Can we just admit the obvious, that Obama tanked?
Anytime a candidate bucks the abortion question by saying that it's above his "pay grade" obviously had an off day.
Not that I'm taking up for McCain, but I'm sure he meant net worth of $5 million, which I believe is the dividing line between wealthy and not.
Our only saving grace here is that the Republican rank-and-file by and large still do not trust McCain. That's why the VP picks this week and next are going to make all the difference....
I don't think it was necessarily an off-day for Obama. If he gets 30 % of the people in an evangelical church in Orange County, CA to vote for him, this will be a cake walk. He just had to reassure those (admittedly few) independent or at least not rabidly conservative voters out there that he's not the devil. I think he did that.
Imagine how McCain would do at a Unitarian Church in Boston. Or maybe a Pearl Jam concert. His off-the-cuff war-and-pizza routine wouldn't play as well.
this isn't an open thread.
not everything is about Hillary's veep chances.
A failure to use what one is given is what loses elections. Rationalizing your opponent's mistakes is not a winning strategy.
think how the corporate media would rake Clinton over the coals if he/he said that.
As you can see in the quote, he wasn't talking about net worth, but about income:
"I think if you're just talking about income, how about $5 million?"
And besides, do you really think someone with a net worth of $4.9 million isn't "wealthy"?
Indeed. Check table 4 here to get an idea of what "wealthy" means. The median net worth for the top quintile of income earners is less than $200k.
Good grief, it was said in jest. If you look at the video it is obvious the 5 million is supposed to be a joke.
By the way, let me ask you: What is 'rich' and what is wealthy? To me that $250,000 is wealthy but rich is in the millions.
Anyway, if we pick on every word we think is slightly off. When something really big is said it won't stand out when we pick on it.
I can't see how it can be construed as a joke, except in the playground "kidding! kidding! please don't hit me!" sense.
But leaving that aside, a better way to think about "rich" is to ask yourself what percentage of people are rich (5%? 1%? 0.1%?), then look up the corresponding income at the census bureau. Since it's somehow taboo (or forbidden) to talk about salaries, people have screwy ideas about what others make.
Why is that a better way to think about it? That interpretation is subjective. As is the general public's definition of that word.
To someone making $15,000-20,000 $100,000 is rich, wealthy, well off etc. If you make $250,000 in San Francisco you are NOT rich, if you make $$250,000 in most of the swing stated it is relatively rich. That is partly why it is used as a cutoff point.
My opinion is asking a question with subjective words is a poor choice.
There's something to be said for both definitions. I think that when we look at someone else and say "he's rich," we're usually referring to positional goods (larger house, nicer car, better location). There are roughly a fixed number of people who can drive the nicest cars to the biggest houses in the best locations -- if others come to afford these cars/houses/lots, the "rich" will buy more expensive cars and drive up property values. This is different from "comfortable," which I would define as something like "your income exceeds your expenses by a comfortable safety margin."
FWIW, I thought this was one of the best questions asked, because it shows both the candidate's idea of what counts as "a lot of money" in absolute terms, and what counts as "wealthy" in more subjective terms. (IMHO McCain did a power-fail on both counts, and Obama should slam him for it.)
Which is, as we all know, not the question he was responding to. On "the abortion question" he was, as he always has been, strongly pro-choice.
Let's review the quote.
He made it pretty clear he was talking about income, not net worth.
As to the actual definition of "rich"... I've had a lot of (vigorous) discussions about this with a friend of mine. My definition of "rich" tends to be "never having to worry about money." You don't have to be absurdly wealthy. You just have to essentially live in such a way that, when an unexpected bill comes in, you know you've got more than enough money to cover it. You know you'll be able to retire, probably early, and not have to worry about making ends meet. You don't have to scrimp on your groceries to put your kids through school. Etc.
His definition of "rich" tends to be closer to absurdly-wealthy. We narrowed it down to "you are rich if your capital gains are greater than your living expenses"--i.e., your wealth generates more wealth faster than you can spend it, and therefore you don't actually need to work for a living.
Five million dollars a year income? That's way, way beyond both our definitions.
