• it keeps people from becoming homeless;
• gives people, especially the unemployed, extra income; and
• it keeps the houses from deteriorating and losing more value.

For people who have already been tossed out of their homes, they should be allowed to stay, for free, in a foreclosed home either in their neighborhood or in another area where they want to find a job. If they have no money, pay them to stay in and maintain the empty home. If they still have some money, let them stay in it for free.

It’s stupid to have all those empty houses, losing value because they are becoming more decrepit each day, with entire neighborhoods sad and neglected. Fill them with people who will maintain them and they breath life into those houses and neighborhoods.

Everything is possible? I disagree. Here’s what the Obama victory tells me about what is possible in America at this level.

(1) You need to be really smart: Barack went to Harvard Law School and became president of the Harvard Law Review. Do you know how hard it is to get into Law Review, let alone be elected president of HLR?

(2) You need lots of money: Obama raised more money than any candidate for public office in the universe.

(3) You need to work extremely hard and be very lucky: Obama spent two years running for office, raising money, getting people to volunteer, etc. The amount of work that went into getting him into the White House is just staggering to think about. It’s actually pretty depressing that it took this much to unseat the Republican Party, despite the horrible economy, fraud on Wall Street, the credit crisis, torture adopted as US government policy, Guantanamo, the incompetent response to hurricane Katrina, the failed war in Iraq, the fiasco in Afghanistan, gross violations of civil liberties in the US, the hideous Homeland Security and TSA, spying, privacy violations . . . the list goes on. Basically, you need a large asteroid to hit the earth before Americans STOP voting for a Republican.

And yet, despite all the problems, according to one poll I saw today, only about 44% of whites voted for Obama.

This is not to say that for immigrants from developing countries, the US is a lousy place. This is to say that unlike Thomas Friedman, I don’t think you necessarily end up with millions of dollars in your bank account, or in the top echelons of US politics, business and academia. The challenges are far greater than native-born Americans like to believe.

But also read about what happened behind the scenes at the Obama and McCain campaigns:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/obama-we-cant-solve-globa_n_141358.html

“This is their chance to get a black president and they seem to care little the he is at minimum a socialist and probably Marxist in his core beliefs . . . After all he is black- no experience or accomplishments but he is black.”

Read more here and download the GOP letter in all its racist glory (note the “let’s pray” at the end of the letter).

The Bonfire Night effigy will be loaded with explosives and torched at the site of the Battle of Hastings in East Sussex Photo: KENT NEWS AND PICTURES

“The Republican Governor of Alaska has been made into a giant effigy, with a tiny Barack Obama sitting behind her in a tin hat peppered with bullet holes with ‘O’Blimey’ written across it. The pit bull with lipstick will be loaded with explosives and torched at the site of the Battle of Hastings in East Sussex. The annual bonfire, hosted by the Battel Bonfire Boyes, on Nov 1 will be topped off with the 20ft effigy of the ‘hockey mom’ dressed as Rambo, complete with bulging muscles, a machine gun and with bullets draped over her neck.”

[From telegraph.co.uk]

• it did not mention McCain, Palin, or the Republican Party;
• no negative attacks against McCain or Palin, he stuck to the main message: the economy, healthcare, education and how the middle class in America is struggling;
• the people featured in the video were from the swing states, mostly older people (parents, retirees, auto workers) — surprisingly, no young people except for little children. I find this odd given that Obama has been targeting the youth vote since day one;
• most of the people who endorsed him were governors from swing states like Kansas, with the surprising appearance of Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.

Shortly after the video, which I watched on MSNBC, I saw a very negative McCain ad targeting Obama personally with the same old message that has not worked in the past two months. The contrast between the two campaigns could not be greater.

James Ridgeway on how Obama’s army of volunteers could prove key in this election | World news | guardian.co.uk:

Thousands of people sit together in campaign offices, union headquarters and living rooms calling up people they have never met. Thousands more troop through apartment buildings and walk the streets of suburban neighborhoods knocking on the doors of total strangers. Their numbers increase at night, when their own working days are over. Their targets are most likely to be homes, and mobile phone minutes are free. This kind of activity takes place across the US every four years – but never before on this scale. By all estimates, Barack Obama’s campaign is running the largest political field operation in history.

Update: indeed, it appears he won in California too.