almost certainly be Treasury secretary in a McCain administration). Jack Kemp has signed up with Mr. McCain, and Mr. McCain talks frequently to his longtime friend, the godfather of supply-side economics, Arthur Laffer.The big source of agitation for conservative voters over the past several years has been the federal spending explosion. Here, Senator McCain has teamed with Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, another endorser of the Arizona Senator, to cut more than $100 billion out of the federal budget. He has voted with Mr. Coburn on nearly every anti-pork measure introduced in the last several years. "I will cut the budget more than any other Republican," he told me in an interview late this summer when his poll numbers were in the tank. "Maybe that's what makes so many people nervous about me."
Mr. McCain is also an unwavering supporter of two other issues critical to the economic future of the nation: free trade and school choice. Education is always an issue foremost on the mind of the key "soccer mom" suburban vote. "The day that members of Congress will send their kids to the public schools in Washington, D.C., is the day I'll know we've fixed education in America," he has told me. "Why won't people like Hillary Clinton send her child to the public schools in Washington, D.C.?" Great question, and one he should save for a debate with Hillary if the two are the nominees.