A Campaign Day in Iowa

From Des Moines, Urbandale, Oceola,
Chariton, Knoxville, and Pella

Iowa

The Iowa Caucuses will be held one week from last night, on January 3. After that few in national politics will darken Iowa's door again until sometime in the middle of 2011.

That's not a knock on Iowa or Iowans. That's the reality of the circus packing up and moving on.

As you know, I am a paid consultant to the Fred Thompson campaign. As we sprint to the finish, I suspect our campaign is very similar in its activities as the other major campaigns so, I thought it might be interesting for you to read about our day.

Iowa does not have a primary, it has a series of precinct caucuses.

SIDEBAR

Contrary to popular belief, the word "caucus" is not a Greek word which would make the plural "cauci" in the same way that more than one "alumnus" would be called "alumni."

According to the Merriam-Webster Third Unabridged, the origin of the word caucus is from the Algonquian Indian word "caucauasu" meaning "elder" or "counselor."

We're here to help.

END SIDEBAR

There are close to 2,000 separate precincts in Iowa, some are tiny and will have a handful of attendees. Others are large and may have several hundreds in attendance.

Nevertheless, the total number of Democrats who will go to their neighborhood grammar school or firehouse may be in the range of 120,000. On the GOP side the number of caucus-goers may be closer to 80,000.

To put that in perspective, in the 2000 primary election in South Carolina nearly 400,000 Republicans and Democrats participated.

Here in Iowa, every campaign is attempting to contact as many voters as possible using as many different techniques as they can: Mail, phones, paid radio and television, personal appearances and the press.

The Thompson campaign started yesterday shortly before 8:00 AM with phone calls from the candidate to foreign policy experts to discuss the implications of the murder of BenazirBhutto.

He then went to the downtown Des Moines Marriott to appear on WHO radio, the major station in the Des Moines market.

At about 11:00 Thompson did what is called a "Media Availability" or, in the shorthand of campaigns, a "press avail." This is a gaggle of reporters - print, radio, and TV - who stand in a semi-circle around the candidate while they fire questions for about 10 minutes.

This works well for both the media and the candidates because they are informal and can be set up by the press aides in a matter of minutes but give the candidates a chance to get a story moving and they give the media something to file quickly.

On the 15 minute drive to the Thompson Iowa headquarters in a suburb of Des Moines we got a call from Carl Cameron asking if he would be available for a live stand-up prior to a "Meet Fred Thompson" event for about 150 supporters there.

He would and he did that interview discussing the crisis in Pakistan.

Inside the HQ Thompson did his 15 minute stump speech, took another 15 minutes of questions from the audience, shook hands and allowed supporters to take pictures for another 15 minutes then it was back onto the bus for an hour drive to Oceola where he did a "Radio Town Hall."

It occurred to us that doing a town hall at a restaurant in a town like Oceola (pronounced Oh-see-OH-la" allowed Thompson to speak to the 75-100 people who could pack into the limited space.

However, if we got a local radio station to interview Thompson in front of those same 75-100 people, then 10 to 20 times that number might hear the program. It has been a very successful technique.

Radio Town Halls take about an hour so at about 2:30 pm (after an interview with the local newspaper and a call-in to a radio service which covers all of Iowa) we were back on the bus for the 40 minute drive to Chariton, Iowa.

Along the way we were asked if we would be willing to do an interview with CNN's John King if the satellite truck could get there. We would, but it didn't so the John King interview got recycled to Friday.

In Chariton we did an interview with the local weekly paper and did a walking tour around the town square - press corps in tow - and stopped into random stores. In this case a candy store, a general store and a beauty parlor.

The manager of the local radio station showed up and Thompson did an interview while walking around the town square.

Back on the bus for a 30 minute ride to Knoxville, Iowa (NOT Knoxville, Tennessee) during which CNBC called and asked if we would do an interview for the Larry Kudlow program if the satellite truck could get there. We would, it couldn't and that interview was recycled as well.

On the way Thompson did a radio interview with Fox Radio's John Gibson - who also hosts a program on Fox News Channel from five to six Eastern time.

