CGNorena Weekly

Undisclosed Big Money Brings Muddy Campaign (II)

Two recent events in the 2008 campaign smell of big money: the first is the sudden, meteoric surge of Republican Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor; the second is the amazing “recovery” of Senator John McCain of Arizona, who just three weeks ago seemed out of funds to keep his candidacy alive.  Both cases seem to point to new, big undisclosed amounts of money donated to their campaigns by a new, undisclosed number of very wealthy citizens. This is the legal history of the situation..

When the 2000 election began, the money available to candidates of both parties was tightly regulated: federal tax money and private donations was limited in quantity and the donors had to be disclosed. In the year 2002, and echoing a public opinion that such limitations were contrary in spirit (at least) to the First Amendment, two senators, Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin democrat, and John McCain, an Arizonan republican, succeeded in making legal for non-profit corporations to collect money (in any quantity, from anybody) to support, not a political candidate, but a political issue of national interest in the presidential elections. The first such attempt in that direction was called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth of 2004. Truth is indeed an important electoral issue, but the money was directly aimed at John Kerry, the much decorated commander of the Swift Boat on the Mekong River in Vietnam, the democratic nominee for the Presidential Election of 2004. A rich oilman from Texas sponsored a smear campaign against Kerry and succeeded in dealing a death blow to his candidacy.

This year a new non-profit group, the Foundation for a Prosperous and Secure America, began to support a bill in Congress to improve health care for veterans. Who could be against that? The problem is that any issue about veterans is closely associated in the minds of Americans with the name of John McCain, the veteran par excellence.  In spite of the Senator’s disingenuous objections, it seems obvious that no small part of the Foundation’s money has ended in his presidential campaign coffers. Although McCain has the reputation of being a respectable campaigner, the fact that a bill he himself sponsored has ended helping his own presidential ambitions, has managed to put less than respectable schemes in the minds of his competitors. That the new cash has helped Mr. McCain can be measured by the tone of his voice, the frequency of his TV appearances, and by the sharper tone of his always civilized invectives.

The distinction between “an issue of national interest” (for which it is legal to seek unlimited donations) and its association with the name of a given candidate (for whom it is not legal to surpass certain monetary limits) is not always very clear. Former governor of Arkansas, and, more importantly, former evangelical preacher, Mike Huckabee, was the first to exploit such a legal penumbra. As a good evangelical, Huckabee saw the painful dilemma of Iowa caucus voters forced to vote between the two leading republican candidates, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Romney: Giuliani is pro-choice (a sin in Iowa) and Romney is a Mormon (a serious problem wherever Southern Baptists have some authority). Almost by miracle, Mr. Huckabee  jumped to the head of the pack by claiming to have raised $4 million in one day in Iowa, a magnificent accomplishment hardly ever matched by anybody anywhere any time. Obviously Iowan evangelicals, led by some millionaire evangelical (most likely Tim LaHaye, co-author of Left Behind) have found a lot of money to give to Mr. Huckabee’s campaign. The fact that Mike Huckabee is endowed with a warm and harmless sense of humor (rare among evangelicals), makes him a formidable candidate. Once again, Iowa republicans are in the enviable position of having a disproportionate influence on the election of the future leader of the undisputable hegemonic nation of the free world, entangled at the moment with many “evil empires” out there, a few miles away from the idyllic fields of Iowa.

The smiles of Mr. McCain and Mr. Huckabee have had an immediate impact on presidential candidates of both parties. The unedifying tete a tetes between Hillary, Obama and the naturally combative Mr. Edwards in the presidential TV debates, are becoming alarmingly hostile. There are rumors that a big announcement about a personal scandal in Obama’s life is soon going to shake the headlines. People begin to say that in college he was a drunk (who was not?) and used drugs (and probably inhaled). Nobody ever doubted than either Hillary or Mr, Edwards are more than capable of initiating a smear campaign if they ever thought that the African-American candidate from Illinois could thwart their well-nurtured ambitions (thirty-five years exactly, as Hillary keeps on reminding us!) Among the republicans, the personal relations between Giuliani and Romney, are visibly deteriorating day by day.  Both of them, by the way, have sharp tongues if the country needs some verbal lashing.

Notice that the campaign between democrats and republicans has hardly began.  Most pundits predict one of the dirtiest presidential campaigns in recorded history. Stay tuned.

