” The irony here is that the American Dream Downpayment Act was sponsored entirely by Republicans, including “conservatives” like Sessions and Santorum.”
This irony is not lost on me. I started warning FReeper in mid 2006 that “investment houses” would kill them!
Back in those days 2002 to 2004 the Republicans conventional wisdom was that Bush was going to pull minority voters away from Democrats. But that plan only would have worked if the Housing bubble was real sustained growth and those minorities saw themselves benefiting economically from it and home ownership.
Instead of that by getting them involved with a Housing bubble (with the help of Democrats) that was sure to collapse (you hear one Republican predicting this in 2003 ?) and then trying to point fingers elsewear after the collapse and forclosures was a disasterous set of events/policy for Republicans. Only Obama appears capable of turning mionorities off to Democrats now.