Deconstructing the Daily Star’s John McCain interview – Part 1

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Wow. I just finished reading the transcripts of John McCain's interview with the editorial board of the Arizona Daily Star. A quick observation: John McCain has been in elected office for almost 28 years. The political media are "his base" – McCain is essentially the co-host of every political talk show on television. He owns the Arizona McMedia.

So I was stunned by his lack of knowledge and lack of understanding of basic concepts displayed in this interview, and what appears to me to be his lack of preparation. McCain is so used to a fawning media acting as a dutiful stenographer that he apparently believed he could phone in this interview.

To a certain extent, he was right. I have two questions for the Arizona Daily Star: (1) Why is there not a videotape of this interview posted on your web site? The Star videotapes other candidate interviews, and The Arizona Republic posted videotape of its editorial board interview of John McCain last month on its web site; and (2) Why are not the editors posing questions to John McCain identified by name? I would like to know the identity of the editor(s) who was asking the tough questions and behaving like a responsible journalist. (Kudos, by the way). But I really would like to know the identity of the editor(s) who was serving up those powder-puff softball questions to McCain. That individual(s) has no business being an editor of a major newspaper.

Rather than deconstruct the condensed edited version of the interview which appeared in the print edition of the Arizona Daily Star Sunday McCain on immigration, gays in uniform, I will deconstruct the interview in segments of the full interview posted on-line.

Let's begin with Sen. John McCain Interview: Arizona and the economy:

STAR: I wanted to ask you a question about some statistics that came out a couple of weeks ago about Arizona's per capita income, that we are now 43rd in the country. But I think more concerning than that is we are now at 85 percent of the national per capita income. Twenty five years ago, we were at 93 percent, and we were slowly – but during the ‘70s we were headed this way (up). For 25 years now, Arizona has been headed down. What is it that we are doing so wrong as a state?

The editor's question is derived from this report: Arizona incomes fell in '09 Arizonans' personal incomes slid more last year than those of residents nearly everywhere else in the nation. The decline accelerated Arizona's drop in the nation's per capita income standings to 43rd among the states, down two spots from last year and down six for the decade.

McCAIN: Well first of all, I'm not I'm not sure I agree with the, quote, headed down. We also were either No. 1 or No. 2, depending on how you view statistics, of people who have moved to our state, which could only be because they wanted to live in Arizona and enjoyed the life here and the climate and the environment and raise their kids here.

So I don't question your facts, but I do know that it's the most attractive place in America because every place I go in America people will talk about how much they enjoyed going to Arizona and they have a relative in Arizona and they want to retire in Arizona.

But it really is a reality that we were at the top of the crest of this wave on housing, we were at the top along with Nevada and to some extent Florida and California who are bigger states.

McCain is confused by population growth in raw numbers, and per capita income, two entirely different measures. Arizona's raw population nearly doubled between 1990 and 2010 (there has been a slight population decline since 2009). Over the same period, Arizona's per capita income has been declining as the editor indicates from the government statistical data. The last part of McCain's answer is in reference to the "housing bubble" of recent years which began to burst in 2006 and nearly collapsed the economy by 2008.

STAR: But that's why I asked about 25 years because it's not a short-term blip.

Good, the editor gets it. McCain demonstrates that he does not:

McCAIN: I just don't accept that. It could not be – why do you think Raytheon came here? Why do you think Intel came here? Why do you think all these other companies and corporations came here? I just don't accept your premise.

Two words, Johnny: "tax incentives." These companies received sweetheart deals not to have to pay certain taxes for up to twenty years. I believe Raytheon's sweetheart deal with Pima County is about to expire soon, or will be renegotiated.

STAR: Well, it's the federal government's numbers of per capita income.

McCAIN: I don't accept your premise that therefore this was a bad place for us to live and work. It's a wonderful place …

STAR: Well, we were at 93 percent of the national rate …

McCAIN: And what was our population. 25 years ago, what was our population?

STAR: … per capita.

McCAIN: What was our population 23 years ago or whatever it was. We were a state. There was dependence —

STAR: It's irrelevant, it's per capita.