At 6:30 Thompson went to the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame for a speech to another 100 people which lasted just under an hour giving us the chance to drive 30 minutes to Pella, Iowa get to our motel in time to do the lead segment of Hannity and Colmes at 8:00.

After dinner and brief look at the next day's schedule, we are all done for the day at just after 9:00 pm.

A standard 13 hour campaign day in Iowa.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: The dictionary entry for "caucus"; a Mullfoto typical of an Iowa campaign day and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Wrong way to start the last campaign swing

I am on the All-Across-Iowa tour with the Fred Thompson campaign which will take us to 1,573 cities in all 42,000 counties between now (now being the evening of December 26) and the Iowa caucuses on January 3.

We flew in from Washington, made good time, the tour bus was waiting, Sen. Thompson stepped off the plane and walked to the general aviation terminal and I stepped lightly from the plane, my feet slipped out from under me on the icy tarmac and I fell flat on my butt.

Amazingly, given where many of you have accused me of having my head, I didn't suffer a serious concussion.

More later,

Rich

Christmas 2007 - Six Words

Click here for an Easy Print Version

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[NOTE: This is an edited version of the column from Christmas 2003 which was written from Tikrit and Baghdad. For the full version, go to: Good Morning Mesopotamia

-----

It is 10:45 PM on Christmas Eve here in Baghdad. The space in which I work is a large barn of a room we call the Green Room even though the walls are more blue than green.

The Air Force folks set up a white board against one of the greenish walls, borrowed a projector used for presentations, and put the DVD of "It's a Wonderful Life" into a computer.

George Bailey has been declared, by his brother, "the richest man in town," and Clarence has just won his wings.

Still holds up.

Earlier tonight the bad guys tried to prove that neither Saddam's capture [about two weeks previous] nor Christmas meant anything to them by launching mortar attacks. They didn't hit much but they kept us all on edge.

Because of the attacks, the young Marines who nightly come in to use our phones to call home are missing. They are out protecting us. They will probably patrol all night. We will let them use our phones tomorrow.

All over Iraq - all over the globe - there are young people like our Marines who are out protecting us. They are Army, and Air Force, and Navy personnel who are not home tonight and will not be home tomorrow.

Most of them will get to a phone or, at a minimum, a computer with which to share a moment with their families.

They are not sad, these young people. They are committed to doing what they have been trained to do.

They want to go home. And they will, most of them. But for tonight, it is another night on duty, in a building, a ship, or a tent and, depending upon where they are, they might or might not have inside plumbing.

-----

Christmas goodies are strewn everywhere. Care packages of candy and cookies have been flooding in to the Green Room as, I suspect, they have everywhere in the theater.

The rule is: You open the box and leave it on the floor next to your desk. Anyone who comes by is welcome to take whatever appeals.

The big winner is Oreo's Double Stuff. Can't keep them in stock around here.

-----

It is now just after midnight; and so it is Christmas in the Middle East, not all that far from where it all began.

The military's chief public affairs officer, Col. Bill Darley, just stopped by my desk to tell me, in that sad, but professional way military people have, that two soldiers have been killed by explosive devices this evening. That makes five this Christmas Eve day. We had heard that the terrorists would be using today to make a point.

They have.

They have proven themselves to be heartless cowards who have nothing but hatred in their souls.

Col. Darley is the intellectual of the outfit. On the day of Saddam's capture he told me that was "the apotheosis of my military career."

Apotheosis is not a word you hear military men throwing around every day. In fact it might have been the first time in military history that someone in uniform had used it correctly in a sentence.

A remarkable man, Col. Bill Darley. One of 130,000 remarkable men and women here on this Christmas Day, 2003.

-----

All over Iraq these men and women - old enough to have children, but young enough to be someone's child - all over Iraq they will be calling home this day, or e-mailing, or instant messaging; renewing the connection between parent and child; or child and parent.

Each renewal will end with the same six words, six words I share with you this day and which come from my heart and from the hearts of every person who is here to do this vitally important job.

You can watch them - even the battle-hardened Marines - as they are on our phones, staring across the 10,000 miles between a desk in the Green Room in the Palace in Baghdad, and the phone on the wall of their mom's kitchen. The phone that has been there since before they were tall enough to reach it.

