I recall, vividly, reading articles questioning whether we were in a housing bubble in the early 2000s. Here’s a Businessweek editorial from roughly a week before the September 11 massacres would make every other problem seem minimal.

Call it the double bubble. A housing bubble may be developing–right behind the Nasdaq bubble. Although overall stock prices are down 12% and the Nasdaq is off 25% since the start of 2001, average house prices are rising at an annual rate of 8%. In fact, falling equities have led many well-heeled investors to shift money into residential real estate. Robert J. Shiller, author of Irrational Exuberance, which predicted the Nasdaq crash a year before it happened, now warns that a psychological frenzy not unlike tech mania is gripping housing. It appears that the Federal Reserve’s dramatic rate-cutting campaign to revive the economy may be overheating housing.

That was seven years ago, and we all know what continued happening after that. House values continued to rise, and mortgages became easier to obtain and riskier to keep, especially for the people who could afford them the least. But let’s assume that that was too early to identify the risks associated with our housing bubble. In 2003, people like Dean Baker were continuing to sound real warning bells.

The Clinton boom was built on three unsustainable bubbles. One of them, the stock bubble, has already burst. The other two bubbles—the dollar bubble and the housing bubble—are still with us. The dollar bubble is starting to deflate, and the housing bubble is perhaps just now reaching its peak. These bubbles created the basis for the 2001 recession and the economy’s continuing period of stagnation….

This situation is frightening for two reasons. First, as a short-run matter, if housing prices fall sharply in some of the areas where the effects of the bubble are largest (for example the Boston, New York, Washington, and San Francisco areas), new home buyers (and those who recently refinanced their mortgages and took money out) could find they have negative equity in their homes. If someone borrows $270,000 to buy a $300,000 home, and the price falls by one-third, this leaves them owing $70,000 more than the home is worth. When this happens, there is a huge incentive to just let the mortgage holder foreclose on the home. If this were to happen on a large scale, the survival of many banks and financial institutions would be at risk.

So prior to our last Presidential election, the writing continued to remain present on the wall; we just chose to wallpaper over it with rapidly devaluing dollars. The New York Times’s Paul Krugman took Dean Baker’ baton and ran with it, continually addressing the idea of a housing bubble for the next several years. So, I’d like to know why it’s prescience that McCain and Obama began addressing the issue in 2006, after it had become front page and not just editorial page news. Neither McCain nor Obama can suggest that they were leaders on the issue. All they can fight over is who was able to more quickly hop onto the bandwagon.

From the pulpit and the vestible,

I will cut his testicles to the vesicles.

God said, y’all shall take his balls, nuts and all

He told me in a conference call.

Can I get an A’men?

Not caught on Fox News’s live mic was someone’s response: Why can’t you ever make sense when you talk? It’s like you have false alzheimers! Everything you say makes no sense, but we know you’re fully capable of thinking. How else could you rhyme all the time? Now you’ve got me doing it!

Hillary is the strongest, best candidate. Hillary can beat John McCain. Hillary is my Democrat.

Even if party bosses tell me that we must get behind the nominee and that the nominee will be Obama, I have a choice. Even if family, friends and colleagues tell me I’m wrong, I have a choice. Even if you hate my decision, I have a choice.

And I will use it. To do otherwise would violate the principles I work hard to uphold. I’ve made a decision – a well-thought out, reasoned and rational decision.

Besides, I’ve been here before. I voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 and endured the scorn of others who blamed me for the Democratic loss. Don’t blame me, I said. Blame yourselves for not being able to convince enough people to vote for the Democrat.

Although it’s the pro-Hillary sentiment that caught my eye, it was the last sentence of that fourth paragraph that made me weightless with joy. Someone else gets it. Any candidate is electable. You just have to make a compelling case for that candidate, a case that will sway those who would be otherwise unenclined to vote for the candidate. That’s what makes passionate support of your candidate, no matter who he or she might be, so important. It’s why I’ve never ridiculed Nader supporters–at least they were trying to vote what they believed. When Democrats made John Kerry their candidate, they were second-guessing themselves all the way to the ballot box, and that insincerity undermined their candidate’s chances.

This election cycle, I’ve seen my primary choice for President go down in flames early, John Edwards dropping out very early this year. After some consideration, I shifted my support to Hillary Clinton. She’s been hectored in the press for months and may soon lose her bid for the Democratic Party’s nomination. I still don’t buy Obama’s “change” as something I ever will support. If there were specific changes, maybe I could get behind them, but, as it stands, ”change” barely even rates as an empty promise. I’m not a Democrat so I don’t feel obligated to vote for Obama in November should he be the Democratic nominee for President. It’s likely, though, that I would vote for him as a vote against John McCain. I just want you readers to remember this: Your vote is your vote. It doesn’t belong to your party, your family, or your social circle. It’s yours to use as you please.

This year, the nation’s Democrats are being asked to choose between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their state’s primaries. So far, the Democratic electorate has been pretty equally split between the two. As an independent voter, registered in Oklahoma (I’m registering in California in plenty of time for the general election), the choice between the two has not been mine to make. I just have been watching with dismay as Clinton and Obama duke it out for a spot I’d wanted for John Edwards, beating myself up trying to figure out which candidate I’d prefer to vote for. I’ve chewed it over for weeks now, and I’ve surprised myself by arriving at the conclusion that I’d prefer Hillary.

Hillary? I lambasted her for years for her complicity in Bill Clinton’s cover-up of his affairs. It wasn’t just the lies I disliked. I actually would have been fine with them had they not occurred in court. I believe everyone deserves a fair day in court, and I thought Hillary’s participation in the Clinton cover-up was unforgivable. Time, however, heals wounds. At this point, that is ancient history. In the here and now, Hillary Clinton is a candidate for President, running a fierce race against Barack Obama, and I think there’s a case to be made for her.

Rather the case for Hillary is the case against Barack Obama. Barack Obama is running on the platform “Change You Can Believe In.” I don’t believe in change as a platform. First, change is a vague, pandering noun that plays on the weakness of the electorate, who may not know what they want, just that they want something else. Change promises something else without ever stating what that something else is. It gives hope without ever having to deliver. Barack has pledged to change the tone in Washington. Doesn’t every candidate promise that? In fact, even our current President promised it. He pledged to be “a uniter, not a divider.” The truth is that the President can’t effect that kind of change with the swipe of a pen on an Executive Order. In fact, politics in Washington is bigger than a President, or a Senator, or any part of the government. That’s the beauty of our system. I don’t believe in change; I believe in the strength of our system of government to solve our nation’s problems. Best, then, to elect someone familiar with that system, able to exploit it for the good of the country. That candidate would be Hillary Clinton, someone who has experience, if indirect, in the executive branch, someone who has excelled in the Senate.

Barack Obama wants you to show support for your dreams by voting for him. Washington can change and be better, the nation can change and be better, and you can change and be better. That’s an exciting message that clearly has engaged a lot of voters. If it were as easy as that, I’d throw my support behind him in a minute. Hillary Clinton, however, has already shown the willingness to work for that change, toiling in the face of public humiliation, and that has got to be worth a vote.

Tags: HillaryClinton, Barack Obama, election