BREAKING NEWS CNN estimates: McCain wins comfortably over Bush in N.H.; Gore-Bradley race too close to call

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 01, 2000

Answers

All eyes will now turn to South Carolinas Republican primary, which will be held 18 days from now. McCain has spent much time and effort in that state and, as a Navy combat veteran and Vietnam War prisoner of war, may benefit from the large number of military veterans living there. The Bush campaign has enlisted South Carolina Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler, House Speaker David Wilkins and other top Palmetto State GOP officials to serve as a campaign infrastructure. In 1988, it was South Carolinas Republican establishment that came to the rescue of Bushs father, former president George Bush, giving him a victory in the South Carolina primary and helping him fend off challenges from evangelist Pat Robertson and Sen. Bob Dole.

Bush remains the Republican establishments chosen candidate with the endorsements of 26 GOP governors, 168 members of the House and 36 senators. But Rep. Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who spent the past few days campaigning in New Hampshire with McCain, says that an endorsement-driven strategy will not be decisive in his state. Instead South Carolina voters will flock to McCain because he is the polar opposite of Bill Clinton. The McCain message that won New Hampshire will triumph just as well in South Carolina. The electorates are so similar, Graham said. I can close my eyes and people are applauding at the same lines in McCains stump speech, whether the crowd is in New Hampshire or South Carolina.

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 01, 2000.

Funny, at 7:09pm EST CNN is saying the polls are still open.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 01, 2000.

Presumably now McCain will attract much more money into his campaign. As the money from big contributors rolls in, you will be able to see him tighten up. Too bad. Today he seems almost human. We'll have to see what shape he's in by the time the California primary is over.

Can't see much good about George Dubya, except that he probably is kind to his mother and is a bit likable in a fratboy kind of way. But I listen to his so-called positions and it seems like he's all hat and no cattle, as they say in Texas. Can't imagine him making a single move without him asking someone else what he should do.

Al Gore, according to his distant relative Gore Vidal, grew up with the nickname "Ozymandias, King of Kings." He's a guy who thought he'd be President as soon as he was old enough to tell a dime from a nickel. Too bad he scared off all the competition except Bradley. Some more choices would have been nice on the big D side of the world.

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), February 01, 2000.

If this holds...watch "sweet", compassionate all loving George Bush,Jr., turn ugly. This ain't gonna be pretty.

-- Richard (Astral-Acres@webtv.net), February 01, 2000.

While listening to the radio today, the subject of the voter fraud again came up. The guest was saying that N.H. was the only state that verified the vote count by independent citizens, and that fraud was very possible in all of the other states if the citizens do not insist on verification.

-- Joe Shmoe (fromkokomo@dot.com), February 01, 2000.

PressBox Report

-- New Guy (Newguy@Newbie.com), February 01, 2000.

Seems a better bet than those other weenies.

-- Gia (laureltree7@hotmail.com), February 01, 2000.

Yep, apolitical myself, but this is gonna be fun to watch and much better than 'As the Elian Turns'.

-- Kyle (fordtbonly@aol.com), February 01, 2000.

When it comes to tax cuts, John McCain's strategy is to present himself as more responsible than George W. Bush. But there's an important exception: McCain's increasing tendency to tweak Bush for not promising to make permanent the current moratorium on taxation of e-commerce.

While breakfasting last month at the Greater Nashua, N.H., Chamber of Commerce, McCain signed a pledge being circulated by Citizens for a Sound Economy, a conservative anti-tax group, promising to "support making permanent the current ban on Internet access, sales or use taxes." McCain also placed a campaign ad in Slate urging readers to "Just Say No to Internet Taxes." (According to a press aide, so far the McCain campaign hasn't placed this ad on any other Web sites, so the new technique of using a medium to pander to it remains an experimental one.) Bush supports the current Internet tax moratorium, due to expire next year, and has said he "would extend it for several more years to determine the full impact of e-commerce on our society." For a while he defined "several more years" as three to five years. But a few days after McCain signed the CSE pledge (which had also been signed by Steve Forbes and Gary Bauer), CSE announced that Bush had told the organization, "I believe in a 10-year moratorium." That would seem to take the current moratorium, passed in 1998, through the year 2008, the final year of a prospective second Bush term. (To read the text of the moratorium law, click here.)

Even though his resolve on this subject appears to be weakening, Bush has the better argument. Although it may make sense to hold off on taxing Internet sales while the industry takes its first baby steps and Congress and the states sort out what the rules for interstate commerce should be, a permanent ban on taxing e-commerce would be unfair to so-called "bricks and mortar" retailers, whose customers have to pay state and local sales taxes. If e-commerce becomes the mass retailing medium everyone expects it to be, the economic disadvantage to offline retailers could prove devastating. Keeping the Internet tax-free could also bleed state and local tax coffers dry, a fact of which Bush, the sole governor in the presidential race, is acutely aware.

McCain's arguments for a permanent Internet-sales-tax ban tend to contradict one another. On the one hand, McCain describes the Internet economy as a "baby in its cradle" that must not be strangled by taxation. On the other hand, McCain says the Internet is "the greatest economic engine the world has ever seen." Well, which is it? Is the Internet a fragile experiment, or is it what drives the entire economy? One could argue that it's a baby now, but it will become a mighty giant later. But that isn't an argument for a permanent tax ban; it's an argument for maintaining (and, possibly, extending) the temporary tax moratorium. It's not even clear that the digital world respects McCain much for pandering on this issue. Technology columnist Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News?the closest thing the Internet has to a hometown newspaper?recently wrote that McCain's position on Internet taxes "is intellectually dishonest. He plainly doesn't care that exempting Internet retailers from collecting sales taxes favors them over Main Street merchants."

