The Filter: August 15, 2008

A round-up of this morning's must-read stories.

CONVENTIONAL NONSENSE
(Jack Shafer, Slate) 
Why do the parties throw their meaningless conventions? As Andrew Ferguson wrote in the Weekly Standard four years ago, the no-news extravaganza of a convention is excellent news for them. But what excuse do thousands of reporters have for attending? According to Ferguson, in the weeks leading up to the conventions, the press traditionally complains about the "empty ritual" of the "infomercial" that the parties have "choreographed." But that's just for show. They fight their colleagues for the honor to attend because a political convention is a gas to cover. It's like a vacation, only no spouses! There's free food, plenty of booze, nice hotels, lots of pals in the press and politics dishing gossip, and the assignment is easy to report. Ferguson concludes that political conventions exist only to make the second convention—the "journalists' convention"—possible. "The parasite has consumed the host," he wrote. If the political press corps were honest, they'd start every convention story with the finding that nothing important happened that day and that your attention is not needed. Or they'd go searching toilet stalls for somebody with a wide stance. Instead, they satisfy themselves by being the co-producers of a bad reality-TV show about the coronation of a man who would be king.

JOHN MCCAIN AND THE POW CHURCH RIOT
(Jill Zuckman, Chicago Tribune)
They called it the church riot. Sen. John McCain, who is known for his reticence and even discomfort invoking faith on the campaign trail, was once dubbed a "Hell's Angel" for rioting against his captors in Vietnam in order to hold Sunday church services. It is a story unknown by a public still getting to know McCain and searching for shared values with the candidates. This Saturday, McCain and Sen. Barack Obama will separately answer questions from evangelical leader Rick Warren at his Saddleback Church in Southern California. In an extended interview, McCain talked about how his faith was tested during his years as a prisoner of war from 1967 to 1973, said God must have had a plan for him to have kept him alive, and reminisced about his appointment as informal chaplain to his cellmates... McCain said his faith in God informs his decisions on issues of public policy. Christian conservatives are skeptical of McCain's commitment to many of the issues they care about, such as abortion and marriage.

GOP LOYALTY NOT A GIVEN FOR YOUNG EVANGELICALS
(Krissah Williams Thompson, Washington Post)
Merritt still shares his parents' conservative convictions on abortion, a core issue that forged Falwell's Moral Majority and brought evangelicals firmly into the Republican camp, but he says they are no longer enough for him to claim the Republican Party. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that while a majority of young white evangelicals describe themselves as conservative on social issues, slightly more identified this year as either independents or Democrats than as Republicans. In 2001, about the time that Merritt was working as precinct captain for the Republican Party, an overwhelming majority of young evangelicals identified with the GOP. Merritt may no longer, but neither does he consider himself a Democrat. He is just the kind of young evangelical voter whom Democratic Sen. Barack Obama has targeted and Republican Sen. John McCain cannot afford to lose. In 2004, nearly eight in 10 white evangelicals supported Bush, according to exit polls. They accounted for a third of the president's total votes. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll of registered voters last month, McCain led Obama 67 percent to 25 percent among white evangelical Protestants. Obama's campaign is hoping that young evangelicals such as Merritt will be a way in.

SCHOLARSHIP
(Joe Klein, Time)
There is no excuse for what the McCain campaign is doing on the "putting America first" front. There is no way to balance it, or explain it other than as evidence of a severe character defect on the part of the candidate who allows it to be used. There is a straight up argument to be had in this election: McCain has a vastly different view from Obama about foreign policy, taxation, health care, government action...you name it. He has lots of experience; it is always shocking to remember that this time four years ago, Barack Obama was still in the Illinois State Legislature. Apparently, though, McCain isn't confident that conservative policies and personal experience can win, given the ruinous state of the nation after eight years of Bush. So he has made a fateful decision: he has personally impugned Obama's patriotism and allows his surrogates to continue to do that. By doing so, he has allied himself with those who smeared him, his wife, his daughter Bridget, in 2000. Those tactics won George Bush a primary--and a nomination. But they proved a form of slow-acting spiritual poison, rotting the core of the Bush presidency. We'll see if the public decides to acquiesce in sleaze in 2008, and what sort of presidency--what sort of country--that will produce.

MCCAIN'S FOCUS ON GEORGIA RAISES QUESTION OF PROPRIETY
(Dan Eggen and Robert Barnes, Washington Post)
Standing behind a lectern in Michigan this week, with two trusted senators ready to do his bidding, John McCain seemed to forget for a moment that he was only running for president. Asked about his tough rhetoric on the ongoing conflict in Georgia, McCain began: "If I may be so bold, there was another president..." He caught himself and started again: "At one time, there was a president named Ronald Reagan who spoke very strongly about America's advocacy for democracy and freedom." With his Democratic opponent on vacation in Hawaii, the senator from Arizona has been doing all he can in recent days to look like President McCain, particularly when it comes to the ongoing international crisis in Georgia... The extent of McCain's involvement in the military conflict in Georgia appears remarkable among presidential candidates, who traditionally have kept some distance from unfolding crises out of deference to whoever is occupying the White House. The episode also follows months of sustained GOP criticism of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, who was accused of acting too presidential for, among other things, briefly adopting a campaign seal and taking a trip abroad that included a huge rally in Berlin.