They stare across that 10,000 miles and they listen.

And then so quietly.

And so gently.

And so tenderly.

These tough, young war-fighters; just before they have to hang up the phone and break that most cherished connection, they each say the same six words which end the conversation:

"Merry Christmas;

I love you, too."

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: A photo from that night showing the indomitable spirit of Americans - civilians and military - who will make the best of the worst of circumstances.

Christmas 2007 - Six Words

Click here for an Easy Print Version

---

[NOTE: This is an edited version of the column from Christmas 2003 which was written from Tikrit and Baghdad. For the full version, go to: Good Morning Mesopotamia

-----

It is 10:45 PM on Christmas Eve here in Baghdad. The space in which I work is a large barn of a room we call the Green Room even though the walls are more blue than green.

The Air Force folks set up a white board against one of the greenish walls, borrowed a projector used for presentations, and put the DVD of "It's a Wonderful Life" into a computer.

George Bailey has been declared, by his brother, "the richest man in town," and Clarence has just won his wings.

Still holds up.

Earlier tonight the bad guys tried to prove that neither Saddam's capture [about two weeks previous] nor Christmas meant anything to them by launching mortar attacks. They didn't hit much but they kept us all on edge.

Because of the attacks, the young Marines who nightly come in to use our phones to call home are missing. They are out protecting us. They will probably patrol all night. We will let them use our phones tomorrow.

All over Iraq - all over the globe - there are young people like our Marines who are out protecting us. They are Army, and Air Force, and Navy personnel who are not home tonight and will not be home tomorrow.

Most of them will get to a phone or, at a minimum, a computer with which to share a moment with their families.

They are not sad, these young people. They are committed to doing what they have been trained to do.

They want to go home. And they will, most of them. But for tonight, it is another night on duty, in a building, a ship, or a tent and, depending upon where they are, they might or might not have inside plumbing.

-----

Christmas goodies are strewn everywhere. Care packages of candy and cookies have been flooding in to the Green Room as, I suspect, they have everywhere in the theater.

The rule is: You open the box and leave it on the floor next to your desk. Anyone who comes by is welcome to take whatever appeals.

The big winner is Oreo's Double Stuff. Can't keep them in stock around here.

-----

It is now just after midnight; and so it is Christmas in the Middle East, not all that far from where it all began.

The military's chief public affairs officer, Col. Bill Darley, just stopped by my desk to tell me, in that sad, but professional way military people have, that two soldiers have been killed by explosive devices this evening. That makes five this Christmas Eve day. We had heard that the terrorists would be using today to make a point.

They have.

They have proven themselves to be heartless cowards who have nothing but hatred in their souls.

Col. Darley is the intellectual of the outfit. On the day of Saddam's capture he told me that was "the apotheosis of my military career."

Apotheosis is not a word you hear military men throwing around every day. In fact it might have been the first time in military history that someone in uniform had used it correctly in a sentence.

A remarkable man, Col. Bill Darley. One of 130,000 remarkable men and women here on this Christmas Day, 2003.

-----

All over Iraq these men and women - old enough to have children, but young enough to be someone's child - all over Iraq they will be calling home this day, or e-mailing, or instant messaging; renewing the connection between parent and child; or child and parent.

Each renewal will end with the same six words, six words I share with you this day and which come from my heart and from the hearts of every person who is here to do this vitally important job.

You can watch them - even the battle-hardened Marines - as they are on our phones, staring across the 10,000 miles between a desk in the Green Room in the Palace in Baghdad, and the phone on the wall of their mom's kitchen. The phone that has been there since before they were tall enough to reach it.

They stare across that 10,000 miles and they listen.

And then so quietly.

And so gently.

And so tenderly.

These tough, young war-fighters; just before they have to hang up the phone and break that most cherished connection, they each say the same six words which end the conversation:

"Merry Christmas;

I love you, too."

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: A photo from that night showing the indomitable spirit of Americans - civilians and military - who will make the best of the worst of circumstances.

The MULLINGS Person of the Year

Click here for an Easy Print Version

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From Carroll, Denison, Atlantic, Missouri Valley
and Council Bluffs

Iowa

As we move into the fading days of 2007, every organization will be proclaiming their ____ of the year.

