October 28, 2008 · 6:12PM

McCain Campaign Targets Socialism

Desperately scraping the bottom of the barrel, writes the New Yorker, the McCain campaign has turned the 2008 presidential election into a referendum on socialism. (New Yorker)

“This campaign in the next couple of weeks is about one thing,” Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), “It’s a referendum on socialism.” WFTV news anchor Barbara West asked Sen. Joe Biden: “How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to ‘spread the wealth around’?” Chimed in Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), “With all due respect, the man is a socialist.” Gov. Sarah Palin warned: “now is no time to experiment with socialism.” And John McCain, discussing Obama’s tax proposals, agreed that they sounded “a lot like socialism.”

Regarding the two candidates’ difference in tax policy, the New Yorker dryly notes: “The Republican argument of the moment seems to be that the difference between capitalism and socialism corresponds to the difference between a top marginal income-tax rate of 35% and a top marginal income-tax rate of 39.6%.”

One challenge: a few weeks before Gov. Palin was nominated for Vice-President, she said about Alaska: “we’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans [who] own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.” [emphases added]

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