<p>“Cap and Trade: Obama supports implementation of a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by the amount scientists say is necessary: 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Obama’s cap-and-trade system will require all pollution credits to be auctioned. A 100 percent auction ensures that all polluters pay for every ton of emissions they release, rather than giving these emission rights away to coal and oil companies. Some of the revenue generated by auctioning allowances will be used to support the development of clean energy, to invest in energy efficiency improvements, and to address transition costs, including helping American workers affected by this economic transition.”</p>
<p>Does Obama say where he is getting the money?</p>
<p>Senator Clinton has detailed the offsetting revenue increases or spending reductions to pay for every proposal she has made in this campaign (except the emergency stimulus package, where the intent is to inject money into the economy and avoid recession).</p>
<p>A corner stone of Clinton’s economic policy is the “pay as you go” approach that was used under the last Democratic administration to avoid deficit spending. Every new program must be paid for.</p>
<p>BTW, the energy company “loopholes” Clinton wants to close were the boondoggle tax giveaways in the 2005 Cheney Energy Bill that one major Democratic candidate voted for. Illinois-based Exelon, one of the country’s largest coal and nuke companies was a major beneficiary of these loopholes.</p>
<p>I think both candidates will raise taxes. I don’t think either has presented a better financing plan than the other.</p>
<p>I think the proposed Clinton Health Care plan would cost the taxpayers more, but I am not sure. That, and the Iraq war seem to be the differentiators between the two democratic candidates.</p>
<p>Are there other major “issue” differentiators ? Or as vicariousparent suggested, are voters basing preferences on how they perceive a candidate’s character and integrity?</p>
<p>“The only reason he came within 10% in Ohio is because he got his usual 87% to 92% of the black vote. That’s 18% of the voters in the primary, but only 10% in the general election. The black vote is important to Democrats, but the strength of the racial voting block is exaggerated in the primaries and gets diluted in the general. Democrats lose Presidential elections, not because they fail to get the black vote, but because they don’t get enough white vote.”</p>
<p>I hope this gets put to the test when the party insiders give the nod to Clinton. 85% of all blacks that vote, vote democratic, year after year, if they all stay home I think it will teach the democratic party a valuable lesson.</p>
<p>I’m working from memory here (and don’t feel like going back to research it now), but I believe that all of the serious Democratic presidential candidates this year except Dodd favored a cap n’ trade auction as a primary component of their energy policies. Dodd favored a straight carbon tax.</p>
<p>The popularity of cap n’ trade systems is not surprising. This approach enjoys considerable bipartisan support, having been introduced in Congress by authors as varied as Joe Lieberman, John Warner, and Henry Waxman.</p>
<p>Other than a few isolated instances and some concern about an overall lack of specificity in his proposals, I’ve never expressed any disagreement with Obama on the broad outlines of his domestic policy.</p>
<p>Having been told that Bill Clinton is a racist and Hillary Clinton is a racist, I think that’s quite possible. The amazing thing is that the Clintons could fool them for so long with all those appointments and support for issues important to black voters. I mean, even Charlie Rangel was fooled when Bill Clinton asked him to find office space so Clinton could headquarter the William J. Clinton Foundation in Harlem.</p>
<p>Who knew that Hillary was a racist all these years, even when she started her career working for Marian Wright Edelman at the Children’s Defense Fund?</p>
<p>But, now that African Americans know “the truth” about the Clintons, I would not be surprised of they sit out the election. I’m sure that Jim Clyburn and Donna Brazille would be encouraging them to do so. Heck, Sharpton has said there would be “blood in the streets”.</p>
<p>^ People may change as they see fit.
Someone could probably identify a pretty significant list of cases where a candidate may have changed opinions or misspoke.</p>
<p>And now a serious comment on this “black boycott” issue:</p>
<p>From a pure political strategy standpoint, the absolute BEST thing the Democratic Party could do is weaken the perception that the African American block has a strangehold on the party. Some distancing would allow Democrats to walk away from wildly unpopular positions, such as affirmative action, and improve the Democrats chances of actually building a real 50-state strategy.</p>
<p>I wonder how many republican voters in Indiana will vote democratic in the primary in accordance with “Operation Chaos” ? We may never know if Hillary wins there whether it is actually a real number, or an inflated number due to the success of “Operation Chaos” and that strategy.</p>
<p>Ironic, isn’t it? Remember how Obama started out this year, targeting Republican and Independent cross-over votes? Remember when his campaign used to do “Be a Democrat for a Day” mailings?</p>
<p>The enormity of universal health care and the impact across the economy doesn’t really lend itself to that kind of soundbyte price tag.</p>
<p>Having said that, I believe that both candidates have outlined a similar bottom-line cost.</p>
<p>The big difference is that Obama’s advisors, including Senator Kerry, have said in the last week that health care reform is “off the table” now.</p>
<p>Clinton continues to believe that universal health care is the cornerstone goal for any Democratic administration, for many reasons, not the least of which is that health care costs are choking the economy.</p>
<p>She knocked 'em dead sparring with Bill O’Reilly.</p>
<p>The ratings were off the charts. O’Reilly typically gets double the ratings of any other cable news show in his time slot (CNN or MSNBC). His ratings nearly doubled again for the first night of Clinton’s interview.</p>
<p>I think there will be. 85% of all blacks vote democratic and blacks are about 14% of the population. In recognition of their unending support they get 1 black senator (equal representation would be around 28). When he dares to rise up with a populous campaign that takes him outside of the control of the Washington insiders and the media owners they use his skin color, church affiliation (what ever happened to separation of church and state), friends, associates, he is wrongly linked to every unpopular black man from the past 50 years. Get to the back of the bus where you belong seems to be the message. I grew up in a Ohio kind of rust belt midwest town, anyboby who is surprised that they didn’t support Obama is naive. When white folk in Ohio vote for Hiliary thats support when black folk vote for Obama in NC thats racism. Nice spin.</p>
<p>That strikes me as a rather superficial analysis. The demographics are more complex than that. For example, Obama runs strong in Conn, but poorly in neighboring RI and Mass.</p>