The Associated Press will have its Top Ten Stories of the year. ESPN will have its Top Ten Sports Highlights. There is even a site which has the Top Ten Astronomy Photos of the year.

Time Magazine used to make a big deal about its "Man of the Year." Political correctness overtook Time and they changed it to the "Person of the Year" although it is not clear to me why they couldn't name it "Man" or "Woman" of the Year depending upon the gender of the … person, but that's just me.

This year Time Magazine has chosen Vladimir Putin as its Crypto-Communist-Dictator of the Year.

The Time editors make the point that the "Person of the Year" is not a prize nor an endorsement. They state they chose Putin because;

[H]e has performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of world power.

The title of the section in which the editors explain their selection is: "Choosing Order Before Freedom"

"Stability" is the battle cry of despots and the siren song of lost liberty.

It may well be that Russians don't want freedom or liberty. Living under the rule of Tsars starting with Ivan the Terrible in 1547, only to see them replaced by the benignly named but similarly empowered "Party Secretaries" for the better part of the 20th century, Russians have breathed the air of freedom for a bare matter of months.

Vladimir Putin took control of a country which had descended into a medieval structure of competing mafia-style warlords in armored Mercedes Benz' who had seized control of the levers of political, cultural, and economic power.

In the ensuing eight years Putin (who has a law degree and a Ph.D. in economics) used many of the same techniques to consolidate power in the office of the President offering Russians the societal warmth of centralized "stability" in trade for the cold, harsh realities of individual freedom.

Inasmuch as I am blessed to live in the United States of America where freedom and stability are the regular order of our existence, it is too easy for me to reproach those who would trade one for the other.

But, in setting an example of the value of stability at the price of freedom in Russia, Vladimir Putin is drawing a blue-print for other dictators-in-waiting around the world to make the same case to their people.

Freedom, not stability has been the yardstick of civilization's evolution.

Who is my choice for "Person of the Year?"

General David Patraeus.

At its broadest, General Patraeus (whom I first met when he was the Division Commander of the 101st Airborne in Iraq) is proving to Iraqis that they need not make a pact with the devil to trade their freedom for stability.

He is helping Iraqis understand that waiting for freedom to be imposed upon them from Baghdad has led to the instability of the past five years has been the wrong approach.

That allowing tribal, provincial and even religious leaders to apportion power and assume the responsibilities of political leadership is leading to the people in town after town, city after city, and province after province to freely govern themselves in peaceful stability.

Perhaps the Iraqis were finding their way to this bottom-up solution on their own. But General David Patraeus appears to have helped clear the road to freedom in Iraq as no previous commander has been able to do.

For helping Iraqis turn the corner onto the road leading to their own future, General David Patraeus is the MULLINGS "Person of the Year."

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Time Magazine website, and bios of Vladimir Putin and David Patraeus. Also a Mullfoto from Iowa which will make you bundle up and a Catchy Caption of the Day which will make you want to open your piggybank.

Good News for the GOP

From New Orleans, LA

The Pelican State Pachyderms' Annual Dinner

There has been very good news for the GOP over the past few weeks, which has gone unnoticed in the laser focus on the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

You may have noted a recurring theme in the Popular Press: How the disillusion, disappointment, disenchantment and dissatisfaction among Republican voters with the GOP is likely to lead to the end of the Republican Party as we know it.

The PP looks at the five major candidates in the Republican Presidential race being within 10-or-so percentage points of one another as evidence that Republican voters don't like any of them.

How about this as an alternative theory: ANY of the five will be acceptable to the overwhelming percentage of Republican voters in a race for President against Hillary.

As to that conventional wisdom that Republicans are so unhappy with their lot in life that they will sit on their couches watching the Fox News Channel 24/7 rather than getting out to vote let me present to you the following bits of good news.

Last week there were two special elections for Congress - one in Virginia and one in Ohio. You may remember that Ohio has become the toxic waste dump of Republican politics.

The Thompson campaign (to which I am a paid advisor) rolled through Columbus, Ohio about 10 days ago and Fred Thompson recorded a "get out and vote" video at the behest of the Ohio Republican Party.

