This Is Why McCain's Avoiding The Press

Because whenever he says anything out loud it's an embarrassment.

The Politico looked into his claim that 300 economists support his budget plan. They, um, don't.

Upon closer inspection, it seems a good many of those economists don’t actually support the whole of McCain’s economic agenda. And at least one doesn’t even support McCain for president.

In interviews with more than a dozen of the signatories, Politico found that, far from embracing McCain’s economic plan, many were unfamiliar with — or downright opposed to — key details. While most of those contacted by Politico had warm feelings about McCain, many did not want to associate themselves too closely with his campaign and its policy prescriptions.

Howard Beales, an economist at George Washington University, explained that he signed the letter as "an expression of support for [McCain], not necessarily each and every detail of his plan, which I may not have had time to study closely." [...]

Constantine Alexandrakis, a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, expressed second thoughts about signing.

"I would describe myself as an Obama supporter," he explained. "Maybe I shouldn't have rushed into signing the letter."

(I'm signing up for Prof. Alexandrakis' class at B-school, sounds like he doesn't read the papers too closely.)

The New York Times looked at McCain's health care plan and found that sick people are pretty much left out.

If Senator John McCain’s radical plan for remaking American health care is to work, he will have to find a way to cover people like Chaim Benamor, 52, a self-employed renovator in this Baltimore suburb. Mr. Benamor never found it necessary to buy insurance before having a mild heart attack last year and now, 13 years shy of Medicare, has little hope of doing so.

In late April, Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, announced that if elected president he would seek to insure people like Mr. Benamor by vastly expanding federal support for state high-risk pools like Maryland’s, or by creating a structure modeled after them. But as Mr. Benamor’s case demonstrates, even well-regarded pools have served more as a stopgap than a solution.

Though high-risk pools have existed for three decades, they cover only 207,000 people in a country with 47 million uninsured, according to the National Association of State Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans. Premiums typically are high, as much as twice the standard rate in some states, but are still not nearly enough to pay claims. That has left states to cover about 40 percent of the cost, usually through assessments on insurance premiums that are often passed on to consumers.

(His pre-existing condition plan is really disaster capitalism at its best - or worst.)

The AFL-CIO looked at his veterans record and found that he doesn't much give a damn.

He wants us to keep spending $10 billion dollars a month in Iraq, just like Bush... he even took sides with Bush against increasing health care benefits for veterans.

The Democratic Party again took a look at his ad buys and noticed some illegal coordination:

The short-story is this: on July 2, the McCain campaign placed $1.5 million in advertising in the Virginia area. The next day -- July 3 -- the McCain campaign canceled that media buy. On the very same day -- July 3 -- the outside group made a large media buy in the same region, filling the gap created by the McCain campaign's cancellation.

It's possible this was all just a coincidence, but given the close connections between the McCain campaign and this particular group (Vets for Freedom, also known as VFF), I have my doubts. In May, VFF attacked Barack Obama with swiftboat style ads. This created a bit of controversy, because at the time both Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman were on VFF's board of directors. Each has since quit the group, but it's hard to imagine that the McCain campaign has cut ties with the outfit altogether.

And Republican economic hack Larry Kudlow took a look at his energy policy, and was delighted to report that any meaningful step to combat climate change has been totally eliminated, in a sop to the right-wing.

I went back last evening and carefully read his 15-page policy pamphlet called “Jobs for America.” Here’s what I found: There is no mention of cap-and-trade. None. Nada. There is a section about “Cheap, Clean, Secure Energy for America: The Lexington Project.” But that talks about expanded domestic production of oil and gas, as well as the need for more nuclear power and coal along with alternative sources. Then it has the $300 million battery and flex-fuel cars. But nope, no cap-and-trade.

So I picked up the phone and dialed a senior McCain official to make sure these old eyes hadn’t missed it. Sure enough, on deep background, this senior McCain advisor told me I was correct: no cap-and-trade. In other words, this central-planning, regulatory, tax-and-spend disaster, which did not appear in Mac’s two recent speeches, has been eradicated entirely — even from the detailed policy document that hardly anybody will ever read.

So, like I said, no wonder he's ducking the press. Although, I doubt they'd have much to ask him beyond how awesome it was to have served his country and "Would you like another donut?"