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Politico has an interesting article up today doing a post-mortem on the New Hampshire coverage that all but pronounced the Clinton campaign dead after Iowa. It gives three primary reasons why the coverage was so favorable to Obama and so negative to Clinton.

However, in the end the article seems to be more about excuses than changes. In the end the site kind of says “Oh, well” and moves on. It’s the non-apology apology that we are so used to hearing from the politicians that the site covers. “Mistakes were made” seems to be the headline, after everyone clearly knows that there were. I want to know what Politico plans to do to make sure that they don’t become part of the story and the echo chamber again. Acknowledging the problem is the first step, but where’s the rest of the steps?

I hope that this becomes a series rather than a one-off post. I hope more of the media takes a look at itself and sees what the problems are. It’s great to be first, but maybe it’s better to be correct.

Oh, and while I’m at it, I’d also like a pony.

TaxProf passed along a link to a new paper released by the Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis authored by William Gentry of Williams College. The title of the paper is titled “A Review of the Evidence on the Incidence of the Corporate Income Tax” (pdf link) and discusses the evidence that corporate taxes falls disproportionately on labor rather than capital. That’s a fancy way of saying that workers, rather than investors, bear the brunt of corporate taxes.

As I discussed in my article “Who Pays Business Taxes?” a corporation cannot possibly be the person that is economically harmed by corporate taxes because the corporation doesn’t really exist. The cost of the tax is passed on to either customers, employees, or investors. In this case, Mr. Gentry believes that employees are the ones mostly paying the tax.

The Treasury’s Office of Tax Analysis is a political office and the Administration is pushing a corporate tax cut, so I would keep that in mind when reading the paper. However, I don’t think I can fault his methods (I’m not an economist) and the conclusion seems reasonable given my earlier analysis.

It’s more evidence that when you see politicians ramp up the rhetoric about making corporations “pay their fair share of taxes”, as they undoubtedly will during the election season, remember that you may well be the one that pays in the end.

CBSNews.com’s Politico blog has a story up on the “changing tactics” of the Clinton campaign after her third place finish in Iowa. Read “changing tactics” as mudslinging and you’re pretty much right on target.

Hillary Rodham Clinton plans to target what her campaign calls Barack Obama’s inexperience over the next five days in New Hampshire and deliver much sharper - and likely much more personal and negative - attacks against the Iowa winner, according to Democrats familiar with the evolving strategy.

Well, the he’s a rookie line didn’t work. The Think we will see a whisper campaign about his drug use similar to Bush’s attacks on McCain in South Carolina in 2000? I think there are a lot of parallels between the races and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Clinton campaign look to that race to see how quick the “insurgent” campaign can be trounced by a candidate willing to sink to that level. And I have no doubts the Clinton campaign can sink to that level and probably will (which is a big reason I can’t support her even if I wanted to).

I really hope that she doesn’t go nuclear to try and win the nomination because that will simply turn off even more voters to her campaign. I’d rather she try her husband’s strategy of hope rather Karl Rove’s strategy of 50% + 1 and damn the consequences. We’ll see which way she goes.

I’ve read some of the analysis from the Iowa Caucus last night, but I’m not so sure that the pundits are right on the true winners and losers. I think the easy winner is Barack Obama, who showed that he could bring in independents and that a majority white electorate has no problems with his race. While Iowa is far from Alabama, I think that it bodes well for him at least in the rest of the primary season. The big loser on the Democratic side, other than Biden and Dodd who withdrew from the race, was Clinton. Her air of inevitability has clearly come off and she’s really got to dig down now. She’s far from out of the race but I think this will test the vaunted Clinton machine. Edwards did come back to finish second, but he’s been campaigning in the state since 2004. I think he hangs on to February 5^th but I think he’s probably done.

On the Republican side, I think the big winner is Rudy. Huckabee doesn’t have the money or structure to survive Super Duper Tuesday and his campaign seemed to implode at the first scent of criticism. His big win in Iowa pretty much kills Romney’s campaign as they were banking on winning Iowa and winning big. McCain has the war and memories of “The Hug” to contend with among independents and his slamming of religious conservatives in 2000 derails any chances of him picking off those votes in states such as South Carolina. That pretty much leaves Rudy as the candidate with the money and organization capable of pulling off the nomination. His campaign couldn’t have been happier with the way things went last night.

I think the really big losers in yesterday’s caucuses are the moderates. The partisans in Iowa chose candidates from the far left and far right of each party. New Hampshire generally picks candidates from the middle, but the middle is hard to find in this race. It will be interesting to see if McCain, once the middle of the road candidate, decides to push for the center again or abandon it (again) for a rightward tack to try and win South Carolina.