We were told that the GOP candidate - in a district which has been in Republican hands since shortly after the Big Bang - was behind by about five percentage points.

Bob Latta came back to win that election keeping the seat in Republican control.

In Virginia, Rob Whitman won the special election in another Republican district. Virginia is not Ohio, but the loss of a US Senate seat and the election of a Democrat for Governor has put Virginia in play in the Presidential contest.

If either race had gone to the Democrat the Popular Press would have used it as a harbinger of bad things to come next November.

Here in Louisiana, Republican Congressman Bobby Jindal won the election for Governor. NPR noted that when Jindal (whose parents were born in India) is sworn in next month he "will become Louisiana's first non-white governor since Reconstruction."

Wait a minute, there Bobalouie. You mean to tell me that a non-White candidate in a Southern state was elected Governor and he was a Republican?

Where's the Time Magazine cover for the "New Face of the Republican Party?"

In Louisiana, the Republican Party has gone from one state-wide office holder to, I believe, five. They have picked up seats in the State House and State Senate. I noted that Louisiana has gone from "Laughingstock to Leadership in American politics in the past four years."

SIDEBAR

I also pointed out that, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Governor-elect Jindal has "tapped a top aide to Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu to be the new executive director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the state agency responsible for guiding hurricane recovery."

The name of the top aide? Paul Rainwater.

I said I thought it was mildly amusing that a guy named "Rainwater" would be running the program to fix the problems caused by hurricane flooding.

The crowd didn't think it was nearly as funny as I did.

END SIDEBAR

Republicans in the US House and Senate got fired for malfeasance leading to the Democrats' take-over of both Houses in 2006. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco's nonfeasance in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita set the stage for the GOP resurgence here in 2007.

According to RealClearPolitics.com, a recent CBS/NY Times poll has Congressional approval at 21 percent - well below President Bush's approval ratings.

Competence counts.

Before Democrats begin measuring for drapes in the White House and Cabinet Department offices, they may want to stop and take another look.

It appears that voters may well be doing that exact thing.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the reports on the Ohio special, Jindal's election and RealClearPolitics.com; A Mullfoto of the Mullmeister and Jindal and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

Yuletide Cleanup

Click here for an Easy Print Version

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Spring Cleaning is supposed to be a big deal in America. There is a mythology about opening the windows and airing out the house as the weather warms.

I do not personally know a single person who, upon the arrival of the vernal equinox, feels the stirrings of their Clean-Up gene becoming active.

In ancient civilizations there were rites celebrating the end of Winter and the coming of the Spring planting season. In modern America we engage in the Rite-Of-The-Changing-Of-The-Furnace-Filters in celebration of moving the little switch under the thermostat on living room wall from HEAT to COOL.

Spring cleaning, it turns out, has nothing on the tumult of tidying which occurs as Christmas approaches.

A visitor from a future time might think this activity was to make the home neat and orderly should Jesus decide to do a drop-by. Or, for those with a more secular bent, so that Santa would think "nice" (not "naughty") when he dropped down the chimney and picked out presents to leave under the tree.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It all has to do with MY MOTHER IS COMING TO MY HOUSE FOR CHRISTMAS!

Substitute BROTHER, SISTER, NEIGHBOR, BOSS, or any of the many flavors of IN-LAW and the theory works equally well.

One of the problems with Christmas occurring in the dead of Winter in the northern climes is that it is cold when this cleaning activity occurs so there is a natural and understandable reticence to doing anything which will require opening the door to the garage.

At MULLINGS Central the den is my room. I am the only person who ever enters the den. The Mullings Director of Standards & Practices has no reason to go in there because she is the queen of all of the other rooms in the house.

I was informed, as this past weekend loomed, that it might be a good idea to "do something about the den."

Push out the front wall of the house and make it larger? Buy a 72" flat screen HD television? Install a slot in the wall behind the couch so the Dominos guy can just slide the pizza in and I can push the money out? Install a bathroom so I won't have to go all the way up one flight of stairs to the main floor during half time?

As you well know, the "something" which was to be done was to straighten it up. And when I say straighten it up I mean move, REmove, dispose of, discard, toss, and stack the many important items which have accumulated in there since last Christmas.

