He won't raise the capital gains taxes. That's why he keeps saying he'll "keep it on the table." If he doesn't understand the damage it would do, his economic advisors do.
Like you've said yourself, many of his "policies" are really just stuff he says to get elected. His biggest problem is working class Democrats... you know, the ones who are economically populist but socially conservative. The way to their heart is to promise putting the tax burden on someone else.
This is the main problem I have with being a marginal liberal Democrat... We're dependent on the populists and we have our achilles' heel belief that the government should be under the control of the people- obviously that's a recipe for political pandering.
But you guys should understand that with all the pandering you have to do for the religious right.

But the fact is that this thing will be off the table, as well as any alleged "review" of NAFTA. First things under the carpet.

Sort of like McCain's gas tax holiday... the single dumbest economic idea in this campaign- but it sounds good to people.
Pandering and false promises to the populists is not a Democratic monopoly.

We'd both prefer to see people come out and be honest about what they're going to do... but guess what. It's not happening any time soon.
So unless we're going to just join the non-voting, we might as well face it.

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"Man lives in the sunlit world of that which he believes to be reality. But unseen by most is an underworld, a place that is just as real... but not as brightly lit... A DARK SIDE!"
-opening from Tales From the Darkside