Alexander Burns and Avi Zenilman do some reporting:
The endorsement could hardly have been stronger. On Monday, John McCain’s campaign released a statement signed by 300 economists who “enthusiastically support” his “Jobs for America” economic plan, providing a heavyweight testimonial to the presumptive Republican nominee’s “broad and powerful economic agenda.”
There’s just one problem. 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.
There's not a shred of doubt in my mind that this scandal will dominate the cable news coverage of the campaign to an even greater extent than did coverage of Wesley Clark observing that being a POW is not the same as running the country. After all, the McCain campaign is lying here. And lying about their campaign's macroeconomic policies, which is a very consequential matter. So this is going to be a huge story on teevee, right? Of course it will.
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Heads in the Sand
And now for some actual facts:
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/07/do_economists_really_support_j.php
I wouldn't get too excited. I got the same press release, and I've been wondering whether to blog it, because running an eye down the list of signatories, it doesn't look like the Politico exactly dialed at random. I'm familiar enough with about a quarter of the list to be able to confidently predict their reaction if telephoned, and to a first approximation, pretty much all of them would enthusiastically support McCain over Obama. Most of the article seems to be making a mountain out of a molehill--Gary Becker supports McCain's plan without having studied in detail every single provision. This is news? How many of the economists who signed the John Kerry letter four years ago could have given you chapter and verse on his economic plans? I bet I could have beaten 99% of them in a quiz on Kerry's policies--aye, even things which made the second page of his position paper. Nor, when pressed, would very many of them have been willing to put their professional credibility on the line by supporting every provision of it.
The economists who signed the letter aren't choosing "John McCain's platform over The Platonic Ideal Economic Policy". They're stating whether they prefer it to Obama's plans. And overwhelmingly, they seem to--the Politico found one out of twelve who says he'll probably vote for Obama, and given where he teaches, this was probably one of their better shots.
Of course, the left would love if a fake issue distracted from their constant attempts to smear a war hero.
Posted by American Hawk | July 9, 2008 5:35 PM