To make her point, she placed two large plastic tubs in the middle of the den floor - or where the den floor would have been had it not been covered with the stuff to be placed into the tubs.

When I say two large plastic tubs, I mean these were the size of boxcars.

And I filled them both.

The stuff that men collect is, to us, just as important as women's the shoe collections. Doesn't matter that women never wear 98% of the shoes in their closets; they just feel better knowing they are there.

I have a complete set of Washington Nationals opponents' media guides which, because they are from last season, are useless.

I have books on CD which I will never listen to again (if I ever did in the first place).

I have cheap mystery novels which are my airplane reading when I'm supposed to be reading political treatises.

I have a collection of pens from every hotel we have stayed at during the course of this Presidential campaign even though I like to use a fountain pen.

I have all manner of connectors for which the items they were used have long since been worn-out, lost, or damaged.

I filled both bins and shoved the rest into the closet which, if the door doesn't burst open from the pressure of the sweaters, jackets, hats, boots, and assorted electronic gizmology I shoved in there, will serve as the perfect storage place until Christmas is over, the relatives go home, and I can put everything back where it was.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A scientific explanation of an equinox which, prior to my reading it, I thought I understood, a link to a site about Bali; a Yuletide Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

A Positive Move on Mortgages

FINAL

D A Y

This is the final day of the annual MULLING Subscription Drive. For those of you who have subscribed, thank you.

For those of you who have been meaning to, today would be the perfect day to go to the Subscription Renewal Page and subscribe.

If you can't subscribe this year, please enjoy MULLINGS on me.

I you can, please take a second now and go to the Subscription Renewal Page.

Thank you.

Rich

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You might have heard or read about the situation in home mortgages. Over the past decade, or so, the prices of residential housing has been rising and rising and rising leading to people to buy larger and more expensive houses than they could afford.

I am not a housing or mortgage expert, but I believe this to be approximately the way it worked.

The arithmetic is simple: If you have a $100,000 house whose value is rising at 20% per year has the effect of being a part-time job earning an additional $20,000.

So, the theory went, if you can score a house worth $250,000 and IT is rising at 20% per year, your part-time job is now $50,000 per year.

Under traditional lending rules, if you wanted to buy a house worth $100,000 you would first have to plunk down $20,000 as a down payment leaving $80,000 to be financed.

According to one mortgage calculator site, a 30-year, 5.75% loan for 80 grand would require a monthly payment of $466.86 per month.

If you wanted to buy a house worth $250,000 and you wanted to finance the entire amount, a 30-year fixed mortgage would be $1,458.93 per month.

Many people couldn't afford $1,400 a month so new, modern, non-traditional mortgage "products" were invented - under the general heading of "Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) - which would allow you to pay far less. Maybe not much more than the amount you would have to pay for that $100,000 house.

But two things were going on: First, the additional $1,000 per month you SHOULD have been paying wasn't being forgiven; it was being added to the price of the house. So, after one year your $250,000 house now had a mortgage of $262,000 ($1,000 x 12 months).

Second, the "introductory rate" of 5.75 percent would "reset" to something on the order of 11% beginning in 2008.

At that point, instead of a monthly payment of about $500 for your quarter of a million dollar house, you would have to pay the full amount of nearly $2,500 per month ($262,000 at 11% for 30 years).

Most of us don't have a spare two grand per month sitting around looking for something to be spent on and in short order your mortgage would fall behind, go into default and, ultimately your house would be foreclosed and be the proud possession of whatever organization ended up owning your mortgage.

I understand there are other costs involved, mortgage insurance, fees, closing costs, etc, but as I said, this is approximately the way it worked.

Came the bursting of the housing bubble and suddenly your $250,000 house wasn't rising in value by $50,000 per year. In fact, it wasn't rising in value at all. In many markets your house was losing value because others with sub-prime mortgages found themselves in the same situation of being unable to pay a mortgage four or five times higher than when they first moved in, so houses were being dumped on the market driving down values for all the houses in a neighborhood.

