Rolling the Dice

"In 1988, [Ronald] Reagan was coming off a period of low poll ratings because of the Iran-Contra scandal, but he was, essentially, a popular president, enjoying a good economy. This year, we have a historically dreadful incumbent president, who has made the most grievous errors overseas of any American president and who is presiding over a bad-to-iffy economy. There will be enormous policy differences between the Democratic nominee and John McCain in the fall.

"So why are we getting all this frantic low-information signaling and skeezy character assassination in the Democratic primary? Because that's what happens in an election where there are no huge policy differences between the combatants--it turns on character, personality and trivia. Whatever you think of them, Clinton and Obama agree on most matters of substance.

"My guess the tone will shift as soon as the Democrats get a nominee. Iraq will be a huge issue. [President] Bush's economic policies--tax cuts for the wealthy, the slavish devotion to the interests of oil companies--will be huge issues. No doubt, there will be trivial pursuits. There always are. But they are more likely to be kept in perspective in an election where Iraq and the economy (and, I hope, the environment) take center stage."

Yesterday's CBS-NYT poll backs Barack on one issue:

"An overwhelming majority of voters said candidates calling for the suspension of the federal gasoline tax this summer were acting to help themselves politically, rather than to help ordinary Americans."

Liberal pundits had doubted the media's ability to referee the gas-tax debate, but American Prospect's Ezra Klein says there are reasons it's been well-covered:

"The problem with the press's relatively good behavior on the gas tax is that it was a one-off produced by a fairly rare set of circumstances: Namely, a 1) high profile fight between two leading national candidates who were 2) on the same side of the partisan divide and were 3) squabbling over a policy issue where there was utter unanimity among experts. You didn't, for instance, have a bunch of Cato or AEI economists popping up in articles to explain the merits of a gas tax holiday."

Arianna drops a mini-bombshell in the GOP race, as I reported on The Trail yesterday:

After sitting on the story for nearly eight years, Arianna Huffington said yesterday afternoon that John McCain told her soon after the 2000 election that he did not vote for George W. Bush.

The private conversation took place at a Los Angeles dinner party, she said, and the senator's wife Cindy said she didn't vote for Bush either. The liberal blogger, who posted the account on her Web site yesterday, said McCain's declaration came after a tirade in which he criticized Bush's tactics against him in their battle for the GOP nomination.

"He never told me it was off the record," Huffington said in an interview. "It shows how far this man has fallen, that he could not even bring himself to vote for Bush and now he has embraced him."

Huffington said she is going public to counter "the media's love affair" with McCain and the lack of attention to a series of misstatements and reversals that have been overshadowed by the Democratic contest. "It is really important to unmask John McCain," she said.