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Over the Easter Holiday, as I listened to messages of hope and redemption, I was reminded not of my early years attending a suburban Texas Protestant church, but of the presidential candidacy of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.
The core mesages of Obama's campaign - hope and change - are at their heart, messianic. Weren't hope and change the virtues Christ himself was preaching as he led his followers to Jerusalem to overthrow the corrupt leaders in the temple? Obama's candidacy offers many Americans hope that one man can go into the temple known as Washington, D.C. and rid the place of its corruption, bring its inhabitants together and deliver us to a promised land - a changed land - of peace and prosperity.
Like others, I am somewhat troubled by the devotion of Barack Obama's followers. To hear Obama's supporters speak reminds me of some evangelical Christians in their devotion to the man and his cause. Such is the degree of faith Obama supporters are required to maintain that I'm reminded of a famous quotation: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
I don't feel as though I'm exaggerating. Not too much, anyway. About ten days ago, I was chatting with two friends, one who has been on the campaign trail with Hillary Clinton and one who is a reporter for a local news station. To protect his identity, we'll just say he's Not Backing Clinton. Here is how I recount the conversation:
"If you think the media is biased towards Obama, we are not. If we have a bias, it is towards the truth," my reporter friend started.
"Oh really?" was all we had to say to egg him to elucidate.
"See McCain and Clinton, they have long records of public service and public statements, and so we can check and see if they're telling the truth. But because they have records to contradict what they're saying, we have to report on it. Obama has no record to contradict what he says, so therefore, we must assume that everything he says is the truth. And so, if it seems we are biased towards Obama, it is because our bias is for the truth, and Obama is the Truth."
At that point, I had to get another cocktail.
The similarities between Obama supporters and Evangelical Christians are becoming clear: they are both based on a fundamental reliance on faith. Clinton and McCain supporters tend towards empiricism - basing their vote on a candidate's record and ability to implement solutions, Obama's followers must put aside their skepticism and have faith in their candidate's vision.
Because he has no record of, you know, actually doing things in the United States Senate, Barack Obama must ask his followers to believe in his ability to implement hope and change, just as the Bible asks its readers to have faith that the earth was created some 5,000 years ago.
So no, Barack Obama is no secret-Muslim Manchurian Candiate trying to infiltrate America's political system. Rather, Obama is exploiting people's need to believe in something and with soaring oratory has attracted a flock of believers.
With the rapid collapse of financial house Bear Stearns over the weekend, the collapse of the house of cards that Wall Street built atop America's housing boom is underway--despite temporary market rallies indicating otherwise. And while much attention will focus on how a company deemed solvent on a Wednesday could be belly-up by Sunday, America needs to come to grips with the fact that accountability for the current credit crisis is widespread.
When economic and financial systems are in crisis, the initial urge is to take action to mitigate the pain. But in mitigating the effects of the housing bust, we may only be spreading it out longer and delaying the time that we can recover. What is really needed is a full-scale assault to root out the causes of the housing collapse before we can begin the growth cycle anew.
The knee-jerk reaction in Washington - and on the campaign trail - is to do whatever it takes to keep people in their homes. This is admirable, and certainly a worthy goal but it should not be done with a carte-blanche for all Americans who are facing foreclosure or are struggling to pay their mortgages. Blame for the recession America seems to be facing, and inflation we are currently fighting, lies not solely at the feet of Wall Street, but at the front porches of hundreds of thousands - if not millions of Americans - whose action should warrant their being labeled nothing more than"Main Street criminals".
Housing prices were able to inflate in America over the past decade not because Americans were becoming wealthier, but because many unscrupulous Americans defrauded the nation's financial systems.
I have no doubt that the FBI, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and - eventually - Congress will conduct investigations into Bear Stearns and whichever financial institution takes it in the chin next. But such investigations will only focus on the symptoms, not the causes, of America's current economic turmoil.
