Well, no surprise to me — just more proof that most people are ignorant on economics. James Pethokoukis’s polling at the Democratic convention is eye opening nonetheless.

[U.S. News & World Report] I took another poll of 24 DNC delegates. I asked them “What should ‘the rich’ pay in income taxes.” Here is what they told me:

1. 50 percent said “25 percent”
2. 25 percent said “20 percent”
3. 12 percent said “30 percent”
4. 12 percent said “35 percent”

Average: 25.6 percent

Me: Of course, 25.6 percent is actually lower than what the top rate is today. Barack Obama, by contrast, wants to raise it to 39.6 percent. None of the delegates said that the rate should be higher than 35 percent. That is exactly what the top rate is currently thanks to the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. And a fair number of people thought that income tax rates for wealthy Americans were actually lower than for middle class folks. I think they were confusing capital gains rates with income tax rates thanks to Warren Buffet saying he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary. A fair number of people also thought that as long as rich people paid more in total taxes, it didn’t matter what the rates were. That’s right, they like the idea of a flat tax. Fascinating stuff.

Many conservatives have been high on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a John McCain running mate for some time. She’s young, truly conservative both fiscally and socially, and from what I’ve heard a good speaker and communicator of ideas. She killed the bridge to nowhere project, and wasn’t afraid to veto spending bills (i.e., stomach that Bush lacked), she as head of Alaska’s National Guard and has a son about to deploy to Iraq.

The least risky pick, from an overall electorate view, would have been Mitt Romney. He finished a close second to McCain and arguably would have won had Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race sooner.

Like McCain, Romney isn’t especially socially conservative, and arguably less so than McCain, but he was a wiz on economics (McCain’s weak point), and even more important, could communicate those ideas (why supply-side conservative fiscalism simply works better than liberal economics).

The biggest advantage is that Romney was a known commodity, and certainly so through the course of this ridiculously long primary cycle, which started in Summer 2007. (Then again, sometimes there’s strengh in being an unknown).

Having said that, Palin does something that Romney couldn’t — truly energize the Republican base.

Here’s William Ruger in the Anchorage Daily News a few weeks ago:

Fourth, and critically, given the price of oil, Palin can help McCain focus on energy security, an issue that could be Obama’s Achilles’ heel — if the Republicans could overcome McCain’s opposition to things like drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The environment might be wildly popular on the coasts, but in the middle where this race will be won, a candidate who could credibly sell a plan for lower prices at the pump will move votes.

But most important, Palin could do something few Republicans seem interested in or able to do these days: Help fuse the two pillars of the Reagan Revolution, traditional conservatives and libertarian Republicans.

Palin can win the hearts of conservatives, given her strong pro-life views — views that were backed up with action this year when she gave birth to a son with Down’s syndrome. It would probably also help with these folks that her oldest son recently enlisted in the Army. And she can excite libertarian Republicans, given her fiscal conservatism as governor as well as her reputation for anti-corruption, love of guns and the outdoor life, and moderation on social issues other than abortion.

In short, Palin will provide McCain the surge he needs to win his last battle.

It’s a difficult balance for McCain. He must energize his base while not alienating the moderates and independents whom both parties traditionally attempt to woo. Go too far into the middle and your base may not show up on election day. Go too far to the right and the moderates may ebb towards Obama.

All in all, I think McCain would have been fine with either pick. Romney was the safe pick, but sometimes safe backfires. Picking Palin isn’t really rolling the dice, just a moderate risk, but the potential payoff is huge.

National Review editors on the disconcerting relationship between William Ayers and Barack Obama:

[William] Ayers, as we have previously detailed, is a confessed terrorist who, having escaped prosecution due to surveillance violations that came to light during his decade on the lam after a bombing spree, landed an influential professorship in education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). As he has made clear several times before and after helping to launch Obama’s political career, Ayers remains defiantly proud of bombing the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol, and other targets. He expresses regret only that he didn’t do more. Far from abandoning his radical politics, he has simply changed methods: the classroom, rather than the detonator, is now his instrument for campaigning against an America he portrays as racist and imperialist.

Obama supporters risibly complain that shining a light on the Obama/Ayers relationship is a “smear” and smacks of “guilt by association.” A presidential candidate’s choice to associate himself with an unrepentant terrorist would be highly relevant in any event — does anyone think the Obamedia would keep mum if John McCain had a long-standing relationship with David Duke or an abortion-clinic bomber?

But we are talking about more than a mere “association.”

Read the rest.

Arthur Herman makes an interesting point:

To understand the nature of this challenge, consider that the distance between Baghdad and Tbilisi is barely 578 miles, less than the distance between New York City and Chicago. Iraq and Georgia, both of which have democratic governments, are sandwiched between Iran and Russia, two of the most authoritarian governments in the world. Russia has been collaborating with Iran to strengthen the latter’s nuclear program and its military. It is also steadily arming Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez.

