A recent column by Thomas Sowell:


In an election campaign in which not only young liberals, but also some
people who are neither young nor liberals, seem absolutely mesmerized by the
skilled rhetoric of Barack Obama, facts have receded even further into the
background than usual.

As the hypnotic mantra of "change" is repeated endlessly, few people even
raise the question of whether what few specifics we hear represent any real
change, much less a change for the better.


Raising taxes, increasing government spending and demonizing business? That
is straight out of the New Deal of the 1930s.


The New Deal was new then but it is not new now. Moreover, increasing
numbers of economists and historians have concluded that New Deal policies
are what prolonged the Great Depression.


Putting new restrictions of international trade, in order to save American
jobs? That was done by Herbert Hoover, when he signed the Hawley-Smoot
tariff when the unemployment rate was 9 percent. The next year the
unemployment rate was 16 percent and, before the Great Depression was over,
unemployment hit 25 percent.


One of the most naive notions is that politicians are trying to solve the
country's problems, just because they say so- or say so loudly or
inspiringly.








Politicians' top priority is to solve their own problem, which is how to get
elected and then re-elected. Barack Obama is a politician through and
through, even though pretending that he is not is his special strategy to
get elected.


Some of his more trusting followers are belatedly discovering that, as he
"refines" his position on various issues, now that he has gotten their votes
in the Democratic primaries and needs the votes of others in the coming
general election.


Perhaps a defining moment in showing Senator Obama's priorities was his
declaring, in answer to a question from Charles Gibson, that he was for
raising the capital gains tax rate. When Gibson reminded him of the
well-documented fact that lower tax rates on capital gains had produced more
actual revenue collected from that tax than the higher tax rates had, Obama
was unmoved.


The question of how to raise more revenue may be the economic issue but the
political issue is whether socking it to "the rich" in the name of
"fairness" gains more votes.


Since about half the people in the United States own stocks- either directly
or because their pension funds buy stocks- socking it to people who earn
capital gains is by no means socking it just to "the rich." But, again, that
is one of the many facts that don't matter politically.


What matters politically is the image of coming out on the side of "the
people" against "the privileged."


If you are a nurse or mechanic who will be depending on your pension to take
care of you when you retire- as Social Security is unlikely to do- you may
not think of yourself as one of the privileged. But unless you connect the
dots between capital gains tax rates and your retirement income, you may
fall under the spell of the well-honed Obama rhetoric. Obama is for higher
minimum wage rates. Does anyone care what actually happens in countries with
higher minimum wage rates? Of course not.


Economists may point to studies done in countries around the world, showing
that higher minimum wage rates usually mean higher unemployment rates among
lower skilled and less experienced workers.


That's their problem. A politician's problem is how to look like he is for
"the poor" and against those who are "exploiting" them. The facts are
irrelevant to maintaining that political image.


Nowhere do facts matter less than in foreign policy issues. Nothing is more
popular than the notion that you can deal with dangers from other nations by
talking with their leaders.


British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain became enormously popular in the
1930s by sitting down and talking with Hitler, and announcing that their
agreement had produced "peace in our time"- just one year before the most
catastrophic war in history began.


Senator Obama may gain similar popularity by advocating similar policies
today- and his political popularity is what it's all about. The consequences
for the country come later.