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TODAY IN TAP ONLINE. Paul Waldman has a question: What accounts for the fact that the GOP race for the presidential nomination has been, so far, "remarkable in its utter lack of substance, even by the standards of contemporary campaigns"?
Think about it this way: Can you think of a single substantive proposal consisting of more than a sentence or two that any of the GOP candidates has made on the campaign trail? I'm not even talking about some lengthy policy paper or plan for overhauling a major sector of government. But any idea to do something, anything, differently than the Bush administration has? The closest one can come is the immigration bill that Congress is debating, of which John McCain is a co-sponsor. But one gets the impression that McCain wishes no one would bring it up, at least until the primaries are over and all those pesky nativists have nowhere to go but to the Republican nominee. Is there anything else the Republican candidates are actually proposing to do? Any discernable agenda coming from any of them? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?Waldman elaborates and hazards some possible explanations, here. Elsewhere today, Daoud Kattab laments the latest setback to the Palestinian quest for statehood, while Robert Reich argues in favor of a carbon auction to address global warming.
--The Editors