Russia’s invasion of Georgia came exactly one month after Iran test-fired its Shahab III intermediate ballistic missile in order to intimidate neighbors like Israel and Iraq, and two weeks after Mr. Chávez traveled to Moscow to formalize a “Strategic Alliance” with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev. Meanwhile, Iran’s proxies remain the principal threat to peace in Iraq — while on the other side of the world, evidence mounts of Mr. Chávez’s links to the terrorist group FARC, which threatens neighboring Colombia.

Coincidence? Iraq, Georgia and Colombia are battlegrounds in a new kind of international conflict that will define our geopolitical future. This conflict pits the U.S. and the West against an emerging axis of oil-rich dictatorships who are working together to push back against the liberalizing trends of globalization. One of their prime objectives is toppling or undermining neighboring, pro-Western democracies.

The term “axis” has been overused in recent years, and in misleading contexts. But Russia, Iran and Venezuela are acting very much as Japan, Italy and Germany did in the 1930s, when each took advantage of each other’s aggressive moves to extend their own regional power at the expense of liberal democracy — and, as a result, propelling the world to the brink of war.

Jerry Bower asks:

“Will the New York Times and the rest of the media storm-crows who spent most of the spring and summer cackling the “recession” word admit their error and reverse course? I think you already know the answer to that question.”

Found via the Club for Growth, economist Brian Wesbury appears to have been one of the only economists who correctly predicted (and twice at that) that the U.S. economy was not in recession. Indeed, these days it seems few actually know the definition of recession.

The latest data shows that during the 2nd economic quarter (Apr-June) the economy grew at 3.3%, which is an inconvenient truth for Democrats and their media cohorts wishing to talk down the economy in advance of the November election. (By the way, the figure was revised from its initial estimate of 1.9%, which while not as good as 3.3% is nonetheless not “negative growth” and thus not meeting the definition of 2-3 straight quarters of negative growth — i.e., even before the revision the data proved there is no recession.)

This revised figure has defied the “experts,” except those like Wesbury, who waaaaaay back in January predicted that the economy would rebound by Spring. Wesbury gave further analysis this week.

But it’s his comments from January, which include the following, that are noteworthy:

• It is hard to imagine any time in history when such rampant pessimism about the economy has existed with so little evidence of serious trouble.
• …the over-reaction to very spotty negative news is astounding.
• The biggest threat to the economy is still inflation, not recession.

Amazing… the guy was spot on — the economy is growing but the biggest problem is inflation and a 1970s era government overreaction that will do us more harm than good.

I have mixed feelings on the internal strife in the Democratic Party that is supposedly causing a notable percentage of Hillary backers to openly support John McCain for president.

[Wall Street Journal] Clinton supporters, disillusioned by their candidate’s narrow loss, have been showing up in the McCain camp, and Sen. McCain has stepped up his effort to woo more — including strategists who worked for the Democrat. One former Clinton aide is helping the Republicans identify and win over former Clinton voters. The Republican National Committee even held a “Happy Hour for Hillary” in Denver where McCain volunteers mingled with disgruntled Clinton backers.

…There were signs that even some party luminaries loyal to Sen. Clinton were less than passionately committed to the nominee-in-waiting. Several high-level Clinton fund-raisers, including former campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe, plan to leave Denver before Sen. Obama delivers his anticipated acceptance speech before 75,000 people in a football stadium. Mr. McAuliffe said he was heading home for his daughter’s birthday.

The August Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll4 found just 52% of Clinton primary voters now say they plan to vote for Sen. Obama. An additional 21% say they will support Republican Sen. McCain, with the rest undecided or not planning to vote.

On the one hand, I’m thinking Republicans and the McCain camp need to not overplay their hand. If they get too brazen in their attempt to keep the Democrats split it could backfire. And, frankly, I don’t yet believe that come election day Obama is going to lose 48% of Clinton backers. Oh sure, they’re complaining now, but I just don’t see them either not showing or pulling the lever for McCain come election day.

Then, on the other hand, I worry that they do, and if they do, what does that say about the conservative character of John McCain, and what does that say of the very nature of the Republican party?

I’m a little uncomfortable that so many Democrats could be so comfortable putting a supposed conservative in office. Yes, there’s their boneheaded strategy that Hillary could run again sooner (2012 as opposed to 2016, if at all), and there’s the fact that Ronald Reagan — a former Democrat turned Republican who famously quipped that his party “left him” and not vice versa — won two landslides in part with votes from lifelong Democrats.

But even so, when I post a lenghty rant (yesterday) ridiculing the lack of science behind global warming, only to read today that my Republican party might do the same as Democrats, during its convention next week, by providing “a first-ever plank on global warming,” stating that, “While the scope and long term consequences of this warming effect are the subject of ongoing research, we believe the United States should take measured and reasonable steps today,” I just want to hurl my breakfast.

A party platform of “Hey there’s some very debatable science here, but let’s go ahead and foul up the economy anyway with a bunch of growth-retarding carbon trading policies” (the precautionary principle) shouldn’t be high on any fiscally conservative’s mind.

