For the first time Monday I heard John McCain comparing Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter. I had heard this before in other arenas, but not from McCain. I guess that despite these two presidential candidates pledging to the American people to bring change and resist politics as usual, they are both, as usual as one could get.

Obama is being shaped by the pressures of running for office and to believe otherwise is delusional. I suppose one has to have hope but the effects of the campaign are becoming clear. Obama has been painting McCain as an extension of Bush, which is nonsense, and now in a typical tit-for-tat response, McCain is filling the air with Carter references.

Both McCain and Obama are wrong in their assessments of their opponents and they are becoming commoners to resort to the bottom of the barrel campaign techniques used in every campaign for most of our nation's proud history. Obama gave up the high ground too easily and McCain has decided he can sling mud with the best of them.

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that Senator Barack Obama's bid for the presidency will be endorsed by three former Securities and Exchange Commission chairmen: George W. Bush appointee William Donaldson, Clinton appointee Arthur Levitt, and Reagan appointee David Ruder.

First of all: how many of you plan to factor in the endorsement of former heads of the SEC into your pick for president? That's what I thought.

But it's still interesting. Reality aside, Levitt and Donaldson are generally viewed as having been strong pro-investor advocates, mainly because they were good at pretending to take strong action against Wall Street malfeasance. Of course Enron's accounting was approved under Levitt's tenure but hey, nobody's perfect, right?

I'm not even sure why Levitt, Ruder, and Donaldson feel like they should endorse presidential candidates. Nobody cares! Barbra Streisand endorsed Hillary Clinton, and that's what really matters.

While Congressional Democrats and candidates for the presidency have spoken out in favor of more extensive help for distressed homeowners, the leaders of the Republican Party, including John McCain, have been more reluctant to support a bailout of people who bought houses they couldn't afford.

This is putting congressmen representing those areas hardest hit by foreclosures in a bind, as their constituents plead for help. What are they supposed to do?

This may be a case of a silent majority of people who oppose a bailout but aren't making much noise. People who are desperate to hang onto their houses tend to be louder than regular joes who just don't want their tax money being used for bailouts of irresponsible people -- Who wants to be seen as a judgmental curmudgeon?

I worry that politicians will compound the housing industry's problems because of political pressure, making doing the rational thing -- which may very well be nothing -- basically impossible.

When John McCain, in a rare moment of coherence got it right, the backlash was immediate, with an enthusiastic mob comparing him to Herbert Hoover.

The best bet for Republicans here is probably to stick to their guns on the no-bailout platform, and hope that the silent majority will get behind them.

I never thought I'd be doing a post praising John McCain's wisdom, but here goes.

In the midst of calls from members of both parties for a big government intervention in the mortgage crisis, John McCain said in a speech in Los Angeles that "it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers."

Exactly -- Senator McCain is saying what needs to be said but isn't being said because of election-year politics. Democrats and some Republicans appear to be making a bet that you will win very few votes by saying that some people should lose their homes.

He added that "Some Americans bought homes they couldn't afford, betting that rising prices would make it easier to refinance later at more affordable rates ... Of those 80 million homeowners, only 55 million have a mortgage at all, and 51 million homeowners are doing what is necessary - working a second job, skipping a vacation and managing their budgets to make their payments on time. That leaves us with a puzzling situation: how could 4 million mortgages cause this much trouble for us all?"

While he should be commended for opening up his tax records, Democratic Presidential front-runner Barack Obama and wife Michelle should be embarrassed at the negligible amount of money donated to charity. According to a report in Bloomberg.com, " Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle gave $10,772 of the $1.2 million they earned from 2000 through 2004 to charities, or less than 1 percent, according to tax returns for those years released today by his campaign."

To be fair to them they did up their giving a bit in '05-'06 after they cashed in on his book. Interesting to note that in that 2-year span they brought in $2.6 million. $2.6 million later and Michelle is still not proud to be an American. Humm???

For someone who believes that we need to change society and make things better, he sure sets a lousy example. After all, I thought he is all about giving back to the community. Well the community can't do very much with a couple of bucks.

Once again we find the hypocrisy of politicians. They know best how to make society better, and they have no problem taxing us to pay for it. But when it comes time for the politician to open up his own wallet, suddenly some excuse arises and they are unable to do so. Isn't that called a double standard?

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer's fund has no position in any stock mentioned, as of 3/25/08.

Maybe it took the prospect of going down to an inglorious defeat to a relative political novice to get Hillary Clinton to loosen up.