Mudslinging Campaign About to Begin

I can hear two alarm signals in the political neighborhood. Today we deal with the first.

1 – Politicians have become once again fully aware of the 2000 elections’ big surprise: the Christian Neo-cons of the Southern states had decided to vote for Bush, give him the victory and join the republican party. They got paid in dollars (the so-called “faith based initiatives”, Chapter 4 of my book The Christian Right Enters Politics) and became abettors and conspirators to all the deceptions, lies, and disasters concocted since then by the Bush coterie. Recent statements by some of the conservative leaders make it clear that they intend to play hard in the forthcoming elections along the same lines.

Therefore, henceforth it becomes imperative that all the crown seekers of either party profess sincere allegiance to the bedrock issues of republican/Cristian moral politics: rejection of Roe vs. Wade (no matter how many times Alito and Roberts promise to stare decisis) and rejection of same-sex marriage. It matters little to conservatives that Jesus never once in his life said a word about either one of them.

The strange thing about all of this is the unquestionable fact that Democratic presidential candidates have been more successful than their Republican counterparts (limiting ourselves to the top three) to persuade the voters of their faith in the Christ: Obama sounds more authentically as a Christian of sorts than Rudi Giuliani, a man who has taken himself out of the Church by his successive marriages. Hillary Clinton was never indeed known for her intense Christian piety, but it is conceivable that some of her Christian upbringing has stayed with her. Mitt Romney claims to be Christian OK, but he is the kind of a man that goes along with the prevailing wind, and, furthermore, belongs to a sect, the Mormon church, that is not the favorite of southern fundamentalists If one had to choose between Edwards and MacCain as the icon of Christian politics. one would have a rough time. But Edwards, at least, talks more passionately about helping the poor than MacCain, who seems to be still imprisoned by his memories of Vietnam. The only fervent Christian among the republicans is Huckabee , but he is more than neutralized by the mundane airs of Tancredo, Ron Paul, and Fred Thompson of Law and Order fame, where he plays very short cameos that have little or nothing to do with the main plot. I am pretty sure that Thompson’s acting in national politics will be equally inconsequential. His alleged similarity with Reagan is another Hollywood myth.

In conclusion we have to say that the truly historical choices of the 2008 elections (Iraq, Iran, immigration, Social Security, health insurance, civil liberties and the so-called “global war on terror”) have only a faint relationship with the controversial slant of some Christian moral teachings. The only choice that might be seriously affected would be the choice between Giuliani and Romney in the republican primaries, but it might never come to that. Same-sex marriage, too, might still be a factor, but I do not think that it will decisively affect the presidential choice (except in the deep south).
The electorate, particularly the young electorate, begins to give signs of fatigue regarding the discussion of same-sex marriage. It was about time.

The “hot” Housing Market turns “cold”

There was a time, not long ago, when the Bush administration was gloating about the “hot” housing market. House ownership, they claimed, was spreading fast, matching the papal “culture of life” with the more secular “culture of ownership,” another triumph of republican politics.

The mortgage crisis of 2007 has radically changed all of that into a “culture of foreclosures.” The abrupt change should not be very much of a surprise to those who observe the national scene. The “hot” housing market was hot only to those who did not need a house, simply because they already had one mansion or two houses. According to the New York Attorney General it all began in the Big Apple with a fraudulent collusion of real estate appraisers and mortgage lenders to inflate the price of houses for sale; from New York it went all over the country. All of those whose profit was in direct proportion to the price of the house to be sold, were delighted with the idea: bankers who lend the money for big mortgages, real estate agents whose fees skyrocketed in direct proportion with the prices, big companies (like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that guarantee 40% of the $11.5 trillion of American residential mortgage debt, home owners who saw their equities soar, ready for investment loans and consumption. Self-interest is the steam that moves the capitalistic machine, but uncontrolled greed sometimes moves in the opposite direction. Even under the rosy colors of the “hot” housing market conditions, millions of Americans, those who live in the ill-defined zone around the poverty line, were severely punished by the almost ridiculous price of little and ugly houses too small for their families and far too big for their pockets.

Under such circumstances they contracted mortgage loans they were eventually unable to pay back, mortgages that represented in many cases about half or more of their monthly income. To add insult to injury, they were forced to accept mortgages with variable interest rates (the only mortgages they were offered), rates exposed to the vagaries of the market, threats around the corner that sellers managed to hide from the buyers. Nobody, not even the magician Greenspan (as he himself has confessed) realized the magnitude or the ripple effect of the problems in the making.