The White House as well as the Treasury Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have worked out a plan with the major mortgage lenders which according to the White House Fact Sheet will help people with sub-prime mortgages either

- Have their interest rate frozen for up to five years;

- Move them into an FHA loan; or

- Refinance an existing loan into a new private mortgage.

This program will not affect everyone with an unaffordable ARM. According to USA Today's summary, it only applies to people who live in their houses; whose mortgages are now current, and who have not missed more than one payment in the previous 12 months. There are other qualifications which you can read on the Secret Decoder Ring page but those are the major points.

A home mortgage is a contract. Contracts are renegotiated all the time on the theory that 80% of something is better than 100% of nothing. Home mortgages are not generally re-written because homeowners don't generally have the clout to go against a major bank the way an airline or auto maker does.

This appears to be a good deal for everyone concerned. There is no taxpayer money involved. It is a deal worked out with lenders who, otherwise, would be facing perhaps an additional 1.2 MILLION foreclosures. And, people who have been living up to their end of the bargain, will be able to stay in their homes.

The Bush Administration deserves kudos for getting this done as quickly as it has.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the White House Fact Sheet, the Mortgage Calculator website and the USA Today Q & A on the program.

Also a Mullfoto of a scene which was so strange, I went around the block, parked, and took it; and a Catchy Caption of the Day found by Mullpal Ginny Wolfe.

Finally, the Pundits Were Right

FINAL WEEK!

This is the final week of the annual MULLING Subscription Drive. If you've been thinking that maybe you should kick in the 58 cents per week it takes to keep MULLINGS going, today would be the perfect day to go to the Subscription Renewal Page and subscribe.

Please take a second now and go to the Subscription Renewal Page.

Thank you.

Rich

-----

Two hundred and seventy three years ago, when this Presidential election cycle began, it was generally agreed that it would be the most wide-open election for President since at least 1952.

There is no sitting President or Vice President in either party to claim the title of "Nominee Presumptive." That has not happened since Harry Truman's Vice President, Alben Barkley, decided that, as he would be 75 years old shortly after election day, he would not run for election as President.

On the Democratic side, the closest thing to a sure bet has been Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) whose campaign has been based on the inevitability of her nomination and eventual election.

On the Republican side, the early favorite was Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) who, the theory went, was next-in-line among GOP primary voters because of his run in 2000.

The McCain campaign had to go into Chapter 11 in mid-year when the amount of money it could raise did not match the amount of money called for in the campaign plan, and ceded the title of front-runner to Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The Clinton campaign was caught unawares by the ferocity of support for Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and has had to raise and spend enormous amounts of money to maintain its lead in the national polls.

Polls are now being released on an average of every 47 minutes. There is a basic principal that political pros use to read polls and that is to treat them like the scoring in Olympic figure skating competitions: You throw out the high and the low score (knowing that, back in the day, the East Germans and the French were cheating) and the remaining scores are probably pretty close to what actually happened on the ice.

Current research is extremely difficult to read on a poll-by-poll basis because you have to know if the pollster is testing all adults, registered voters, or likely voters, and whether the poll is looking at national results or the results within a specific state.

This week, a USAToday/Gallup poll was released and showed Hillary Clinton was still leading nationally but her support among Democrats had slid from 48% - tantalizingly close to the coveted 50% mark - down to only 39%. That is still a lead of 15 percentage points over Obama, but a long way from the 26 point lead she had enjoyed only two weeks previous.

On the GOP side, Rudy Giuliani's support nationally has gone from 34% in September to only 25% in this week's poll. Among the rest of the GOP field, Mike Huckabee has gone from essentially an asterisk to 16% in this poll putting him, according to Gallup "essentially in a tie" with former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN) and McCain at 15% and former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) at 12%.

[Reminder: I am a paid consultant to the Fred Thompson campaign.]

Of more interest to the political pros are the state-by-state polls which are not conducted with the same regularity as the national polls.

On the D side, Clinton - who has been leading in Iowa as well as nationally - saw Obama leap frog over her in the most recent major poll which was conducted by the Des Moines Register. According to the Register Obama is now the choice of 28% of Iowa Dems while Clinton's national slide is mirrored in Iowa going from 29% in the previous poll to 25% in the survey release last Sunday.