In the last 72 hours, the New York senator has appeared on both "Saturday Night Live" and "The Daily Show." On both appearances, she was calm, relaxed and natural, qualities that have been decidedly lacking in her campaign. The question heading into today's important Texas and Ohio primaries is whether this new -- or is it new, new? -- Hillary will resonate with voters.

The latest Zogby polls shows that Clinton is leading challenger Barack Obama 47% to 44% in Texas. Both candidates are deadlocked in Ohio at 44%. "The latest polling numbers are promising for Clinton, but with 8% of likely Democratic voters undecided in Ohio and 7% undecided in Texas both candidates have work to do today," writes Jessica Fargen of the Boston Herald. "Texas offers 228 delegates, Ohio 164."

Obama's honeymoon with the media -- which lasted an unusually long time -- also is coming to an end. The Illinois senator's campaign has stumbled somewhat in how it responded to criticisms that its opposition to NAFTA -- a critical issue in Ohio -- was less than genuine. Moreover, his one-time political benefactor Antonin Rezko is on trial for political corruption in Chicago.

But this rebound from Clinton may be too little too late. Unless she stuns political pundits and wins huge, pressure will mount on her to quit the race.

Okay, I'm filing this under "things you get to do if you have more money than God."

On Thursday, Mike Bloomberg, mad genius, obscenely rich guy, and mayor of New York, announced that he would not be pursuing an independent Presidential run in 2008. The next day, he followed that up with a statement that he is considering backing another Presidential candidate ("Backing," in this context, translates into "roughly a billion dollars in campaign funding"). While everyone has assumed that he is planning on helping one of the three current front-runners, his vague wording opens up another possibility.

You see, when Bloomberg announced that he had decided not to run, he stated that an independent candidate "could win the race," but that it wouldn't be him. This makes perfect sense: the relatively poor showing of previous independents, coupled with the fact that being perceived as a "spoiler" tends to make one incredibly unpopular, convinced the big B that he didn't want to wreck his career on a failed candidacy. However, just because he doesn't want to be 2008's Ralph Nader doesn't mean that he is willing to completely turn his back on the White House. After all, why should he risk his neck when there are so many other people willing to put themselves out there?

He made hundreds of millions of dollars running Bain Capital, but Mitt Romney won't be running the U.S. He announced this afternoon that he is ending his run for the presidency. No doubt, countless Mormons and private equity lobbyists have gone into mourning.

Technically, Romney is "suspending" his campaign. This means that he will keep the delegates he won in his primary victories in Massachusetts, Michigan and Utah. This will give him some influence in the process of selecting the eventual Republican nominee.

Although Romney was a great success in the world of private equity, it didn't seem to help him in the national campaign. Mike Huckabee's line about the essential coldness of private equity investors -- "I believe most Americans want their next president to remind them of the guy they work with, not the guy who laid them off" -- was pretty devastating. I don't know if that background was Romney's greatest weakness -- his Mormonism didn't help, nor did his salesman's tendency to say just about anything to please a given audience -- but you can bet there are some disappointed Democrats out there. I'm sure they were looking forward to exposing the layoffs that Romney initiated through his equity investments.

The presidential race is started to come into focus ahead of next week's Super Tuesday primaries.

Democrat John Edwards, whose anti-corporate message never resonated with most voters, is dropping out of the race after failing to win the primary in his native South Carolina, according to media reports. Rudy Giuliani, who fell from presumptive front-runner to also-ran, also is expected to bow out and endorse rival John McCain.

Odds are that Edwards will endorse rival Barack Obama, adding to the growing list of backers which include Democratic stalwart Sen. Edward Kennedy. The Illinois senator is far from having the race locked up.

Barack Obama trounced Hillary Clinton in Saturday's Democratic primary in South Carolina, setting the stage for a dramatic showdown on Super Tuesday.

Obama got more votes than were cast in the 2004 primary. Former president Bill Clinton is trying to minimize the damage to his wife's candidacy, reminding people that Jesse Jackson also won South Carolina. That's true, of course, but Jackson won caucus, not primaries; it's an apples and oranges comparison. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) reportedly is the latest in a long line of Democratic leaders to succumb to the Obama magic.

The wind is clearly at Obama's back. Though Clinton is on the defensive, it would be foolish to count them (her and Bill) out. Polls show Obama trailing Clinton in most of the big Super Tuesday states, according to the Wall Street Journal.

His campaign Web site has some interesting ideas on economic policy and some vague ones including:

Want to know how much the Republicans are the creek in this presidential election? A Bloomberg News/Los Angeles Times poll found that voters believe Democrats are better able to handle the economy than President George W. Bush by a margin of 51% to 29%.

