Posted on 11/05/2010 6:06:13 PM PDT by Kaslin
Elections: Among the biggest but least-noticed winners in last week's election were free-trade supporters in, of all places, the industrial Midwest. And here we thought free trade was an electoral loser.
One of the sweetest victories for free-trade proponents was Ohio's election of Republican Rob Portman to the U.S. Senate. Portman served as U.S. Trade Representative under President Bush from 2005 to 2006. During his short tenure, six of America's 17 free-trade pacts were passed. Portman also valiantly tried to get the U.S. onboard for a global free-trade pact at Doha.
Portman's opponent, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, thought he had a sure way to stifle Portman's Senate bid just by touting this record. The conventional wisdom, after all, is that nobody likes free trade.
Fisher also threw Portman's support for expanding trade with China into his brew, mangling facts but delivering the ultimate message that trade of any kind was simply poison in the Buckeye State.
Portman walked off with an 18-point victory — illustrating once again how misguided the protectionist wing of the Democratic Party is. This camp — and fortunately it's not all Democrats — actually believes that U.S. voters oppose free trade.
Its message was used not only in Ohio, but in every tight race. Campaigns from California to Pennsylvania blasted outsourcing, trade with China, free trade and anything else that smacked of exchanging one good or service for another in an open global market.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
It’s all about vitamin supplements, remember.
Its about you and your tireless defense of communism and slave labor.
Whatever you say, hedge. Your public school teachers said it was important for your self-esteem.
Come to think of it, you’ve never said anything but good about communism. It does lower labor costs.
And I’ll note that your first foray onto a FR free trade thread in many months follows the worst drubbing your party has received in 60+ years. Feeling a little heat down at the union hall, sweetie?
Kind of like the endless "things will get better" economic & Iraq/Afghan War promises the GOP kept making before they lost House & Senate control. Eventually the public got tired of it & stopped believing. The difference I notice is that the public seems to hold out hope longer for Repubs than Dems.
If the economy continues with little difference over the next 2 years the GOP is going to have it's work cut out for it making sure the POTUS & Dem Senate take most/all of the blame so that House control won't be lost again.
Invalid analysis. This election was all about being AGAINST the Dem/Socialist party and stopping their Marxist agenda. Trying to stretch that into an alternate interpretation based upon a majority position of far less liberal candidates that happened to oppose them is pure conjecture. Free trade is not what the majority of voters were concerned about in this election. It’s really no different than 2008 when America voted in the cool black guy to get rid of Bush and his vilified Repub war-loving cohorts - which was interpreted by the moron Dems as “we love Marxism.” Again, quite a stretch.
The only stuff “free traitors” make the stuff they make up. Oh and phony “free trade” ‘agreements’. But that’s ok, Sen. Diane Feinstein is a huge communist chinese “free traitor”. She and her aptly named husband have made their fortune in inferior quality steel from their own Chinese mills ( which they then sold to the state of California for the Bay bridge), and loads of real estate investments in Shanghai.
Clearly she’s your kinda gal!
Not any more than Bernie Sanders is your kinda’ guy. Two can play this game.
C’mon . . . I’ve been waiting for years to tell you that I can still get vitamin supplements at Walgreen’s. You told me that CAFTA would ban them. How many years ago was it, anyway?
Nobody won any of these elections by promising to outsource more jobs.
Nobody won by campaigning for more anti-American manipulated trade agreements.
Lots of candidates won by campaigning against high taxes and regulatory burdens, and for free market principles. That is quite different from the globalist Free Traitor® mantra.
It's the difference between authoritarian and open societies. Authoritarian societies, like China, can direct the capital & energy of their people after certain goals. They don't even have to have ownership of corporations to have full control of them. Their control is built on a foundation of information control and selective enforcement. The leadership of every Chinese corporation/bank knows that at any time crimes they've committed can suddenly be "discovered" or outright fabricated. Same works for every foreign subsidiary that starts doing business there. There's always some ambitious individual, just as skilled, waiting to take their place. As such they know that no one is "indispensable".
On top of it all China practices extensive protectionism in their home market, both openly and through regulatory manipulation. Read Eamonn Fingleton's IN THE JAWS OF THE DRAGON, it's a real eye-opener about how badly the deck is stacked against us.
Actually, I recall a fair amount of discussion about South Korea, Colombia, and Panama. And as the IBD editorial observes, generally, the candidates favoring FTA’s with those three countries won. Maybe you just didn’t pay attention.
In fact, I even recall seeing a good number of articles about how the Dems were seeking to make trade an issue in order to defeat the oncoming wave.
I think free trade is a simple concept that should simply mean an individual is free to spend his money anyway he sees fit. The alternative is for our government to tell me how to spend it. So I ask: How many freepers want our government telling us how to spend our money?
“Since free trade reduces the influence of government over the economy”
Are you sure about this?
When millions of Americans lose their jobs to Outsourcing, they will be much more susceptible to Socialist nonsense. That increases government control over the economy.
Outsourcing has also fueled China’s military. Who is going to pay for the increased Military budget?
“Do you think it is the job of government to determine wages and increase your standard of living?”
No. I don’t mind competing in the Free Market against fellow Americans or Workers in countries that we have signed Real/Sane free trade agreements. What we have is not real free trade. We do not have fair access to many of these markets.
“Just look at how bigger government, to protect wages and increase the standard of living, has blessed California”
California in Spite of its moonbat government has some of the highest average pay in the nation if not the world. This is a testament to the businesses and people of California, that in spite of the crazy state government they were able to accomplish this. No doubt Moonbean is going to push us over the edge.
I personally voted for Fiorina and Whitman even though I knew they were going to get hammered on this issue and lose. When trying to talk friends into voting for them, this issue always came up and was the reason for not voting for them.
Boxer especially was very beatable. What a shame.
The Tea Party may yet be able to save the Republican Party from itself. But in the past the Republican party has been called the stupid party for good reason...
The jury is still out on this.
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