ROAD TO 270: INDIANA
(Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight)
Perhaps no state better embodies the difference in philosophy between the McCain and Obama campaigns than Indiana. For Obama, it represents a chance to rewrite the conventional wisdom and redraw the map: Indiana has gone Democratic just once in the past 15 elections, but Obama is serious about winning it, with intentions of opening as many as 30 field offices in the state. McCain, meanwhile, is acting as though he is calling a bluff; his campaign has not been advertising there, nor has it devoted any resources to the ground game... What Obama has going for him: A lot of little things, which might add up to a big thing. Indiana has the most manufacturing-intensive economy in the country, with 18 percent of its jobs in the sector; Illinois-based unions are used to working its territory. Approximately 20-25 percent of the state is in the Chicago media market, and Obama overperford in the Northern portion of the state during the Democratic primaries. Indiana has several major colleges and universities, and an above-average number of young voters. Obama has outfundraised McCain in Indiana better than 2:1. The Bayh brand name remains extremely powerful in the state, and Evan Bayh can be an effective surrogate, whether or not he is Obama's vice president. Obama has a head start, having focused intensely on the state during the primaries, and essentially keeping his organization intact since then... The essential question then is whether there has been some sort of latent Democratic vote in Indiana that the Democrats simply haven't bothered to fight for.

AS A TRIBUTE, DEMOCRATS WILL PLACE CLINTON'S NAME IN NOMINATION AT THE CONVENTION
(Jeff Zeleny, New York Times) 
The symbolic move, announced Thursday in a joint statement with Senator Barack Obama, is intended to soothe a lingering rift with Clinton supporters and to unify the party. With Mrs. Clinton scheduled to deliver a prime-time speech in Denver, a state-by-state roll call vote increases her time in the convention spotlight. “I am convinced that honoring Senator Clinton’s historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong united fashion,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. The decision was brokered after long negotiations by advisers to both senators, with Mr. Obama ultimately signing off on the plan on Wednesday. The former rivals never spoke directly about the matter, but advisers said Mr. Obama encouraged Mrs. Clinton to agree to place her name into nomination as a nod to the historic nature of her candidacy. At the same time, it was an effort to keep peace in the Democratic family, with some of Mrs. Clinton’s most ardent supporters still planning to broadcast a television commercial and stage rallies protesting Mr. Obama’s nomination.

OBAMA DETAILS RAISING TAXES ON GAINS, DIVIDENDS
(Deborah Soloman, Wall Street Journal)
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama sought to quiet critics by offering specifics about his tax plan, but his proposal to raise tax rates on investment income and expand payroll taxes is continuing to draw fire from some who say it will harm workers and the economy. Sen. Obama outlined a plan Thursday to raise tax rates on capital gains and dividend income from 15% to 20% for individuals and families making more than $200,000 and $250,000, respectively. He also detailed a plan to levy payroll taxes on earnings above $250,000 at a rate between 2% and 4%, though that increase wouldn't occur for at least a decade. Right now, payroll taxes, used to fund retirement benefits, are levied on income up to $102,000. Jason Furman, Sen. Obama's economic-policy director, said the plan would cut taxes to less than 18.2% of gross domestic product. "That's lower than the level of taxes when Ronald Reagan was president," he said. The proposed rates are below the levels many had expected, given Sen. Obama's campaign rhetoric. Nonetheless, critics said the plan would exacerbate an economic downturn and harm workers.

LEAVE IT TO WEAVER
(Paul Burka, Texas Monthly)
The place where I was meeting John Weaver was all wrong—a nondescript office building on F Street in downtown Washington, near Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was shot. He should have been miles away, across the Potomac in Crystal City, Virginia, at 1235 South Clark Street—the national headquarters for the John McCain for President campaign. Weaver, after all, is the political consultant who fashioned McCain into a presidential candidate... [I]n our conversation, he made no effort to conceal his disagreement with the current strategy of attacking Obama. ‘They want to get Obama’s negatives up, but the country doesn’t want to hear it,’ Weaver said. ‘If we run that kind of campaign, Obama could win by a landslide.’ … In contrast, Weaver told me, ‘I would go another month without mentioning Obama’s name. The bigness in John McCain is his best quality. This election is ideally suited to him. He won the nomination because he was the right Republican at the right time. He is the one guy who will take on spending and mean it. He should honor Obama as the first African American nominee, not attack him, except on policy differences.’”

LAWYERS' TIES HINT AT EXTENT OF HIDING EDWARDS'S AFFAIR
(Serge F. Kovaleski and Mike McIntire, New York Times)
As tabloid reports of a sex scandal threatened former Senator John Edwards’s presidential campaign last December on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, two lawyers surfaced with written statements that appeared to exonerate the candidate. One of them, Robert J. Gordon of New York, said that his client, Rielle Hunter, a pregnant 43-year-old filmmaker, was not carrying Mr. Edwards’s child. Shortly thereafter, the other lawyer, Pamela J. Marple of Washington, sent word that her client, Andrew Young, an Edwards campaign aide, was the baby’s father. Seemingly issued independently of Mr. Edwards, the statements appeared to deflate the anonymously sourced reports of an Edwards tryst. But what went unnoticed was that the two lawyers shared an important connection to Mr. Edwards that suggests they were part of an orchestrated effort to protect him, one that is continuing even after he admitted last week that he had an affair with Ms. Hunter but denied that he fathered her child. The lawyers are linked through Fred Baron, a wealthy Dallas lawyer and former finance chairman for the Edwards campaign who was a key player in the campaign’s response to the scandal. Mr. Gordon has worked with Mr. Baron on class-action personal injury cases, and Ms. Marple helped defend a lawsuit brought against both men and their law firms by an asbestos manufacturer.