Yesterday director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and Bloomberg News columnist Kevin Hasset reported at Bloomberg.com that Democrats are the ones who created the current financial crisis that we find ourselves in as a nation. According to his commentary, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “exploded” and injured many bystanders (some fatally). “Take away Fannie and Freddie, or regulate them more wisely, and it’s hard to imagine how these highly liquid markets would ever have emerged. This whole mess would never have happened.”

Hassett reports that as of the end of June 2008, “Fannie alone owned or guaranteed more than $388 billion in high-risk mortgage investments.” He continues (emphasis mine).

Some might say the current mess couldn’t be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie “continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,” he said. “We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.”

What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.

If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.

But the bill didn’t become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn’t even get the Senate to vote on the matter.

Hassett suggests that many Democrats may have opposed this bill due to the massive financial contributions they received from Fannie and Freddie. He continues (emphasis mine).

But we now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years.

Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.

Clinton, the 12th-ranked recipient of Fannie and Freddie PAC and employee contributions, has received more than $75,000 from the two enterprises and their employees. The private profit found its way back to the senators who killed the fix.

Hassett’s conclusion is remarkable (emphasis mine).

There has been a lot of talk about who is to blame for this crisis. A look back at the story of 2005 makes the answer pretty clear.

Oh, and there is one little footnote to the story that’s worth keeping in mind while Democrats point fingers between now and Nov. 4: Senator John McCain was one of the three cosponsors of S.190, the bill that would have averted this mess.

I’m guessing most of us haven’t heard that Democrats are to blame for the current financial crisis we’re experiencing.  It looks to me like Barack Obama and the majority of his Democratic Party were so blinded by money that they put themselves first and failed to do what was best for the country.

Please note that Kevin Hasset is also an adviser to Senator John McCain in the 2008 Presidential election.

I’m sure this shocked many on the left and many in the mainstream media, but the Republican convention was more watched than the Democratic convention AP Television Writer David Bauder reported today. He writes: “The Republican convention was the most-watched convention on television ever, beating a standard set by the Democrats a week earlier.” Also interesting is that John McCain and Barack Obama both were tied at 42.4 million viewers each for their respective party nomination speeches.

Overall, “more than 40 million people watched political speeches on three nights by Obama, McCain and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin,” Bauder reports. “Three times in two weeks, political speeches were watched by more people than the ‘American Idol’ finale, the Academy Awards and the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics this year.” Interestingly, speeches by Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton didn’t achieve these numbers.

According to Nielsen Media Research there were an average of 34.5 million people watching the GOP convention over three days. Nielsen suggested that “proved people are becoming more interested in what the Republicans have to say.” Nielsen reported that the Democrats had an average audience of 30.2 million over their convention’s four days. That’s more than 4 million viewers for the Republican convention.

Interesting numbers and interesting times. I think these latest numbers show a reinvigorated Republican Party due in large part to the inclusion of Sarah Palin on the ticket with John McCain.

From the early 1990s to the present it seems that the Democratic Party has been good for Bill and Hillary Clinton. But have the Clintons been good for the Democratic Party? I think not.

As President, Bill Clinton presided over a shrinking Democratic Party during an era of prosperity. In the 1994 Congressional elections we saw a historic switch in Party power that gave Republicans control of both chambers for the first time in a generation. Many feel he and his wife Hillary were catalysts in this transition.

Fast forward to 2007 to present and Hillary Clinton’s bid for the Democratic nomination for President. Recent efforts by her campaign, including her husband and former President Bill Clinton, seem to be polarizing the traditional Democratic coalition of white liberals, Hispanics and Black voters.

In her effort to attract a majority of the Democratic primary vote, Hillary Clinton’s campaign seems to be driving a wedge between Black and white voters in general and Black and Hispanic voters in particular. This is being done, I feel, by using racial stereotypes and drawing unfair comparisons to paint Barak Obama as the “black candidate.” Simultaneously, subtle suggestions are being made that Hispanics don’t support “black candidates” and thus should vote in block for the “white” candidate.

If I am right, and it seems many political pundits would agree, this is a very risky move for the longterm health of the Democratic Party, especially when when delivered by one some have called America’s “first Back President.” It effectively peals off a loyal block of voters and hangs them out to dry. Judging from history, a Republican Party with the ideals of Lincoln and a populist message like that coming from Mike Huckabee could once again attract a significant group of Black voters in the future.

With this in mind, I’m once again thinking about the Clintons and the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has been good for and to the Clintons but, apart from raising lots of money and attracting large crowds, the Clintons have not returned the favor. Instead, it seems that the Democratic Party is torn, twisted and harmed in the wake of a Clinton’s advance. Yes, I’d say the Democratic Party has been good for the Clintons but the Clintons have definitely not been good for the Democratic Party.

It seems that there is a lot of media attention being placed on the fact that Hillary Clinton teared up and got emotional during a campaign question today. While her move may have been planned in advance to show a human side to her otherwise rigid and calculating political image, I think we should ignore it and pay attention to what she actually says and spend less time debating her emotional disposition at the moment.

In the grand scheme of things, so what if she cried a little today? That fact alone doesn’t change who she is or where she stands in any way. It’s basically irrelevant and distracting to focus on this one instance and ignore her actual proposals.

Click here to view the embedded video.

While U.S. Senator Barack Obama officially announced his bid for President of the United States today, I find a few things strangely interesting. First, he is very young and relatively inexperienced. Second, he is no more black than he is white. Third, the Democratic race just got a lot more interesting. This leads me to a few conclusions.

First, I think Obama’s political youthfulness and inexperience can help him. It almost makes him a Washington outsider since he’s barely been there long enough to have been tainted by the water in that city. However, to counter this perceived advantage, inexperience has destroyed many young candidates. It’s easy to remember times in the last campaign when John Edwards and Wesley Clark said things came back to haunt them. (I guess you could say John Kerry did the same thing, though, and he has lots of experience in Washington — maybe the water got to him.)

Second, Obama’s father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas. His father black and his mother white. I don’t see how this makes him a true “black candidate” as so many say. It could be said he’s just as much a “white candidate” — that is if we must go around assigning race which I personally think is childish and counterproductive. To be honest, I don’t care what color a candidate is on the outside but I do care a lot about their color on the inside. For example, are they yellow when it comes to the War on Radical Islam? Are they green when it comes to good stewardship of our resources versus radical environmentalism? Are they red when it comes to government versus private ownership of property and distribution of wealth? In short, it matters a lot to me what a candidate’s vision, goals, policies, and heart look like.

Third, the Democratic primary will be a lot more interesting now with someone who can stand tall against the backdrop of Hillary Clinton. My take on this though is that Obama is running this time not for President but for Vice President. I think he’s trying to get Hillary’s attention and a spot on her ticket. I think he’s also looking to increase his power and prestige in the Senate by invoking national appeal.

So that’s my 3 cents for today on the entry of Barak Obama into the race.