This election is bad news for the GOP. Obie is a bad candidate. He has lost how many races now, people have developed an image that he’s a loser, he’s tired and he’s unelectable. Equally bad though is the state of GOP politics. The Economy sucks, anyone trying to deny that will lose this election. I am not asking for bailouts, handouts or whatever, but I want to see some leadership from GWB, the Treasury and GOP in congress to address the economic issues. To me, all these economic hardships are eminating from the housing bust. The proposal on freezing mortgage rates, freezing foreclosures by Hillary will violate every free market principles and will increase the mortgage rates of 30/15-fixed. Indeed such increases have already happened. The market is beginning to price in this Hillary risk. The Hope-Now alliance proposed by Bush and Treasury is woefully inadequate. Someone has to do something fast. If there is an adequate housing solution, the stock market will go up 20% in a very short period. This will increase optimism about the economy and increase the chance of some GOP wins this fall. Furthermore, the GOP can not win without the suburban votes. The primary asset for these voters are their homes, their retirement plans. What they are feeling now is a home price decline, a stk mkt decline. GWB maybe strong on national defense, but he’s asleep at the switch for many domestic issues. He is either intellectually not curious about those issues or surround himself with the Larry Kudlow type thinking the economy is good, goldilock blah blah. If Obama is the nominee for the dems, he will have a hard time to connect with the white working folks making 50K or less, we need someone who can connect with these folks to win the general. To these folks, they don’t care about islamofacism, that;s not their security concerns; they worry about their own job security, their healthcare security and retirement security. GWB, GOP congress and to a large extent Sen. McCain just don’t get it on this issue. Iraq is important, terrorism is important, social/fiscal conservative issues are important, but combine all these can’t fight against the rising economic populism due to the economic challenges we are facing. Ignoring the impact of the bad economy on this coming election at our own perils.
There is one economic cure:
MAKE THE TAX CUTS PERMANENT - NOW!!!
The GOP needs to lay it on the line.