But the chickens have come home to roost. Auctions of houses left for foreclosure on the battlefield– a human tragedy in any case– proliferate through the expanses of America the beautiful. Families of public school teachers and young college professors, public servants and people employed in modest jobs of the service industry, are forced to leave towns they cannot afford and seek survival in unfamiliar neighborhoods.

Even more tragically perhaps, the very fabric of our capitalistic economy, an economy based upon the hopes of investors and the obligations of borrowers, is torn into shreds. The loss in real estate wealth is expected to range from $2 trillion to $4 trillion, depending on how far home prices keep falling. To compound the problem, the Bush administration’s extravagant deficit spending, much of it in a cruel, unnecessary and illegal war, fills the air with gloom. The stock market begins to be erratic and alarming. The price tag for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone could reach $196 billion in 2008: no wonder there is no money enough to fully protect New Orleans from another catastrophe or to bring health insurance to all Americans. True republicans have never behaved like that.

The only hope for America and the world is to bring to power a new generation of politicians who speak a different language and have never seen what this marvelous country of ours has never been in the recent past, but was not long ago, could and will some day be. It takes some audacity to hope.

Iraq and the Future of Islam

Recent news about Al Qaeda’s weakening military power in Iraq and improving security on the streets of Baghdad, compel us to begin thinking about the consequences of the disastrous war initiated by Bush in 2003.

The first issue at hand is to end the war as soon and as intelligently as possible. American democratic leaders—who hopefully will assume the reins of power in 2009 –must make unequivocally clear that they intend a total withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and the Middle East, a necessary condition for the gradual but firm improvement of the relations not only between Iraq and the United States, but also between the western powers and the world of Islam. That withdrawal would signal to the whole world a new and younger America radically different from the arrogant, unilateral hegemonic policies of the Bush dynasty. The withdrawal would not be followed by a victory parade, but by responsible steps to make sure that Iraqis themselves are free to decide their own political institutions without threats from abroad (Iran or Syria) and to follow a foreign policy that respects the sovereignty of Israel and grants the same sovereignty to the Palestinian people.

Ideally, the withdrawal would begin right away and be completed by the end of 2009. It would entail the simultaneous withdrawal of all the coalition troops, particularly the non-Muslim ones. Baghdad could, however, enter into some partial treaties to reinforce the sovereignty of Iraq’s borders (particularly with Turkey, Syria, and Iran). The world Muslim community has to clearly understand that any form of western colonialism in the Middle East is forever and without any doubt a thing of the past. Senator Clinton’s insistence on the continued presence of American troops in Iraq for the sake of training Iraqi troops or fighting Al Qaeda should be unequivocally rejected. It is only part of a baggage that belongs only in history’s pile of trash How could Al Qaeda justify its presence in Iraq if there are no American troops to fight? Would Al Qaeda declare war on Muslim Iraq?

Furthermore, the American uncompromising and unqualified withdrawal from Iraq presupposes also that America is more than willing to settle its debts with the Iraqi people, the victims of an illegal and devastating war. The United States government has been very secretive when it comes to revealing the approximate number of civilian casualties in the Iraq war: 30,000 or 655, 000?
In any case and as a proof of good will, the United States should leave behind a modern veterans hospital, one or two hospitals for children, and a special facility to provide a state of the art care for soldiers or civilians maimed for life: the blind, the deaf, the traumatized, the people without limbs, etc. War widows and orphans are entitled to some financial assistance to be determined by the proper committee of the United Nations. The Iraqi army and police should receive some of the heavy military equipment now in Iraq: helicopters, armored vehicles, etc. The Iraqi University in Baghdad should be endowed to become one of the leading centers of research in the Muslim world. Iraqi students should be granted generous scholarships to study in the USA or Great Britain. American college students should be helped to study Arabic in Baghdad.
Gestures of friendship and peace should obliterate any bitter memory of suicide bombers, Abu Ghraib prisons, or military checkpoints. That is by far the better way to expand democracy between the Tigris and the Euphrates, the land of Mesopotamia (“between rivers”) where human civilization took its earliest and most promising steps, among others, the invention of writing.