I don’t think Iowa told us anything that the endless polling didn’t in the days running up to the caucus. While Obama won by a bigger margin (and Edwards eclipsed Clinton) I think that we could easily end up seeing both winners last night not get the nomination. It’s still a marathon and we’re only at Mile 4 (unfortunately).

The Iowa caucuses are tonight. A lot of people are excited because this will hopefully winnow the field from 16 (I think) candidates left to 5 or 6 viable candidates. Others are excited because they get to leave Iowa (Iowa in December and January is not the happiest place on Earth).But for me, I almost wish I lived in Iowa to participate in the Democratic caucus. The Republican caucus is not nearly as much fun because they use secret ballots and it is more of a typical election. The Democrats used an antiquated system that is about as close to pure open democracy as we get.

For the Democratic caucus, everyone lines up at 7:00 pm sharp. If you’re there at 7:01, too bad you’re locked out. They pick spots on the wall and everyone that likes Candidate A lines up there. If you’re group has fewer than 15% of the overall vote, your candidate is eliminated and the entire process starts again with fewer candidates.

This happens until there are no more “not viable” candidates. The results are mailed (yes, mailed) to the DNC headquarters in Des Moines which tallies the votes and assigns the number of delegates to each candidate based upon statewide returns.

And if you think the “not viable” process is not worth it, you might want to ask John Edwards. The only reason he got the VP nod in ‘04 was because of his strong finish in Iowa. Dennis Kucinich’s voters went largely for Edwards in the second round of voting and that propelled him past Gephardt and Dean. Because of this, he’s a viable candidate in ‘08 as well and hoping for a lot of the castoffs as their “second choice”. Trust me, the other candidates are fearful of this happening again (hence all the talk about him being a “strong finisher”).

I think it’s a cool little quirk of our system. Now, should Iowa be first? That’s a debatable topic for somebody else. I just think we should appreciate the quaintness of this method of choosing a candidate.

From BNA

House Votes to Waive Pay-Go, Send AMT Relief to 21 Million Taxpayers

Posted Dec. 19, 2007, 4:50 PM ET

The protracted debate over whether to pay for a one-year patch for the alternative minimum tax ended Dec. 19 when the House voted 352-64 to clear the measure for President Bush’s signature.The House passed the bill (H.R. 3996) containing a one-year AMT patch without offsets after agreeing to set aside a rule and consider the measure under a suspension of the rules, which includes the pay-as-you-go rule. While no Republicans voted against the measure, 64 Democrats-mostly Blue Dog budget hawks opposed to adding to the national debt-voted against it.

Democrats criticized Republicans for painting them in a corner by steadfastly opposing offsetting the $50 billion cost of the patch, while Republicans criticized Democrats for violating their commitment to pay-go budget rules and for trying to prevent a tax increase with increases elsewhere in the Internal Revenue Code.

“In this process of governing you often times reach a difficult intersection. Sometimes you do not have the luxury of either supporting a bill you like or opposing a bill that you don’t like,” said House Ways and Means Select Revenue Measures Subcommittee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.). “Sometimes you have to support a bill that you do not like simply because it has to be done. That is the crossroads where we find ourselves today.”

So, the GOP criticized Democrats for abandoning PAYGO when it was they that demanded it for supporting the bill? And they criticized them for both trying to offset and then abandoning the offset? It’s times like this that I’m glad I’m not in politics. Once again, I am proud of the Blue Dogs for fighting until the end to get the patch paid for. While they ultimately lost the battle (ironically to those that will claim to be the fiscally responsible party), they showed that they are serious about PAYGO and will even vote to keep it on “must pass” legislation.

Just a quick post that I’m excited that the Blue Dogs haven’t backed down in the fight over the AMT patch. While I’m squarely in the crosshairs if this doesn’t get fixed (and I’ve chastised Congress for not fixing it two months ago) I love that they have not backed down in their demands to have the patch paid for under the PAYGO rules. I also love that they have refused Pelosi’s bait-and-switch (”I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”) and have refused to let the House adjourn until this is fixed. It’s about time somebody stood up for what they believe and I’d gladly vote for any of them if I could.

I also marvel at the brazen hypocrisy of the GOP, which refuses to go along with offsets because they don’t want to raise taxes to fix “a tax that never should have happened” despite the fact that they both could have fixed it during their years in total control and caused the problem with Bush’s tax cuts. I guess they’re hoping voters won’t grasp this and they can pin it all on the Democrats in 2008, which is probably true. Oh, how I love gotcha politics!

