The New Lucky Duckies

It is remarkable to see McCain play the socialism card on Obama, days after voting for a $700 billion dollar bailout of the banks and the largest government intervention of the last 100 years. The institutional memory doesn't even go back three weeks anymore? Furthermore, he characterizes Obama's refundable tax credits as "welfare," neglecting the fact that his own refundable tax credits, the centerpiece of his entire health care plan, which go to the same low-income members of society who supposedly "don't pay taxes," are not welfare but "reform".

It's silly, but this is very powerful stuff. And I think Atrios makes the salient point.

Basically everybody pays taxes. So you when you're talking about giving free money to people who don't pay any taxes, that must be somebody else because, you know, I pay taxes.

I suppose that works.

Yes, I suppose it does.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — When Sen. Barack Obama entered a barbecue joint here to greet dozens of people eating lunch after church services on Sunday, Diane Fanning, 54, who works at a Sam's Club, began yelling, "Socialist, socialist, socialist — get out of here!"

Plumbers and Joe Sixpacks may make out better under Obama's plans, and McCain is peddling lies. But the way Republicans have historically won elections is by getting some members of the working class to think that other members of the working class are getting away with a free lunch. I don't know if it'll work, but the pull is undeniable and will last well past the election. Wait for the statistics to come out of Rush Limbaugh's mouth about how big a tax cut Obama has given to black people.

After all, this is the type of code they use. And it works.

Herbert reminds us about the Southern Strategy -- and famed GOP strategist Lee Atwater's candid admission: “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger. By 1968, you can’t say ‘nigger’ — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things, and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”