What we need now, are further investigations into how so many people got into homes they could not afford. Let's do some quick cocktail-napkin math. If at the peak of the housing boom, the median price of a home in Southern California's San Fernando Valley was $750,000, then that would require mortgage payments in the range of $4000-5000 per month. To qualify for such a mortgage, that would require an income close to $200,000, especially in such a high-tax state. And how many people are making that kind of money? Not even in tony Beverly Hills does the median income come close to those levels!
The state attorneys general need to go back to the work that they gave up after scoring some high-profile victories in their investigation of the mortgage industry. Mortgage brokers, realtors, and appraisers who profited unscrupulously need to be held accountable for putting Americans in a place of peril by lending money and encouraging those who couldn't afford big-ticket mortgages to buy - on little more than faith and wobbly credit.
But the investigation should not stop there. Before anyone benefits from a "foreclosure freeze" or other federal program to keep them in their homes, their mortgage applications should be reviewed. If anyone facing foreclosure lied about their income, assets or ability to pay, then not only should they not receive mortgage assistance, they should be prosecuted for fraud by the local District Attorney. These Main Street Criminals essentially robbed their bank with a pen, and not a gun. In many cases walked away with more cash than one could likely get from an armed robbery.
Every day, the rest of us Americans are paying for these excesses. We pay with our taxes going to bail out people in mortgages they cannot afford, and we pay with the billions of dollars needed to bail out Bear Stearns. We pay with inflated housing costs, we pay with each rate cut that sends inflation higher and the dollar lower, and we pay with soaring costs of commodities, every time we buy a cup of coffee.
From Wall Street to Main Street, everyone who contributed to the current credit crunch must be held accountable. Because the rest of us are paying, day after day.
The world is watching American elections like never before. After eight years of the Bush Administration, the prospect of change is palpable, especially in Europe, a continent that is clamoring to regain its relevance in the world. But the world should be cautioned: Be careful what you wish for.
On a recent trip to Europe, my suggestion that John McCain may well be the next president, drew pleas from Europeans that we Americans cannot let the world down. "It's time for a change," I was told, echoing the monosyllabic campaign message of Barack Obama.
Well, the biggest changes in foreign policy that Democrats are proposing come in the guise of economic policy. Both Clinton and Obama have threatened to pull out of the NAFTA free trade agreement unless their demands are met. That's foolish pandering and Republican nominee John McCain is right to criticize them for this: What message would that send to our allies around the globe about how we treat our two closest friends in the global community?
Globalism is real. Although some Americans may see other countries around the world getting richer and think that wealth is coming - literally - at their expense, that is the wrong lesson to learn from the global economy. Instead, the growing interconnectivity of the global economy means that we must all care about each others' well being and economic welfare because when anyone catches an economic cold, we all stand to suffer the sniffles.
In a speech to the Georgetown University Forum on Global Competitiveness, former Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar hit this point on the head when he pointed out the impact that America has on European economies through trade, investment and labor movement. The economic impact of the U.S. on Ireland is twice that of the impact in China. Anzar's observation that Europe can only be an economic power, not a military one, requires that Europe keep its borders open to trade, and that America do the same.
At the same conference, former Clinton Assistant National Security Advisor Anthony Lake - now and advisor to the Barack Obama campaign - came to a different conclusion from the same set of facts. He started from the basic premise that we should not attack globalism or praise it, we should accept it. That's refreshing coming from an Obama advisor but his solution seems to offer a return to the past, not a move forward.
Lake then spoke about the world's problems - from competition over scarce commodities such as corn or oil, to Global Warming to the War in Afghanistan - and correctly pointed out that no one country can "solve" these problems alone. But even if the United States has the willingness to say "Yes We Can" and change our approach to these issues, Lake worries that the rest of the world - Europe, in particular - lacks the institutional support to make change happen.