Couple that with McCain’s typically populist language of “taking on big oil, and drug companies” — two entities that have done more to empower the wealth and health ability of Americans than any politician has ever done — or shopping Sen. Joseph Lieberman as a potential running mate, and one has to wonder just what kind of Republican brand might take office. (I love Lieberman’s no nonsense moral clarity on foreign policy, but were he ever to become president it would take decades to undo his economic damage to fiscal conservatives, not to mention what the federal judicial appointees or Supreme Court might become).

This election doesn’t seem to be between the Republican versus Democrats, but between the Republicrats or Demoicans versus the Obamanation Socialist party.

Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard takes on the usually economically coherent NYT’s columnist, David Brooks, whom one supposes is having an off day.

But then Brooks goes and writes this: “[T]he old free market policies worked fine in the 20th century, but no longer seem to be working today.”

Really? China just ended an almost two-week-long coming out party showcasing its incredible economic growth since Deng Xiaoping declared “to get rich is glorious” thirty years ago. (Semi) free-market policies seem to be working pretty well for China, and free-market economics seem to be working for Eastern Europe and Ireland too, among other places.

The “old free market policies” produced a two-decade long period of low inflation and economic growth in the United States. It may be true that lately this growth hasn’t been reaching everybody. That’s a problem. But history suggests that drastically raising taxes and expanding the government’s reach into yet more parts of our daily economic life isn’t the answer. Some lessons apply equally to both the twentieth century as well as the twenty-first.

Exactly. The problem isn’t that our economic policies don’t work anymore, rather the problem is that our government, even Republicans, don’t bother following them. Protectionism and high taxation runs rampant, especially as compared to other nations (ironically formerly communist nations) who give global investors more incentives to invest in their countries rather than the U.S.

Ireland, for example, is using our system just fine to kick butt.

Wow. Were I a conspiracy buff I might wonder if Obama had to pick Biden as his VP because he worried that Biden might spill the beans on their Rezko affiliations…

But I’m not. So, on a serious note all this goes to show you is that politicians accept money from dirty characters.

But why this is a problem for Democrats, and Obama-Biden in particular — well, would be a problem if the mass media weren’t so busy protecting liberal politicians — is because they spend so much time trying to convince the public that THEY are different, that THEY are above Beltway lobbyists, that THEY are the party of change and that it’s the Republicans that are the party of corruption.

DENVER – No matter what help Barack Obama might get from Sen. Joseph Biden, his newly named vice presidential running mate won’t give Obama much cover on the Tony Rezko front.

Biden has described himself as a 30-year friend of a key figure in the Rezko trial who’s pleaded guilty to a federal extortion charge in Chicago and is awaiting sentencing.

When the Delaware senator began contemplating his own 2008 presidential run, he initially was helped by Chicago lawyer Joseph Cari Jr., who also served as Biden’s Midwest field director in his failed 1988 bid for president.

In 2005, Cari admitted to taking part in an $850,000 kickback scheme that prosecutors say was part of a larger political fund-raising operation for Gov. Blagojevich overseen by Rezko, who was convicted in June of wide-ranging corruption involving state deals.

…The Obama campaign downplayed the significance of Cari’s contributions to Biden, noting that Cari was a prolific donor to an array of other [Democrats!] politicians, from Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) to Illinois’ other Democratic senator, Dick Durbin.

Duh! That’s the point! It’s hard to claim that YOUR party is different from the “party of corruption” when some of your closest friends and supporters are Rezko and his cronies!

Oh, and in case you missed it — Biden’s son and brother both in trouble too.

Not exactly the endorsement Obama-Biden was looking for, eh? This is a great summary of Biden putting politics above national security judgment, by Michael Rubin.

Bush has been a polarizing figure, but most senators realize that partisanship should never trump national security. In early 2007, evidence mounted that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps was planning terrorist activities in Iraq. An August 2007 National Intelligence Estimate found that “Iran has been intensifying aspects of its lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants” and that “Explosively formed penetrator (EFP) attacks have risen dramatically.” The next month, the Senate considered a bipartisan amendment to designate the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, an important step to aid nonviolent efforts to deny it funds and financing. Biden was one of only 22 senators to vote against it. “I voted against the amendment to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization because I don’t trust this administration,” he said. Distrust of the U.S. president is the nature of politics, but skepticism about foreign dictators and their Brown Shirts is the backbone of judgment.

No matter. Biden’s political games have made him Tehran’s favorite senator. As Gen. David Petraeus struggled to unite Iraqis across the ethnic and sectarian divide, Iran’s Press TV seized on Biden’s plan for partitioning Iraq and featured his statements with the headline “US plans to disintegrate Iraq.” Biden’s attack-dog statements about U.S. policy failures emboldened Iranian hard-liners to defy diplomacy. In the Dec. 7, 2007, official sermon, Ayatollah Mohammad Kashani speaking on behalf of Iran’s supreme leader, declared, “This Senator [Biden] correctly says Israel could not suppress Hizbullah in Lebanon, so how can the U.S. stand face-to-face with a nation of 70 million? This is the blessing of the Guardianship of the Jurists [the theocracy] . . . which plants such thoughts in the hearts of U.S. senators and forces them to make such confessions.” The crowd met his statement with refrains of “Death to America.”

Obama picked Biden for experience, but he might also have considered judgment.