Among Rs, Huckabee - who has spent about $12.73 total - has bulleted ahead of Romney - who may have spent some $8 MILLION in Iowa alone - by a span of five percentage points: 29% to 24%. In the previous Register poll, Huckabee was at 13% and Romney was at 29% meaning there has been a net change of 21 percentage points.

Does that mean Huckabee and Obama will emerge from Iowa on January 3 to march, with the "Big Mo" five days later, into the New Hampshire Primaries?

No. It is quite possible that John Edwards will make a late run in Iowa on the D side and Thompson (or even Ron Paul - remember where you read it first - may be the surprise of the Republican caucuses.

The only thing the Official Political Pundits have gotten correct about all this is: Even less than 30 days out from the Iowa Caucuses, no one knows what is going to happen.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the Gallup and Des Moines Register analyses of their polls; a Mullfoto which will put a smile on the face of 2nd Amendment fans everywhere, and a Catchy Caption of the Day.

More "Defeats" for George Bush

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As we've discussed before, everything that happens, anywhere in the world is now being described a "a defeat for George Bush."

Two such "defeats for George Bush" came to light this past week - and I'm not even counting West Virginia's loss to Pittsburgh which helped vault LSU and Ohio State into the BCS title game in January.

First came the news that John Murtha (D-Pa) who has been mentor to, and ally of, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) had changed his mind on Iraq.

For years Murtha has been among the most outspoken critics of the war in Iraq. According to Investor's Business Daily, Murtha said that President Bush's surge strategy was "delusional to say the least."

"I'm absolutely convinced right now the surge isn't working," and "there's no way you're going to have success," he told ABC in June.

According to Politico.com in July, Murtha (who is also Chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee) told CNN's Wolf Blitzer

"As I said earlier, and you heard me say it, it's a failed policy wrapped in illusion. Nothing's gotten better."

But, after visiting Iraq last month he said "in a videoconference from his congressional district office, 'I think the surge is working.'"

And what will Speaker Pelosi be swayed by this Murtha revelation? Again, according the Politico

"This could be a real headache for us," said one top House Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Pelosi is going to be furious."

A senior aide publicly admits that the Speaker of the House is rooting for America to fail in Iraq and it goes virtually unnoticed by the media (or, for that matter, by any of the Candidates for President).

The Murtha Conversion: Obviously, a defeat for George Bush.

The second defeat for the US President came just last night when it was reported by, amongst others, CNN:

"Venezuelan voters narrowly rejected a constitutional referendum that would have bolstered President Hugo Chavez's embrace of socialism and granted an indefinite extension of his eligibility to serve as president."

Venezuelan voters, according to the LA Times,

"defeated a package of constitutional reforms that could have indefinitely extended President Hugo Chavez's grip on power here. It was a shocking electoral loss for the strongman, his first in nine years at the helm."

This is the guy, you remember, who called President Bush "the Devil" during a formal speech at the United Nations and is an avowed Socialist.

According to the LA Times,

Even Venezuelans living below the poverty line -- the bedrock of Chavez's power base -- have grown increasingly skeptical about the reforms and disenchanted with Chavez.

It seems that even with all the oil revenue from Citgo, which the Voice of America calls "the American arm of Venezuela's state-owned oil company," the poorest in places like Caracas are being shortchanged.

Again, from the LAT:

"Ill feeling was being driven by higher prices and scarcities of basic foods, including milk, chicken and beans. Last week, people waited three hours in lines to purchase staples at some government-run grocery stores."

Anyone who visited an Eastern Bloc country before the fall of Communism will tell you the same story of people standing in long lines outside of a shop in Sofia, Bulgaria because a rumor had spread that butter, or milk, or toilet paper was being delivered that day.

Or walking into a pharmacy in Bucharest where there were two shopkeepers but only one item on the shelves. Not 273 copies of the same item … One item. Period.

Socialism is failing in Venezuela in the 21st Century just as it did in Eastern Europe in the 20th.

If this isn't a "defeat for George Bush," I don't know what is.

On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to the IBD, Politico and LAT stories noted above; a Mullfoto showing the speed of our plane Saturday night flying from Los Angeles to Washington; and a Catchy Caption of the Day.