Let's just call this exchange "Clueless in Tucson." McCain fails to accept the editor's helpful hints that he/she is talking about per capita income and not raw population growth. The editor becomes frustrated with McCain's inability to comprehend this concept and correctly points out that his argument is "irrelevant." The comedy continues:

McCAIN: We were a state that was dependent on copper and cotton and climate. And then thank god, maybe longer ago than that, companies and corporations moved here because they wanted a great place to work, great place for people to attract workers, a wonderful state in which to live and work.

Now, your view is that somehow Arizona has gone down. I don't – you can give me – one thing I know about the facts …

STAR: To go from 93 …

McCAIN: You know what I know about numbers, you can manipulate them however you want. Okay. I know that about numbers and facts.

Now does it matter that we were either the fastest or second fastest growing state in America? Does it matter to you? North Dakota had declining population. And I would bet you they were a whole lot higher on per capita income than Arizona. I'll take Arizona.

STAR: Growth is good if everybody is better off.

McCain has several annoying ticks when he speaks. One is his penchant for saying "My friends…" No, Johnny, you are not my friend. The other tick that drives me insane is his penchant for answering questions with "I know…" as in "I know how to fix the economy," and "I know how to win this war." What McCain is really saying is "trust me," I know what I am doing — but you will notice that he never tells you what he knows or why we should trust him. It's a matter of trust.

In this instance, McCain gets frustrated with the badgering from this editor (kudos) and simply rejects official government statistical data — "you can manipulate data however you want" (something McCain himself does in other parts of this interview) — for what he "knows," er, believes. When the facts dispute everything you believe, deny the facts. It's a matter of "faith."

Why is McCain focusing on population growth? Because this is how Republicans have always gotten away with selling the lie that tax cuts lead to economic expansion and pay for themselves. This has never been true. Population growth merely delays the reduction of tax revenues as more people move into the state and pay into the system. Once the state achieves a stable population or plateau, as it is now due to the collapse of the real estate market and the state's economy, the loss of tax revenue from a shrinking tax base due to twenty years of unrelenting GOP tax cuts becomes apparent. Without uncontrolled rapid population growth, the faith based supply-side "trickle down" GOP economics is exposed as a lie. And we can't have that, now can we?

McCAIN: I think you are also aware that there was an influx of immigrants into the state, a very large influx of immigrants into this state, which brought down a lot of our issues including education, including English speaking, including a whole lot of other areas as well. We are a very diverse state. And I worry night and day about jobs and jobs and jobs and jobs and jobs in the economy. But I do not accept the thesis that Arizona has done badly over the last 25 years. I think we've done extremely well, we have become a state that was the envy of most others.

So I mean, we just have a different outlook about the state of Arizona.

Now today, Arizona is hurting in a way that they never have before. They were on the crest of the housing wave, and now we're at the bottom. We have 48 percent of the homes underwater. We have a real unemployment of 17 percent. So if you want to look at the last year or two when we were doing so well and then crashed, it's pretty obvious that our economy was not diverse enough. It is increasing in diversity. But the housing crash, when 48 percent of the homes in Arizona are worth less than the mortgages people pay, and these are dire circumstances. And small businesses have been hurt.

As I mentioned, when I was out at Raytheon, they have the same number of employees they had five, 10 years ago. They haven't been hurt badly. But every small businesses around this state has been the one that's been hurt very badly. And we have not focused our attention on either housing or small businesses.

I read in the paper every day Obama proposes help to mortgage owners. Well I mean, why didn't we try that a year and a half ago? It's just so frustrating, and the pain is just so severe.

Let's unpack this incoherent rambling. Once again, McCain is rejecting official government statistical data for what he "knows," er, believes. He throws in a little immigrant bashing for Arizona's economic problems for good measure.

McCain is aware of the fact that Arizona's economic model of uncontrolled rapid population growth, an economy based upon real estate and construction, and the collapse of that economic model is the source of our economic difficulty. But that has been true since 1945. This is nothing new. There have been several real estate bubbles burst over the decades affecting Arizona's economy. The question is "what has McCain been doing for the past 28 years to diversify Arizona's economy?" The question answers itself: "nothing."