I want to like Mike Huckabee, I really do. While he’s far to the right of me on gay marriage and he does have prickly ethical problems, he’s more of a realist than the other GOP (or for that matter Democratic) contenders for the office of the Presidency. Plus, I like how someone that has raised less than 1/25 of what some of his competitors have raised is now kicking their butts in Iowa.

But, the issue for me in the whole GOP race is the focus on Romney’s Mormon religion and the anti-Mormonism in general that has reared its ugly head. As a kid growing up Catholic I had a hard time understanding why JFK and Al Smith had such a hard time simply because they thought Martin Luther was full of it. The same thing happened in 2004 when everyone wondered whether John Kerry was Catholic enough (man, have we come a long way or what?).

Apparently, Mike Huckabee has penned an opinion piece to run in Sunday’s NY Times questioning certain aspects of the Mormon faith while at the same time admitting he knows nothing of it. This type of hack piece should have been stopped by his handlers, but I guess they are banking on a certain percentage of Christian conservatives to be turned on by bashing the “cult” while not turning off enough people by his vile rhetoric.

Well, count me as being turned off. I am of the firm belief that the separation of church and state is absolute and is there to protect the church from the influences of the state rather than the other way ’round. I’m not electing a high priest, I’m electing a President. I care more about what he thinks about health care and tax issues than if he believes that Satan and Jesus are brothers. Yes, I am a Christian but my vote doesn’t teeter on a candidate’s views. While it’s true that someone that shares my faith is more likely to be pro-life, if they’re pro-life and Buddhist I couldn’t care less.

Maybe I’m in the minority on this one, but we’ve got to move past this. Mike, you just dropped straight to the bottom with me with this one (say hi to Rudy and Tom for me).

Thoughts on NPR Democratic debate as I am listening

Iran Section

* Is there anything that John Edwards can’t blame Bush for? Note to the Edwards team: certain Muslims hated us well before Bush took power. Every time your candidate tries to pin something simply on Bush, the likelihood that I will vote for your candidate goes down another notch. And this is from someone that disliked Bush since day one.

* Seriously, can Clinton give a straight answer? The whole piece on Iran I heard not one straight answer. I don’t dislike Hillary and I would consider voting for her, but I want a straight answer on something when it comes to the country that will be the number one problem for the next President.

* We can’t negotiate with Iran, it’s impossible. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that there is not one power to negotiate with. Even if there was, the #1 way that the leadership stays in power is anti-Americanism. They can never agree to anything with us and the Democrats need to face that.

* Mike Gravel has a great radio voice. That’s about as much as I can say about him.

China Section

* Joe Biden wants to stop all imports from China? BWAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA. I once considered voting for him but everytime I hear him talk it’s like Edwards, I like him less.

* I’m glad that John Edwards can afford US toys and will not buy Chinese toys for his kids. What about the rest of us? Michelle Norris let him off way too easy. She did bring up that 70% of toys are Made in China but didn’t ask how he plans to completely avoid Chinese toys.

* Mike Gravel made a great point on China! And then he went off the rocker.

* The protectionism of the Democrats is cute but unworkable. Nice campaign speeches (rebuild America!) but none of them admit that Americans benefit from cheap Chinese goods (at least that I heard). Again, the Democrats need to come back to planet Earth and realize that they are primarily missing the boat here. We’re moving from a manufacturing economy to a higher value one based primarily on services rather than labor. I realize it’s not a popular theme with the labor base of the Democratic party, but I’d like one candidate to actually admit what everyone already knows.

Unfortunately, work got in the way and I missed the rest of the debate. The first 90 minutes left me less than impressed and I can imagine how the immigration section went. I’m still no closer to choosing a candidate and I still feel like none of the candidates reflect my values and views. I’m sure they’ll move to the middle after trying to appeal to the demagogues in the primaries, but I’m not sure that I’ll believe them then. Which candidate is the real candidate? The primary one? The election one?

I wasn’t able to watch the GOP YouTube/CNN debate last night and from the reactions and new stories I’m glad I didn’t. It sounds like CNN cleaned up the videos so that no snowmen or other characters showed up like in the Democratic debate. I can’t help but wonder if that was a requirement for doing the debate? If it is, it shows that the GOP has no sense of humor about itself.

Anyway, it seemed like everyone was a loser last night as the “debate” turned into catfighting about who loved illegal immigrants and torture the most. One comment on the WaPo’s Fix blog cracked me up.

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