This is interesting, re: Obama's proposals outlined during the State of the Union on housing-- Brookings:

Since the president says the plan is for “responsible homeowners,” this presumably means that those who are delinquent on their mortgage payments are not eligible. (There are currently about 4.1 million delinquent loans, with approximately 1.8 million of these delinquent for 90 or more days.) This program is also not for borrowers who are current on their payments but have homes valued more than their homes are worth (“above water”), since such borrowers should be able to refinance without a new government program. And this program is not for those borrowers who are underwater and have a Federal Housing Authority (FHA) or Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac (F/F) backed loan, since they can refinance under the recently ramped-up Home Affordability Refinance Program (HARP) started by President Obama. Thus, this program will likely be targeted to underwater borrowers who are current on their mortgage payments and who have a mortgage that is not backed by the FHA or by F/F. 

[...]

It is important to note that reducing mortgage interest rates for underwater borrowers should only contribute mildly to foreclosure prevention. The key determinant of foreclosure is the cumulative loan-to-value ratio for the borrower, with a contributor factor being an inability to pay due to job loss. This program would not affect the loan-to-value ratio, as the amount of mortgage debt is unaffected by the refinancing. (This is why the administration’s previous plans to lower mortgage interest rates, through the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), did not result in a substantial reduction in foreclosures.)

(emphasis mine)

So... the plan is objectionable to conservatives and libertarians because it a) raises taxes and b) allows banks that made risky loans to get them off their books and onto FHA's. And it won't actually deal with the fundamental problem with regard to housing anyway, and will apply to a teeny, tiny proportion of homeowners. And it will require new legislation.

That sounds like a policy of very limited utility that will never get implemented, especially not in a campaign year-- but one that makes for great campaign trail rhetoric. Surprise. ...
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The Hispanic vote: Everyone in presidential politics wants and needs a good chunk of it to win (including in big states like Florida). President Obama will need somewhat more of it to win than whichever Republican we wind up nominating.

So, opponents of Obama will undoubtedly cheer this news this morning, from Politico*:

The conservative Hispanic Leadership Network, which is co-sponsoring tonight's presidential debate on CNN, had Republican-leaning Resurgent Republic survey 500 Hispanic Voters in Florida last week. On the generic ballot, President Barack Obama gets 46% (compared to 57% in 2008). There's an even 46-45 split on whether it's time for someone else to be president, but 48 percent of independent Hispanics say yes. Six in 10 say the president hasn't delivered on his campaign promises. 40% say the situation for Hispanics is about the same under Obama (38% say it's worse; 15% say its better). 42% blame Obama's policies for making matters worse. 56% said Obama is weaker than they expected.

Yes: Mr. "I'm for comprehensive immigration reform but I voted for five poison pill amendments that killed it in the Senate" turns out to be falling short of Hispanic voters' expectations.

No, no puedes, it would seem. ...
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The last 24 hours have seen just about every political pundit around the country weigh in with their thoughts about what will happen in Florida now that Newt Gingrich has decisively won South Carolina. Many of them are missing or glossing over some important facts, in my view, as they focus a bit too exclusively on things like momentum, debates, and existing polling (without broader context). This is a quickie post outlining what I think is being overlooked or treated with insufficient seriousness that might matter— and in whose favor each factor weighs. ...
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From the Seattle Times yesterday:

Sen. Cheryl Pflug is joining other lawmakers willing to vote to give same-sex couples the full rights and benefits of marriage.

[...]

Pflug of Maple Valley is the second Republican senator in recent days to say she will support gay-marriage legislation. She has voted for domestic-partnership benefits twice and believes strongly in fairness for all.

"I have been a longtime supporter of human equality," said Pflug. "I do not feel diminished by having another human being experience the same freedom I am entitled to exercise. I would feel diminished by denying another human the ability to exercise those same rights and freedoms."

Good on Pflug. And good on Sen. Steve Litzow (R-Mercer Island).

Ultimately, too, good on Washington gay marriage advocates for taking a legislative, as opposed to judicial, route in attempting to ensure the state will allow gay marriage. ...
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With three months remaining in 2011, and the presidential race firming up, I've spent a lot of time recently thnking about the respective candidates, their pros and cons, and who I would feel most comfortable supporting.  The reality is, I think we're going to be looking at a Perry-Romney showdown, when push comes to shove.  And in that context, it's pretty clear at this point to me that I'm in the Perry camp.

I've had some people ask me why that is recently. I originally became known in the blogosphere for being a squishy moderate/squishy libertarian, and some people seem to see that as consistent with preferring Romney to Perry, if those are the choices.  So on a relatively quiet Friday, I figured I'd take a minute and spell it out, especially since reasons #1 and #2 are topical and in the news today.  

First, from AFP:

A potent US free-trade group that opposes legislation to punish China over its alleged currency manipulation pressed Republican presidential hopefuls Thursday to say where they stand on the bill.

