Political Interest

Moderate Field in 2008 Race Forcing Romney to the Right

The New York Times points to an early oddity in the 2008 Presidential race on the GOP side: the majority of likely candidates are varying degrees of moderate.  They list Giuliani, Pataki (hard to believe, but it looks like it), McCain, Frist, and, of course, Mitt Romney, supposed Governor of Massachusetts.

It's tough enough for a moderate to have shot at winning in Republican primaries given the conservative dominance of the process, but splitting the moderate vote would make it nearly impossible.  A moderate would need to be the moderate candidate against a split field of conservatives.

So far some of the candidates such as Frist and Romney are trying to rectify their situations by changing their positions.  Luckily for Frist he's had a head start, switching his posture once he became Majority Leader.

For Romney the problem is much harder.  He started in elective office only of  2 1/2 years ago, which he won by campaigning as a prochoice social moderate.  His conversion seems to have started after the absolute failure of his campaign to add more Republicans to the state legislature in 2004.  It culminated last week in his veto of an emergency contraception bill, a veto almost sure to be overridden.  His ability to convince the conservatives that his latest "evolution," as he puts it, is legitimate will be the test that determines whether he'll be a credible candidate.

Who's Afraid of Ducks?

You probably should be, and chickens too.  The Washington Post sounds the alarm on Avian Flu, a potential global killer which we're in a race against time to stop.

The public, conditioned to believe in the power of modern medicine, has heard little of how poorly prepared the world is to confront a flu pandemic, which is an epidemic that strikes several continents simultaneously and infects a substantial portion of the population.

Since the current wave of avian flu began sweeping through poultry in Southeast Asia more than 18 months ago, international and U.S. health authorities have been warning of the danger and trying to mobilize. Research on vaccines has accelerated, efforts to build up drug supplies are underway, and discussions take place regularly on developing a coordinated global response.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will spend $419 million in pandemic planning this year. The National Institutes of Health's influenza research budget has quintupled in the past five years.

"The secretary or the chief of staff -- we have a discussion about flu almost every day," said Bruce Gellin, head of HHS's National Vaccine Program Office. This week, a committee is scheduled to deliver to HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt an updated plan for confronting a pandemic.

Despite these efforts, the world's lack of readiness to meet the threat is huge, experts say.

"The only reason nobody's concerned the emperor has no clothes is that he hasn't shown up yet," Harvey V. Fineberg, president of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, said recently of the world's efforts to prepare for pandemic flu. "When he appears, people will see he's naked."

Housing Bubble Peak

The housing bubble isn't showing overt any signs of popping yet, with prices up another 15% in year over year comparisons this June and sales volume out of sight.  But, this Martin Wolk piece for MSNBC.com, points to a number of signs that bubble is getting very mature:

The latest pricing data also offered more evidence for what one industry analyst called a “frenzy” in sales. The national median price for existing homes jumped to a record $219,000, up 15 percent from a year ago, the fastest rate of growth in 25 years, according to the National Association of Realtors, a trade group. That pushed the Realtors’ affordability index, which compares incomes with home prices, to its lowest level in 14 years.

...Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisers (said) the market is getting “out of hand.” Cocktail-party and office chatter he hears nowadays is reminiscent of the tech-stock boom of the 1990s, except that now would-be investors are looking to make a killing by flipping unbuilt condo units.

“When you see everyone starting to get into these deals, it’s getting beyond crazy,” he said. “People are saying, I’ve got to buy now, because if I don’t I’m never going to get into the market.”

In addition, the Fed is targeting the housing bubble straight out now:

Although the Fed has little control over low mortgage rates that are helping propel record sales and price growth in the housing market, Greenspan once again made clear that the red-hot sector is very much on his mind as he prepares for a mandatory retirement next year after an eventful 18 years in office.

In some of his strongest remarks yet about the potential fallout from high housing prices, Greenspan reiterated warnings about the increasing use of what he described as “exotic” mortgages and referred to “speculative fervor” that has driven up prices in some markets.

“This type of expansion in prices historically does not go on very long and indeed, while it’s hard to forecast, and I’m not sure that it’s going to occur, there may be -- there certainly will be in certain local areas -- price declines,” Greenspan said.

It was the most definitive prediction yet from Greenspan that home prices will decline in some areas.

I'd put the peak right at about July 19th, 2005.

War Supporters Trying to Cut their Losses

Spencer Ackerman spots David Ignatius trying to declare victory and go home, in this TNR post via Washington Monthly.  Apparently, Ignatius is putting the theory out that maybe an Iraqi civil war wouldn't be so bad.

Pessimists increasingly argue that Iraq may be going the way of Lebanon in the 1970s. I hope that isn't so, and that Iraq avoids civil war. But people should realize that even Lebanonization wouldn't be the end of the story. The Lebanese turned to sectarian militias when their army and police couldn't provide security. But through more than 15 years of civil war, Lebanon continued to have a president, a prime minister, a parliament and an army. The country was on ice, in effect, while the sectarian battles raged. The national identity survived, and it came roaring back this spring in the Cedar Revolution that drove out Syrian troops.

Needless to say Ackerman isn't buying it:

In this blithe description, fifteen years of carnage and atrocity followed by a further fifteen years of foreign domination was merely a prelude to the hopeful scenes of Martyrs' Square. (Hey, you need martyrs, right?) It's a debatable contention whether the "national identity" of Lebanon survived, though sectarian loyalty certainly deepened. What aren't debatable contentions are that 100,000 people didn't survive, nearly another million were displaced, and one of the world's premier jihadist networks, the still-powerful Hezbollah, was born. These aren't footnotes, and I have a feeling that the participants of the Cedar Revolution would never dream of treating them as such.

