Thursday, August 07, 2008

WSJ on McCain's Veeps   [Ramesh Ponnuru]

I found two aspects of the Journal editorial odd. One was that it treated health care as the main reason not to pick Romney, but didn't mention Pawlenty's record on health care at all. Which is arguably to the left of Romney's. Pawlenty appointed a task force that recommended an individual mandate, he opposed Bush's veto of S-Chip, he wants to use the government's bargaining power to bring drug prices down, raised tobacco taxes, etc.

Second: "Independent Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut would be a splendid VP in our book, and is solid on foreign policy and taxes, but he'd probably alienate too many social conservatives." Solid on taxes? When did this happen? In his 2004 presidential race, he campaigned on overturning the dividend and cap-gains tax cuts and bringing the estate tax back to life. (Maybe he's flipped on it since then and the Journal's just ahead of me—it wouldn't be the first time it has been.)

08/07 03:58 PMShare