When you look at Europe's greatest institutional model - the European Central Bank - Lake seems to have a point. Since adopting the Euro, the less well-off countries of southern Europe have seen their economies flourish, but growth has come at the cost of inflation. Conversely, in northern Europe, the inflation that came after the initial adoption of the Euro has subsided, but they now suffer from the choke-hold of high interest rates and low growth.
My "Amsterdam Beer Index" - handy for the casual traveler trying to figure coss - show that the cost of a Dommelsch has gone from 2.95 Euros down to 2.50 and as low as 2.20 over the past three years, remaining steady in dollar terms, but also a clear (albeit anecdotal sign) of a slowing Dutch economy. Why? The ECB has chosen to forsake growth in order to fight inflation, at the cost of double-digit unemployment and growing unrest.
Militarily, Lake implied, Europe's institutions are even worse off and they must be bolstered if they intend to cooperate with the United States in NATO and fighting the war on terrorism. Europe, the potential future Secretary of State alleged, has gotten a free ride from the U.S. during fifty years of the Cold War and eight years of Bush unilateralism.
The only conclusion I can draw from that is that after pulling out of NAFTA, the Obama Administration would try to re-militarize Europe. As someone who remembers what he learned about the last time protectionism and militarization were the global norms, I have to say that sort of change - a change to the past, not the future - isn't exactly what we're looking for. Is it?
It has become a standard political axiom: when it comes to presidential races, Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. Regardless of whether the voters ultimately confirm this conventional wisdom, there's one bipartisan truth: breaking up is hard to do.
As a sizeable portion of the nation goes ga-ga over Barack Obama, we should remember that political love affairs seldom last as long as the break-ups. Here in California, we've seen just how difficult it can be when a political love-affair turns sour.
Former Governor Gray Davis was popular enough to win two terms in office, but when he cheated on Californians by lying about the extent of the budget crisis in 2002, the Golden State quickly threw the bum out with a special recall election less than a year later.
In dumping Davis, Californians fell hard on the rebound for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, developing what now seems like a co-dependent relationship.
We swept Schwarzenegger into office in 2003, on the hopes that he could shake up the broken system called California government. Two years later, we rejected each of his appeals to fix the state's problems, which sent his popularity plummeting. While many expected a break-up in 2006, Californians went back to Schwarzenegger to stand by our man for another four years. With another budget crisis looming, and the state looking once again un-governable, many wonder what kind of doormat the California voter must be to have Arnold walking all over them!
Likewise, across the pond, the French are rapidly falling out of love with President Nicolas Sarkozy. Although he was elected less than a year ago, his jet-set lifestyle and very public romance with Italian songstress Carla Bruni, the French have soured the President on their choice, like an uncorked bottle of Bordeaux.
With today's news, Democratic voters are no doubt having an inner debate between the attractive, smooth-talking Casanova or the practical fiancée who promises to put food on the table every night. Until Tuesday evening, infatuation had been winning over pragmatism.
But all love affairs must end, and with the candidacy of Barack Obama, the question is whether America breaks up with him before popping the question in November and meeting at the altar on January 20, 2009.
Obamamanics got a taste of what the break-up with Barack could feel like this week, when we learned of secret meetings between the Senator's advisors and a foreign government.
When reports first trickled out of Canada a week ago saying that Barack Obama's economic advisor had met with a representative of the Canadian Consulate and said that the Senator was really not a protectionist despite his rhetoric on NAFTA, the campaign denied that such a meeting took place. But when internal memos proved otherwise, the Obama campaign started backtracking. The lies, and the duplicity left many voters feeling scorned and made what should have been a coronation in Texas and Ohio into just another leg in this marathon primary. Kind of like Obama was cheating on his "wife" - the American public.
A marriage is a lifetime commitment, and one not to be taken lightly. Still, in politics and, more importantly governing, four years can seem like a lifetime. The wedding date is set for America's next love affair. But who will be at the altar? And will we still have butterflies in our stomachs?
