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.

There's an old political adage that goes, "Regarding the nomination process, Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love." Tuesday's New Hampshire primary provided ample evidence of the above, for each party.
Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) strong showing instantaneously catapults him to formidable contender status in the Democratic race. His performance also suggests -- and we won't know this empirically until survey research has been analyzed -- that he has expanded the electorate. Obama increased voter turnout particularly, and unexpectedly, among voters ages 18-21. This age group has had the lowest turnout rate of any age group in primaries and presidential elections since 1952 when political scientists began keeping statistics.

Obama's appeal among independents was also high, and -- also troubling for the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) -- his appeal among Democratic Party-affiliated voters was much stronger than expected. Furthermore, African-American voters -- although not a major factor in New Hampshire -- now appear to be shifting decidedly in his direction nationally, a big change from the previously overwhelming support they gave to Clinton as late as this summer. As a result of the latter, look for the Clinton camp to face a markedly tougher fight in the South Carolina primary, which is the next hurdle, along with Nevada, before Tsunami Tuesday (formerly called Super Tuesday), on February 5.

On December 5, I drew our readers' attention to a YouTube video that features congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul chewing out Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke during his testimony before Congress.

I was surprised by the amount of traffic it received and the passion that it inspired on the part of our readers -- 21 of you saw fit to leave comments.

Now the USA Today is taking a look at the Ron Paul videos: "Video clips of Paul -- who supports the gold standard and has sponsored a bill to abolish the Fed -- ripping into Bernanke at congressional hearings are getting hundreds of thousands of hits on the video-sharing website YouTube."

While the videos are not getting the views that polished campaign videos from top-tier candidates like Barack Obama, they're getting a ton of hits for clips of a second-tier candidate arguing with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Normally, a political party would look for certain characteristics when scouting out possible candidates for elected office: experience, intelligence, integrity, charisma, connections, etc.

But faced with a large fund-raising gap between itself and the Democrats, the Republican Party will settle for a candidate who has a ton of money and is willing to finance his or her own campaign.

According to the New York Times, "At this point, strategists for the National Republican Congressional Committee have enlisted wealthy candidates to run in at least a dozen competitive Congressional districts nationwide, particularly those where Democrats are finishing their first term and are thus considered most vulnerable. They say more are on the way."

The Times also notes that "The most recent figures show that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has raised $56.6 million and has $29.2 million at its disposal. By contrast, the National Republican Congressional Committee has raised $40.7 million with a cash balance of $2.5 million."

Here's the problem for the GOP: Instead of focusing on finding good candidates, the party is finding itself actively recruiting candidates who are simply wealthy. Is that going to lead to electable leaders? And if they do get elected, is that going to lead to strong leaders?

It's hard to imagine this strategy working. It may help to close the funding gap but it will lead to races featuring the Democrats' best candidates against whatever guy the GOP could find who was willing to spend big. That could lead to some interesting and lopsided debates.

If the flow of political fund raising capital can be used as a gauge, then there's a strong message coming from the flow of campaign contributions from venture capitalists. Contributions by venture capitalists to Democratic candidates exceed contributions to Republicans by a nearly two to one margin. Red Herring reports, of the contributions from individuals and political action committees connected to the venture capital industry, Democrats have gathered $2.4 million compared with $1.4 million given to Republicans. That's quite a difference and it reveals a little about the current mindset of the finance industry in light of the coming elections.

National Venture Capital Association, is top contributor with $365,500 split 54% Democrat to 46% Republican. This seems to be a reasonable split. The giving picture from the number two and three contributors is much different however. The second largest VC contributor is Kleiner Perkins who piled 94% of $147,400 onto Democratic candidates. Third on the big donor list is Hummer Winblad which gave 100% of it's political contributions to the Democrats. The article from Red Herring expands on the list.

Most interesting to me is the fact that presidential candidate Barack Obama has handily out paced Hillary Clinton in total contributions from the VC camp. Top recipient, Obama has had $349,074 donated to his name while Clinton has only received $235,000 from similar sources. It's also important to note that Obama's total topped the VC's donations of $289,350 to Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Rudi Giuliani wraps up the top four with total contributions received of $178,400.

What do these funding dynamics indicate to you? Is there a fundamental shift taking place or are venture capitalists just hedging their bets? Do these patterns of political contribution reflect intent or are they simply a reaction to an overwhelming sense that something big must change? If political donations by venture capital organizations are an electoral thermometer, I must say it's getting mighty warm in here.

