Campaign Video of the Day -- January 25, 2008

Yesterday I discovered a service called RealtyTrac which tracks homes for sale across the country focusing on foreclosures.

I live in a nice middle class neighborhood in a nice middle class suburb of Kansas City. According to RealtyTrac within about a mile of my home 123 homes are currently being tracked. Nearly all of them would be described as being "McMansions" by some of my more pompous liberal friends. Of those 123 homes about 11 are routine resale/mls. Twelve are currently on the auction block, meaning they are about to be foreclosed. The rest are "bank-owned," meaning they have already been foreclosed and a bank or other financial institution is competing with the 11 property owners trying to find a buyer.

The service shows that in my little suburban town of about 50,000, there are about 383 properties currently being tracked. Of those properties 13 are in pre-foreclosure, 72 are on the auction block, 181 are currently owned by a bank, one is owned by the government, 26 are for sale by owner, 90 are listed on MLS and none are new construction. I have a hunch that in normal times the foreclosure and bank owned numbers are not nearly so high. Try RealtyTrac for yourself. See how your community is doing.

Today's Campaign Video is from Hillary Clinton. It is called "Warned" and focuses on America's mortgage crisis. Give it a look, but when you do realize that this isn't a mortgage crisis, it is an American family crisis. Nearly every one of those 2,000,000 foreclosures mentioned in the ad represent an American family that has lost its home. I wonder how many children have been ripped out of their schools? How many fathers and mothers have lost self-respect? How many marriages have been weakened? How many families face an uncertain financial future? How many more foreclosures and injured families are there to come?

I am hoping one of our readers will post a comment telling me I am all wet and that the numbers on RealtyTrac are not abnormal. Given the speed with which Congress is moving to enact its stimulus package and the Feds recent "panic" 75 basis point interest reduction, I am not so sure that is going to happen.

If you encounter a video in need of broader play, please email the link to proctoring.congress@gmail.com subject Campaign Video of the Day.

Hillary's ad after the break.