|
Iowa and New Hampshire voters are unrelated, it seems. Obama and Huckabee won Iowa.
Clinton
and McCain won New Hampshire. Both have been the leaders of their
candidate packs, then left for dead, then came back. McCain was
the predicted victor in New Hampshire, but the pollsters uniformly
screwed up in showing Obama way ahead. Turnout set a record, as
it did in Iowa.
Here are the results:
On
trade, this is where I think they stand. I may insult you or your
candidate, but I can only rely on their words or their record.
McCain is the clearest of the victors - wacko free trader.
I’m a free trader. Since Phil Graham left, there’s no greater free
trader in the Senate than I am. I’m very concerned about
protectionism.
Clinton is unclear. She voted against CAFTA and claims to
oppose the Panama, South Korea and Panama trade agreements.
Clinton supports a pause on trade agreements, presumably to
re-evaluate. But she supported the Peru FTA and surrounds herself
with Robert Rubin Democrat advisors. Her husband pushed through
NAFTA over a decade ago, but I discount spousal initiative from over a
decade ago... standing alone.
Obama is unclear. He voted
against CAFTA but supported the Peru FTA. I don't know his public
position on the other pending trade agreements. He sticks with
the "labor and environmental" talking points about NAFTA. Too
simplistic. His chief economic advisor Austan Goolsbee,
does not necessarily buy the fact that trade deficits are bad.
However, a former Reagan administration trade person told me he expects
fair traders to marginalize Goolsbee down the road. We'll see.
Huckabee is unclear. He has never voted for or against any
trade-related law or agreement. He has proclaimed, on his campaign website,
"I believe in free trade, but it has to be fair trade." I don't
know what that means. His "fair tax" is a good starting point to
address the VAT tariff problem.
Trackback(0)
 |
TrackBack URI for this entry
Subscribe to this comment's feed