Last night the Republican candidates for president were in Miami. The Miami Herald lead headline, about Republicans “softening their tone” did not quite capture the feeling that radiated within the University of Miami, where the event was held.
In contrast to the candidate debate in the same location with the Democrats, a few months ago, this one had a feeling of turmoil. Usually, it is the Democrats who behave in a singularly fractious way. The tables certainly have turned.
Although the moderators asked strong questions about the 12 million illegal immigrants living in the country, the issue was parsed by nearly all candidates to fences, technical surveillance and how legal immigrants have the same values of family and religion as the rest of America. Only John McCain offered a realistic assessment, but didn’t linger long there.
Mitt Romney made a neat pirouette from education and charter schools to fathers being more involved with their children and families, holding out a branch of hope to the Promise Keepers.
But the message frame that defines Americans as “values voters” is unraveling in the economy's thickening gloom.
Values is a word that pings from the moral component of life to the financial one, but its power derives from the latter: people care about God and religion, but they bank on the security of financial assets.
The reversal of fortune in the nation’s housing markets is stinging Republicans and Democrats. Harder questions are going to be asked, of the respective parties’ nominees in the next year, about who and what set of circumstances caused this financial IED--financial derivatives-- to explode, for millions of Americans.
So far, the winners are all on Wall Street. Main Street knows on whose side of the political spectrum their Christmas bonuses line up.
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