OCCAM'S TARRIF:

Obama bin lottery (Spengler, 1/29/08, Asia Times)

Senator Barak Obama's surprise landslide victory in the South Carolina primary demarcates a turning point in modern American politics. Can it be a coincidence that it occurred in the same week that financial markets showed their wildest gyrations in post-war history? Days ago, every poll indicated that economic weakness gave the edge to Senator Hillary Clinton, whom voters regarded as a superior manager. But the Democrats of South Carolina chose a miracle over a manager, for the same rational reasons that a down-and-outer spends his last dollar on the lottery.

Obama's South Carolina victory speech was the economic equivalent of a carnival snake-oil pitch. He promised to "stop giving tax breaks to rich companies and instead put the money in the pockets of struggling homeowners who can't pay their mortgages", and at the same time stop the export of American jobs overseas, while raising everyone's wages.

The crowd chanted, "Yes we can! Yes we can!" Excuse me: No, you can't. You can't keep inefficient American factories open without massive tax breaks to corporations, in the form of tariffs or otherwise. In 1992, voters rejected the same message from Ross Perot, who warned that free trade with Mexico would create a "giant sucking sound" as American jobs disappeared, and chose the free-trader Bill Clinton.

With his oft-demonstrated grasp of demographics, Spengler ought to know better than to read ideas into a primary where half the voters were black and the black candidate won. The past two Democratic nominees were rhetorically anti-trade as well, but the Party handed W fast track authority and numerous trade agreements anyway. No matter how much you whip up the Yellow Scare, folks like cheap goods.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 28, 2008 8:05 AM