It may seems strange to some young people to think of it now, but the Republican party once had a reputation for small government and fiscal responsibility. But as the GOP has moved away from that vision, it has been losing what was one of its most reliable constituencies: business leaders. As our own Peter Cohan wrote recently, some of George W. Bush's former top donors have been giving big to Democrats this year.

A September Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed 37% of professionals and managers identifying themselves as Republican or leaning Republican, down from 44% three years ago.

It seems that the Republican party's apparent strategy of appealing to homophobia and other radical right-wing social ideologies has backfired: More enlightened people who consider themselves fiscal conservatives are turned off by it. And given that no one could call the current incarnation of the GOP fiscally conservative with a straight face, these people now have no reason to vote Republican.

According (subscription required) to The Wall Street Journal, "Some business leaders are drifting away from the party because of the war in Iraq, the growing federal debt and a conservative social agenda they don't share. In manufacturing sectors such as the auto industry, some Republicans want direct government help with soaring health-care costs, which Republicans in Washington have been reluctant to provide. And some business people want more government action on global warming, arguing that a bolder plan is not only inevitable, but could spur new industries.

Given all this, a fiscally conservative but socially liberal candidate from the Libertarian Party could be able to gain some support in the upcoming election, and perhaps play a Ralph Nader role in the upcoming election. A lot of disenchanted Republicans would probably lend such a candidate their support.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• The Wall Street Journal reported that Toyota Motor Corporation (NYSE: TM), which launched a factory-building blitz five years ago, is now being urged by senior members of the founding family to stop building factories in the United States on fears it will hurt the company's efficiency.
• Kirk Kerkorian, who controls MGM Mirage (NYSE: MGM), had planned to buy the Bellagio Hotel and Casino and the $7.4B Project City Center from MGM. But that deal now appears to be off, according to the Wall Street Journal.

OTHER PAPERS:

• The U.K. Times reported that News Corporation (NYSE: NWS) has had preliminary talks with Yahoo Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO) about giving its social networking site MySpace to the online search company, in exchange for a 25% stake in Yahoo!.
• The New York Times reported that NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg will leave the Republican Party and register as an Independent.
• The New York Times also reported that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) will pay Take-Two Interactive Software (NASDAQ: TTWO) $50M for two exclusive downloadable episodes of Grand Theft Auto for the Xbox 360.

I saw this photo of George Bush wearing Crocs on Styledash, and laughed at the suggestion he be impeached for wearing such ugly footwear (although, to be honest, I thought he looked rather dashing in them -- did I just type that?). I thought, hey, great endorsement! and started clicking around to other web sites.

That's when I saw this Forbes article about how Bush's May 18 fundraiser for the Republican Party was held at the estate of Rick and Sherry Sharp. Guess which company Rick Sharp is chairman of? Well, there are two, but the first one is Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX). (The other one is Carmax, Inc. (NYSE: KMX).)

Could it be a coincidence that the country's president is shot sporting the iconic Crocs beach shoes at about the same time his buddy Rick helped raise $630k? Sure, that's chump change when it comes to party fundraising, but I'd be willing to bet the buzz surrounding Bush's fashion choices could have an equal effect to the price of Crocs' stock, which is (of course) very near its all-time high as it is, at $91.01, up 11 cents as of this writing. It's not quite dirty politics, but it is curious and curiouser.

Another BloggingStocks blogger, Garry E. Sattler, opined on the matter: President Bush and Crocs thumb their noses at media polls approval rating

Do you love or hate Crocs? See our gallery for more.

The mid-term elections on Nov. 7 are now less than a week away. Polls indicate that Democrats are coming on strong. In fact, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released today found that 52% of voters hope Democrats will control Congress vs. 37% who root for Republicans.

Looks like we may be in for a bout of governmental gridlock -- when opposing parties control the executive and legislative branches. Traditionally, investors cheer at this prospect (indeed, that may be one reason the market has fared so well in the past month). The theory is that when there is gridlock, the Federal government isn't able to get that much done and investors don't have to worry about pesky issues like healthcare reform, tax increases or major policy shifts of any kind.

That's the theory anyway. But it doesn't quite pass the smell test, if you ask me. Is it really the best thing for our country, economy and stock market at this point in time to have an ineffectual Federal branch? I don't think so...