Hank Kalet

McCain’s bad week about to get worse

John McCain is not having a good week. And this story in tomorrow’s Washington Post will not make it any better.

Broadcaster Lowell “Bud” Paxson yesterday contradicted statements from Sen. John McCain‘s presidential campaign that the senator did not meet with Paxson or his lobbyist before sending two controversial letters to the Federal Communications Commission on Paxson’s behalf.

Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before the Arizona Republican wrote the letters in 1999 to the FCC urging a rapid decision on Paxson’s quest to acquire a Pittsburgh television station.

Paxson also recalled that his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, likely attended the meeting in McCain’s office and that Iseman helped arrange the meeting. “Was Vicki there? Probably,” Paxson said in an interview with The Washington Post yesterday. “The woman was a professional. She was good. She could get us meetings.”

The recollection of the now-retired Paxson conflicted with the account provided by the McCain campaign about the two letters at the center of a controversy about the senator’s ties to Iseman, a partner at the lobbying firm of Alcalde & Fay.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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More on McCain

Tristero on Hullabaloo hits on some of the same themes I touched on yesterday in regard to the John McCain story in Thursday’s New York Times. the issue is not about an alleged affair — one that the story only touches on unconvincincingly — but about judgment and the people with whom McCain has been willing to associate.

From Hullabaloo:

McCain admits his judgment is frequently awful. Even when he knows better, he can’t help himself sometimes- he’s easily, and dangerously, swayed by strong personalities and by his need for friendships with such people. But think about what that means. Even if you cut him slack on a personal level – something along the level of, “well, at least he has the courage to admit he’s wrong and the insight to know why” – this is not the kind of personality you want negotiating with Vladimir Putin, to pick just one example.

Sure. Everyone makes mistakes. And even though McCain makes spectacular mistakes, that in and of itself isn’t the real crux of the problem. Rather it’s this: By his own admission, McCain can’t learn from his mistakes. He knows himself that his personality is too rigid. That is the critical difference between John McCain and a truly qualified candidate for President of the United States. And no amount of straight-shooting hype will change that.

And Matthew Yglesias hits on another interesting point — remarking on an interesting Newsweek piece on a discrepancy between past McCain statements and his most recent comments in response to the Times story — about the press; relationship to the candidate:

At this point, it’s worth observing something about the general McCain-press dynamic. One thing reporters like about McCain is that he offers shoot-from-the-hip statements on topics that come up in discussions. Reporters like this for good reason — the carefully worded, artfully hedged statements in which the vast majority of politicians speak nowadays is really annoying. That said, politicians don’t talk like that because they’re all douchebags, they talk like that because that’s how you have to talk. If you make the slightest slip-up or misstatement, the press will pounce all over you.

Unless, that is, you’re John McCain. If you’re John McCain you can make an obviously false statement like claiming you’ve “never done favors for special interests or lobbyists” or saying that “no representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC” when you yourself said in the past that you’d been contacted by Paxson and the press just lets it slide. Why? Because they like him. But they like him because he’s spontaneous. But he’s spontaneous because they let him get away with this stuff. And they let him get away with it because they like him. It’s what makes him such a formidable political figure — he can run around doing things no other politicians could get away with and actually
attract praise for it.

Unless, of course, it all comes crashing down. If reporters start judging McCain by their usual rules, then he’ll have to turn himself into just another carefully-hedging pol. But one who’s a million years old, one who thinks the problem with the Bush foreign policy is that we haven’t started enough wars, and one who doesn’t even care about the economic challenges facing the country.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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Lack of votes taking their tollon proposed toll hikes

Sometimes, when you write a column on a weekly deadline, the world moves and you’re left talking about things that have changed.

That appears to be what’s happened with the governor’s toll-hike plan, which he now is acknowledging is nearly death.

“I’m not conceding that it’s dead. On the other hand, I’m a realist. I don’t have 21 and 41 votes for this,” Corzine said, referring to the minimum votes he needs to push his proposal through the state Senate and Assembly.

The governor now says he is willing to listen to alternatives — he’s been saying that all along, but now actually seems serious about doing so.

Corzine said yesterday he will review a proposal by Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman John Wisniewski, the first detailed alternative to his plan.

“We’ll have to see what it actually accomplishes,” Corzine said. “But it’s a healthy addition to the dialogue. I’m searching for a solution that actually addresses the failed financial position of the state.”

The plan announced Wednesday by Wisniewski (D-Middlesex) would phase in an 18-cent increase in gas taxes over three years and consider privatizing the state Lottery. Under this scenario, tolls would rise by less than half of what the governor has proposed.

There are other options that, if considered, could be part of a more varied approach — income taxes, for instance. In any case, the toll plan as currently conceived seems on life support.

The other question that this raises is whether the governor will remove the toll plan from his budget calculations and how this might affect his planning.

Corzine had previously pledged to hold spending flat, a move that alone requires more than $2 billion in spending cuts.

“We can only spend the revenues we have, and details of the plan will come on Tuesday,” said Corzine spokeswoman Lilo Stainton.

Corzine said he still hopes to halve the state’s $32 billion debt. But his comments Thursday focused more often on investing in state infrastructure, the second of the two prime goals in his toll plan.

“We may not get everything I want with regards to these issues, but if we get a long way down that path, I think we will have made real change, a real contribution to both the present and the future of this state,” Corzine said.

It’s not a solution, but at least the issue of the state’s fractured finances is on the table. That’s more than we’ve gotten from anyone else in recent years.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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This is the winter morningof my discontent

I’m standing in my kitchen at the moment, typing on the laptop and sipping at some coffee, snow falling outside, the powder coming down faster and heavier than anything else we’ve seen this season.

Outside the window, the patio table has about 3 inches on it, the patio covered. Out front, the driveway is coated and the car and the newspaper in its yellow bag at the end of the driveway is barely visible.

I hate this stuff — still have to get the shovels out and clear the driveway so I can get out and head to a morning meeting and then to the office.

Mostly, this is just a hassle, the shoveling, clearing the car (see above, the Murano at about 8 a.m. today), the general stupidity of most drivers.

The dog, however, likes nothing more than to play in the snow. I can’t go out to shovel and leave her in the house — she cries and spins around and generally bugs Annie. Usually, Annie will help me shovel and Honey will run around the yard, finding a buried tennis ball and make us stop what we’re doing to throw it for her.

It keeps it light and keeps me from complaining about shoveling too much. I complain, but then the dog makes me laugh.

I’d move someplace warm, but I like New Jersey and the dog would never forgive us.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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