I think I spot a trend related to some of the rumors coming out of Britain about a draw down next year, which I posted about previously.  The war is becoming a loser and the military is straining under the pressure, just about time to declare victory and go home.

Uh, No Kidding?

Iraq reconstruction not going well, according to the WashPost...

Efforts to rebuild water, electricity and health networks in Iraq are being shortchanged by higher-than-expected costs to provide security and by generous financial awards to contractors, according to a series of reports by government investigators released yesterday.

Taken together, the reports seem to run contrary to the Bush administration's upbeat assessment that reconstruction efforts are moving vigorously ahead and that the insurgency is dying down.

Real Estate Fraud Boom

Like any mature bubble the housing craze is attracting more and more scam artists hoping to feed on the frenzy.  According to this Washington Post article much of the fraud is being carried out by industry insiders.

Fueled by loose credit and lending standards, a growing number of "subprime" mortgage companies and rogue bands of scam artists are using false appraisals to inflate prices, stripping equity from elderly homeowners and even persuading untutored homeowners to surrender their home deeds.

The FBI's Financial Crimes Report in May noted that mortgage fraud is "pervasive and growing," thriving on "collusion by industry insiders." Suspected major mortgage finance violations reported by financial institutions increased from 4,225 in 2001 to 17,127 last year, and the money lost in such fraud has doubled in the past year.

In California last year, the state attorney general cracked a foreclosure ring that had netted 1,800 victims. In Florida, the FBI targeted "massive . . . mortgage fraud" in Jacksonville. Another federal investigation broke up a $15 million property-flipping scheme in Kansas City, Mo. And the National Consumer Law Center noted that "the entire D.C. region is rife with these scams."

Given the current market and the inherent complications of real estate transactions for the uninitiated I suspect the regulators are only hitting the tip of the iceberg on this one.

What's the Word I Was Thinking Of?

I have a few of my own, but click here to find the most often used words to describe our current President over the last two years.

Click Here.

It looks like people are starting to see things more my way...

Romney Evolution Not Flying

So far Mitt Romney's self described evolution doesn't look like it's going over so well, at least from the quotes in this Globe piece.

Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, a staunch opponent of legalized abortion, suggested that antiabortion voters would see Romney's new position as a transparent attempt to to curry favor with conservative voters in a presidential primary.

''Pro-family voters don't believe in evolution," Glenn said in a telephone interview. ''It's nothing a lot of other politicians haven't tried to do."

Kellie Rose Ferguson, executive director of The Republican Majority for Choice, said Romney's Op-Ed article and veto constitute an ''entire reversal" of the positions he espoused in 2002, earning the endorsement of her group. She said she believes Romney is changing his position to position himself as he ponders a presidential candidacy.

It Is Unofficially Official

Mitt Romney is running for President, and to hell with any concern of Massachusetts citizens (his present employers) that gets in the way.  While that wasn't in the text of his message to the state legislators, it was loud and clear in the political subtext as Romney spun rightward to veto an emergency contraception bill.

The move puts Romney well out of the mainstream in Massachusetts, so much so that it will have little legal effect, since the legislature is sure to override it.  However, it means his already uphill fight to get reelected is now much more difficult, if not impossible.

If he wants to run for President, not only can he he not afford to lose in 2006, he can't afford to raise and spend all of his money campaigning in Mass, where he would surely have to trim his conservative sails only a year before voting in outh Carolina and New Hampshire.

After spending the spring bashing the state, Romney had seemed to come back hedging, and playing nice with the legislature. 

But, his cooperation and healthcare proposal were due Romney's need to accomplish something beyond symbolic vetoes and anti-gay rights protests in order to run for President.  So, any state legislator thinking about cooperating with Romney should think hard whether what's being proposed is in the interest of the commonwealth, because it is clear Romney won't.

Welfare Reform Check Up

It occurs to me that if politicians were truly interested in the effects of their "reforms" they would authorize money to study the actual effects when the policies are implemented, so they could be re-examined and, perhaps, improved.  Mostly politicians don't, but there is an interesting study on the effects of Welfare Reform that was done by the University of West Virginia, highlighted in the Washington Post.

The findings aren't particularly encouraging:

In the Central Appalachian coal country, where the land is famously rich and the people famously not, welfare caseloads are down, but poverty still flourishes. Since the 1996 welfare reform law, or Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, took effect, the rolls in West Virginia have dropped from 38,404 to fewer than 10,000. In general, the law -- which sets a five-year limit for receiving welfare and requires recipients to get an education, take job training or perform community service -- is considered a success. But in West Virginia, many former recipients are worse off than before, according to research by West Virginia University.

Even as the Senate is considering reauthorizing the welfare reform act with stricter work requirements and more child care funding, a prime goal of the act -- moving welfare recipients into jobs -- remains elusive in rural West Virginia, according to the research, done in conjunction with the state Department of Health and Human Resources. A year after their checks stopped, 73.1 percent of former recipients were unemployed, 65.6 percent reported not being able to afford their basic utilities, and only a small proportion believed that their prospects for the future were good (11.3 percent) or excellent (3.1 percent), the researchers found.