It also favors rich people over poor people, most obviously because the rich have greater access to computers than the poor. This is frequently referred to as the "digital divide." But even if that digital divide were bridged, past experience suggests that the rich would still be likelier to make purchases online. Consider catalog sales: According to Washington's Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, households with incomes above $80,000 are more than twice as likely to shop by catalog as households with incomes below $25,000. Even though mail-order purchasing is a highly traditional form of commerce, and even though, as a practical matter, buying things from a catalog shouldn't be all that difficult for low-income people (even if you don't have a checking account or credit card, you can always go to the post office and convert some cash into a money order), two-thirds of all households making less than $25,000 never do it. If poor people don't buy much from catalogs, it seems unlikely they'd buy much online.

Taxing Internet commerce does involve working out some difficult procedural questions. In 1992's Quill Corp. vs. North Dakota decision, the Supreme Court held that under current law, one state couldn't tax purchases made in another state unless the company in question had some physical presence there. This was seen as a boon to catalog sales, which for the most part remain tax-free. But there's no reason why Congress, which after all is charged with regulating interstate commerce, couldn't pass a new law establishing how both catalog merchants and Internet merchants would tax interstate sales. (One approach, proposed a couple of years after Quill by Arkansas Democrat Sen. Dale Bumpers, would have established a national sales tax to be passed on to the state where a catalog customer--or now, presumably, Internet customer--resides.) McCain, in any event, doesn't pretend that his opposition to an Internet tax arises from any trepidation about the practical problem of collecting the tax for 50 different states. He's just looking for a way to argue that George Bush wants to raise your taxes.

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 01, 2000.

McCain Rides the Internet Tax Issue By Timothy Noah

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 01, 2000.

...it's amazing the logic some would use to "qualify" a tax.

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), February 01, 2000.

As a former republician I must admit. I have sinned. Go Pat go!

-- Ed (ed@lizzardranch.com), February 01, 2000.

---darn! McCain wins a whole state, and all I got was this commemorative plate from the Franklin mint......

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), February 01, 2000.

Last week I counseled with a Viet Nam era vet who is looking for work and employable-also note, he's a minority: just no damn' work, right?. This week I found out the Census Bureau in this area is hiring not just aliens (although with work permits) but people who have felony convictions-and these jobs pay way above prevailing wage. This is the US CENSUS, people! Remember, "millions of federal dollars at stake yadda,yadda,yadda". Well, something's real wrong here and I think I'll go with that ole vet McCain right now and by golly I don't blame his temper-I'm getttin' one too. This foreign /felony dog just don't hunt in these woods.The gov'ment need to be a little straighter with its people. Sorry if this is a little strong, but we need to wake up.Better be considering whose in your home gettin that information. Hack

-- another government hack (keepwatching_2000@yahoo.com), February 01, 2000.

Finally, we might get a prez with some real cajones... tired of "I didn't inhale" or "I didn't come in her mouth" or "Only coke I've ever done came in a bottle.." or "Well, yes, I did serve in the NG during Viet Nam, but the fact my dad was richer than crappola had nothing to do with it..."

-- Carl (clilly@goentre.com), February 01, 2000.

The Constitution Party

-- Butt Nugget (catsbutt@umailme.com), February 01, 2000.

I predict that Bush will soon be joining Ross Perot's 'Overspenders Anonymous'.

-- Kyle (fordtbonly@aol.com), February 01, 2000.

Yay Bah! F'n Eh! Right F'n On! Yippee! Yee F'n Haw! John McCain says, "I promise you I'll tell you the truth." Simple statement. None of us have ever heard a politician say that B4. I believe him. His military record is incredible (but that doesn't even begin to describe how fantastic this guy is). I think that the adversity this John McCain faced in Viet Nam made a worthy candidate a slam-dunk. If I could vote (I'm Canadian), John McCain is THE MAN (and I've always cheered Democrat).

-- Paranoia Will (Destroy_Y@BlackCopters.com), February 01, 2000.

Just a few points. Pat Buchanan won New Hampshire in 1996 and his campaign evaporated shortly afterward. Secondly, the HUGE questions about McCain himself remain unanswered. What about the questions involving his moral and political integrity? Did he cooperate in any way with his Viet Cong captors? We simply donot know.

Tonight, the people in New Hampshire proved just how stupid and gullible the average voter really is. VERY sad!

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), February 02, 2000.

Just a few points. Pat Buchanan won New Hampshire in 1996 and his campaign evaporated shortly afterward. Secondly, the HUGE questions about McCain himself remain unanswered. What about the questions involving his moral and political integrity? Did he cooperate in any way with his Viet Cong captors? We simply do not know.

Tonight, the people in New Hampshire proved just how stupid and gullible the average voter really is. VERY sad!

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), February 02, 2000.

they must be thrilled in hanoi & ho ho ho chi mihn city...

-- INever (inevercheckmy@onebox.com), February 02, 2000.

Stuff it Irving... "how can we know he didn't cooperate with his captors"? What a crock of sh*t.... and I suppose if he had gotten a rich boys pardon to the national guard, you wouldn't have a problem with that?

Find something else jerk, don't slander an American war hero, even if the war in question sucked... he did his job...

Where were you then?

-- Carl (clilly@goentre.com), February 02, 2000.