"Voters deserve to know where the Republican candidates stand on the important issue of trade with China," Club for Growth President Chris Chocola said in a statement as the US Senate geared up to act on the measure next week.

The legislation, which enjoys Democratic and Republican support, would make it easier for US firms to seek retaliatory tariffs against Chinese imports if Beijing is found to keep its currency and thus its goods artificially cheap.

[...]

Leading Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney has called China an "economic threat" and vowed to designate Beijing a "currency manipulator," a step that can trigger retaliatory US sanctions.

But top Romney rival and Texas Governor Rick Perry's campaign took the opposite tack, with spokesman Mark Miner telling AFP: "This is a free trade issue and Governor Perry does not support this bill."

Let me be blunt: Perry is right.  This is a free trade issue.  And free trade has been the #1 issue I vote on for a long time now.  Romney has been sounding more and more protectionist as this campaign has progressed. On a practical level, as someone who comes from the most trade-dependent state in the country, this bothers me.  On a philosophical level, it obviously bothers me, too.  I've never been a Romney fan, but his positioning on this is causing me to be more and more skeptical of him as a potential president.

But trade is not the only issue where I'm finding Perry vastly more appealing than Romney.  There is also the matter of immigration and Perry signing into law the Texas DREAM Act, which is grabbing the headlines rather a lot at present.  

Let's set aside that a) I'm more liberal than many in the Republican base on the matter of immigration generally and b) I've never been entirely sold on the concept of in-state/out-of-state tuition (I avoided the whole thing by moving out of the country for University at 18).  There are three points that I think are relevant with regard to Romney's attacks on Perry on this front that are really continuing to put me off Romney in a big way.

First, let's just concede that Romney is hardly someone in possession of a record emblematic of an anti-illegal-immigration hawk.  Friends from Massachusetts like to remind me there are more than a few illegal Irish immigrants living there. He was supportive of the Bush and McCain approaches to immigration while governor (but of course before he started running for president).  He OK'd state police enforcing immigration laws only in the final days of his term as Massachusetts governor as he was preparing to run for president which suggests political expediency rather than a sound policy/good governance or philosophical rationale in his own interpretation for the move. Rudy Giuliani attacked him pretty effectively for de facto running a sanctuary mansion during one of the debates in the 2008 cycle. Yet Romney continues to use the rhetoric of an immigration hawk, employing language that ocasionally sounds more emblematic of Tom Tancredo than the moderate guy he's supposed to be running as this time around (the arch-conservative Mitt Romney has evidently taken a leave of absence).  The whole immigration topic is another reminder of the fact that this guy, to be charitable, lacks a lot of consistency-- one of his biggest vulnerabilities in this race.

Second, I simply don't find it credible that a guy from Massachusetts, with roots in Michigan, knows more about how to handle issues like border security, illegal immigration, and handling of attendant effects of the US having a border that obviously great swaths of Americans consider to be insufficiently secure, than the Governor of Texas (Texas!) who has been in office for more than a decade (by the way, this criticism goes for Rick Santorum, too). One of these people deals with these issues daily, and has for a long time. One of them does not, and has not.  If this were a race for best head of a private equity firm, and Rick Perry came out and argued that he had the best ideas about future buyouts to implement, no offense, but I'd raise my eyebrows at that. I suspect I wouldn't be the only one, either.  This is the same kind of thing, just in reverse.

Third, Romney's rhetoric is just downright problematic from a political standpoint. The three states that the Obama team appears to be most concerned about are Nevada, Colorado and Virginia (or so it was as of a couple of months ago).  Two of those states obviously have a relatively large Latino population (and yes, many of them are registered to vote and do vote, though exit polling data doesn't always give us as full a picture as we would like about Latino voting behavior).  And in Nevada, at least, it's a growing population, too: Per the Wall Street Journal, "Nevada added more than 44,000 voting-age Hispanics [between 2008 and 2010], more than double the increase of 18,000 voting-age whites." Census data meanwhile shows that between 2000 and 2010, the percentage of the population that is Hispanic increased from 17.1 percent to 20.7 percent in Colorado; in Virginia, hardly considered a major Hispanic population center, it increased from 4.7 percent to 7.9 percent over the same period.  

Undoubtedly, yes, some of these individuals will not be eligible to vote. However, according to Republican operative Hector Barajas, "Every 30 seconds a Latino turns the age of 18."  Some of those will be illegal immigrants, brought here by their parents.  But many will be US citizens.  And then there is the question of Latinos eligible to vote, but not registered-- a problem that it's reasonable to assume the Obama campaign will look to rectify.  Are many Hispanic voters disenchanted with Obama? Sure.  But Latinos vote more Democratic than they do Republican, as a matter of course.  They also generally loathe a lot of bog-standard Republican rhetoric like some of that which Romney is employing: "illegal alien" seems like a pretty obvious example.  Perhaps the biggest kicker here: Polling suggests that Hispanics care deeply about opportunity issues, and education-- really the policy focus of Texas' version of DREAM, which Romney is attempting to bludgeon Perry with-- is one of those.