As I recall, McCain voted against president Obama's first mortgage relief plan, and he opposes the second mortgage relief plan working its way through Congress. McCain is opposed to the "cram down" rule for mortgages in bankruptcy court, which would do more than anything to provide relief to mortgage holders "under water." So this sore loser can complain about what president Obama is doing to help mortgage holders, but he is disingenuous when he is actively obstructing everything the president is trying to do.

* * * *

STAR: We also wanted to ask you about Proposition 100 because you have come out against that. And even with us before, when we have asked you about state issues, you said you didn't want to go there, that we had state government. But on this one you stated your position.

Can you talk about why?

McCAIN: Because we kept being asked. Because Kyl and I kept being asked. And we felt we owed people an answer, and it was our personal opinion. We made it very clear that it was our personal opinion wearing the uniform of the United States senators.

If you believe this, I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you. McCain took a position on Prop. 100 because J.D. Hayworth had taken a position on Prop. 100. McCain is pandering to the Republican primary voter base to flank J.D. Hayworth. Just be honest about it. Stop lying.

STAR: When you look at the list of who is in favor of it and who is against it, chambers of commerce in both Phoenix and Tucson are in favor of it, the presidents of the universities are in favor of it, the Arizona school board associations are in favor of it. You would think, chambers are not big tax supporters, and yet they come out in favor of this. They clearly see this in a way that you don't. I think pretty much they are in favor of that except that they don't think there is a another short-term solution.

So what do you think the solutions are? If it's not this, we've got a big (budget) hole.

McCAIN: I don't think the solution is to raise taxes. It's been my experience that every time we've raise taxes we've not succeeded because revenues generally have decreased.

Once again, what "I know," er, believe, damn the facts. The most obvious example: Bill Clinton raised taxes on the top income tax brackets in 1993, and the U.S. economy enjoyed the longest sustained economic expansion in the post-war era. In fact, federal tax revenues produced a budget surplus for the last four years of the Clinton term and allowed the government to pay down the national debt to the point that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan testified in January 2001 that there was some danger in paying off the national debt too fast. Good times.

So Greenspan supported two of the largest tax cuts in American history for corporations and the wealthy in George W. Bush's first term. The budget surpluses evaporated. The national debt exploded from $5.1 trillion in 2001 to almost $11 trillion by the time Bush left office. What did we get for all the tax cuts, besides an inflated national debt? The Bush economic "recovery" was the weakest economic recovery since the Great Depression. For the first time since the Great Depression, fewer people were employed at the end of the decade than were employed at the beginning of the decade. And wealth was redistributed upward (trickle up) to a plutocratic elite as the American middle class disappeared. Republican economic policies brought us to the precipice of a second Great Depression.

John McCain was in the U.S. Senate during both the Clinton and Bush presidencies. His flippant ideological response to this question has an almost Rip Van Winkle feel to it — has he been asleep for the past twenty years? How does he not know these facts. The truth is, McCain doesn't care. It is the appropriate ideological response from a conservative ideologue.

STAR: So what is the solution?

McCAIN: A lot less spending, I would think. I am not that familiar with their problems. I know what tax increases do. Tax increases do not increase revenues, in my experience, at the federal level have not worked, have not had beneficial economic effects. And I have opposed every tax increase in the years that I've been there.

Spoken like a true conservative ideologue. Stick to the bumper sticker slogans… even when they are completely untrue.

I am bothered by McCain's statement that "I am not familiar with their problems." Does he not live in Arizona? Well, of course he doesn't. This is a man who has been in Washington, D.C. for so long he is completely out of touch with what is going on in Arizona.

Of course, a man who lives in 8, 9, 10 houses (whatever the number is today) and is married to a multi-millionaire beer heiress sugar mama hardly understands the lives of average Arizonans. McCain has no clue of what it is like to fear losing one's job or to be out of work, or losing one's health insurance, or being "under water" on a mortgage and facing foreclosure and bankruptcy, etc. He is clueless.