Moreover, more than two-thirds respondents said they believed the economy was doing badly, up from 56% in December. More people -- about 80% -- see a recession as likely, up from 71%. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found similar results.

Is it any wonder that President Bush buried the bipartisan hatchet and worked out a fiscal stimulus package?

Wouldn't the economy have gotten more of a kick if unemployment insurance was extended?

That issue will be hotly debated when the bill gets to the Senate. Sen. Max Baucus, the chair of the Senate Tax Committee, told the Wall Street Journal that leaving it out was a "mistake." Let's hope the new spirit of bipartisanship in Washington lasts a little longer.

But I wonder whether sending tax rebates -- mine would be about $1,500 -- will really stimulate the economy? Odds are pretty good that my wife and I are going to wind up handing a lot of that money right back to Uncle Sam which isn't very stimulating if you ask me.

George F. Will, a man so WASPy that he would be cast as a conservative TV pundit if he wasn't one in real life, is downright depressed about his beloved Republican party.

Writing in the Washington Post, Will said "Nov. 4 could be their most disagreeable day since Nov. 3, 1964. Actually, this November could be even worse, because in 1964 Barry Goldwater 's loss of 44 states served a purpose, the ideological reorientation and revitalization of the party. ... Today, all the usual indicators are dismal for Republicans."

Among the problems cited by the bow-tied commentator:

More people identify themselves as Democrats,

independents are sympathetic to the Democrats,

Democrats control the majority of seats in states with 303 electoral votes,

Most Americans believe the country is on the wrong track,

I've been intrigued by Ron Paul's Presidential candidacy because I think he's talking about issues that are deserving of attention but aren't getting it: the role of the Federal Reserve, our interventionist foreign policy, and the IRS, just to name a few.

But an article in The New Republic raises questions about Congressman Paul's character. It seems that for years, he edited a newsletter that frequently contained racist and homophobic tirades, and paranoid conspiracy theories. Read the article for all the juicy examples.

Wanting to be fair, I waited for Ron Paul's campaign's response to post on this. In a press release, he stated that "When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit. Several writers contributed to the product. For over a decade, I have publicly taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name."

Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee triumphed in the Iowa caucuses last night. They won because they incited the passions of their supporters -- bringing record numbers to the 2,000 caucus locations throughout Iowa. According to the New York Times, a record number of Democrats turned out to caucus - more than 239,000 -- compared with fewer than 125,000 in 2004. By contrast, 108,000 Republicans caucused on Thursday.

Both parties had plenty about which to be passionate. Obama's supporters are a coalition of young people, women, and independents who are stirred by Obama's charisma and message of change to reject four more years of the Clintons. Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, was backed by evangelical Christians who were inspired to resist Mormon Mitt Romney and his $10 million in campaign spending. Polls of Republicans entering the caucus sites found that 60% described themselves as evangelical who intended to vote for Huckabee.

How will all this passion affect Tuesday's New Hampshire primaries? Will Obama's victory in Iowa help him chip away at Hillary Clinton's formidable lead in the polls? Will Mitt Romney, who owns a home in New Hampshire, prevail over John McCain? Reuters reports on polls -- taken before the caucus results were announced -- that Clinton and McCain lead there.

Let this be the last Iowa caucus that matters. Ditto for the New Hampshire primary. It is simply insane that two states that are among the least representative of America have so much say over who is elected president. That power should be given to the only state that really matters: New Jersey.

Instead of criss-crossing the cornfields of Iowa and the hamlets of New Hampshire, candidates should be getting to know the state I call home. They should marvel at the farm land of Salem County, Atlantic City's casinos and the beaches of Cape May. Imagine what the potential leaders of the free world can learn from listening to folks eating breakfast at a Jersey diner, or wandering the highways of South Jersey trying to make a left turn. Let them try and find a spot in a New Jersey Transit parking lot after 7 a.m., and take a gander at a sky-high property tax bill.

New Jersey also is among the most densely populated states, with pockets of enormous wealth (Bergen County near New York City) and extreme poverty (Camden, near Philadelphia). There's the beauty of Barnegat and the ugliness of Elizabeth. Politicians of both parties could learn quite a bit from the Garden State.

But my pleas will fall on deaf ears. We Americans pick a president with less sophistication than most high school seniors chose the king and queen of their proms. Maybe one day it will change, but I doubt it.

Until then, the rest of the country is going to have to take the hand-me-downs left to us by an antiquated electoral system in Iowa and New Hampshire.