My original problem with Romney is, and has been since 2006, RomneyCare.  I think it is bad policy; he obviously disagrees, and interestingly, it seems to be literally the only issue I can immediately think of where he hasn't flip-flopped.  

The way he has gone after Perry on Socal Security also irks me.  On the one hand, should Romney find himself in the White House, I worry that he may have a harder time moving on entitlement reform (which I suspect will continue to be a fiscal necessity) than I would like. On the other, even as he currently depicts himself as the great defender of Social Security, if he gets the nomination, that will not stop Democrats from depicting him as someone whose policies will leave Grandma eating cat food, and Grandpa living in a disused chicken coop, destitute and poverty-stricken.

And there are other reasons I won't get into here why I'm just not sold on the guy.

But Romney's positioning on trade and on immigration and immigration-related areas of policy I find especially irksome and problematic.  And I find what Perry has to say very appealing. ...
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Lots of news to catch up on:

• A new Survey USA/KING5 poll shows McKenna ahead of Inslee, 44 to 38.  What's really interesting about the survey?  This: "McKenna’s early lead can be attributed in part to his strength in the Puget Sound area.  In King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, he’s even with Inslee at 41% each, which is significant for a Republican candidate." It's early, but details like that suggest this race is not going to be cakewalk for Inslee, something that McKenna backers have long argued.

• Seattle is in the red.  And will be for awhile.

• Check out Nansen Malin's post on Cantwell pushing the EPA to shut down the Pebble Mine project in Alaska.  Methinks this is going to be a contentious issue.

• Inslee invokes Rick Perry in a late-in-the-quarter fundraising email (also, Karl Rove and the Kochtopus).

• There's lots of coverage of this Elway poll re: the liquor initiative.

• The Seattle City Council thinks raising taxes on tourists is a good way to promote tourism.

• Gov. Gregoire had a car accident.  No injuries.  If that kind of thing interests you, there are pictures here. ...
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What's happening in WA:

• The P-I's Joel Connelly calls President Obama's private visit to the Seattle area a "public insult."

• Gov. Gregoire says“We cannot take … a pacman approach to the budget" (a.k.a., no tinkering around the edges or minor cuts; programs need to go).

• WA Rs are like "uh, no" in response to Dem requests that they keep an open mind on taxes.

• Although Obama's events around town are private, some local interest groups are still hoping to focus his attention on their causes.  How?  Well, the folks at Save Our Wild Salmon are deploying this fish on wheels. So, have some of that.

(Photo via The Stranger). ...
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Here's a catch-up version of what's happening in WA politics:

• President Obama will do no public events when he visits Seattle. Ho-hum.

• A special legislative session will convene in WA on November 28 to deal with the budget deficit.

• Democrats want Republicans to be open to allowing voters to approve tax hikes.

• Karl Rove is set to headline the WSRP's annual fall dinner. ...
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News worth noting today:

• Further scrutiny of that Strategies 360 poll shows that Inslee's support is a touch soft at present in King County.  McKenna's team says to win, Inslee will need to "run the table" there; Inslee's team is not worried. My bet: Inslee will shore up support in King County pretty quickly and well, but anecdotal evidence suggests that McKenna doesn't have quite the bad rap that most Republicans do with some King County voters;

• President Obama is fundraising in Medina and at the Paramount;

• The Seattle City Council has approved three tunnel agreements, and the long-running Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement drama seems to be over.  This will anger several "Friends of Liz," who happen to be staunch tunnel opponents. ...
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Items of interest out of WA over the past 24 hours (or so):

• A Northwest-based lobbying firm headed up by a former aide to Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Bremerton) worked on loan guarantees to Solyndra;

• More people support liquor sale privatization than oppose it, per a new Strategies 360 poll (however, opposition may be increasing);

• Lots of people want to tax medical marijuana (also, lots of people seem cool with allowing folks to use pot for whatever purpose);

• And more people like McKenna than Inslee for governor.  The pushback on that from the Inslee camp seems to be that Inslee just isn't as well-known, but people who know him like him.  That Inslee is less well-known is probably true (McKenna is, after all, a statewide official).  But the people who know Inslee and like him are presumably more liberal, Western Washington types which isn't necessarily indicative of his ability to build a broad base, something McKenna has already done well enough to win statewide-- that's what Dominic Holden thinks anyway, and I think he's right;

• Finally, as Dominic notes, at the same time as they seem to want McKenna to take over from Gregoire (or at least more so than Inslee), Evergreen Staters want to legalize the gay love to the maximum degree.  Finally, a poll out of WA, two of whose main conclusions I totally agree with... ...
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