Oddly, a Bragging Pre-Election Self-Proclaimed Victor, Mark Kirk Mimics Karl Rove and the Desperate and Failing McCain Campaign

You've probably all seen John McCain pathetically trying to blame Barack Obama for the subprime mess despite the fact that McCain advisors were real players in the mortgage and finance industries, McCain inner circle advisor Phil Gramm having engineered much of the deregulation that led to the problems. Nothing came as more of a surprise to me when Mark Kirk campaign insiders, all the while claiming they were ahead and needed do no more in this race, attempted to start the same smear campaign right here on my blog.

Lou Atsaves, Lake County republican Central Committeman and Kirk campaign insider, mimicking the desperate and faltering McCain campaign, attempted to start an internet whispering campaign linking Dan Seals to the subprime mess. Just like McCain, they are attempting to blame Dan Seals while Mark Kirk himself is knee deep in the financial and real estate sectors, even voting for their bailout against much of his own party, having taken $244,850 from Securities & Investment Sector and $136,850 from the Real Estate Development Sector with $96,500 of it from Real Estate and Finance Sector PACS, just this election cycle (and only so far has been officially reported--he's just taken in a lot more money which has not been reported).

Atsaves did it in the usual cowardly form of republican smear, by asking it as a question claiming to have heard it somewhere and wanting confirmation:

Spent the day campaigning. Heard through the Republican grapevine that Dan Seals during a debate with Kirk today admitted that he was engaged in underwriting subprime loans while employed by GE Capital? Is this true?

It reminds me of the infamous 2000 republican primary Bush/Rove smear against McCain for having allegedly, illegitimately fathered a black baby, insinuating that McCain had an affair with a black woman to appeal to republican party racists. That was also asked as a question in a push poll: "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain...if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child? This was done by Rove for Bush because McCain had just won New Hampshire and it looked like he was leading in some southern states.

Well, facts are stubborn things and the facts do not indicate any connection whatsoever between Dan and current economic problems. Dan was a marketing director at GE Commercial Finance. He was not in any loan underwriting capacity. He simply did not make lending decisions. His group had no connection to the retail residential market and absolutely no connection whatsoever to subprime lending.

Kirk, on the other hand, had quite a hand in our current mess. Kirk spoke loudly against Illinois' efforts to slow down subprime lending fraud. He got up in a townhall meeting and lied about H.B. 4050 and its successor S.B. 1167 in an attempt to placate his mortgage broker buddies who did not want any controls on their offering of creative financing products to people who did not understand them and could not afford them. Kirk complained that requiring credit counseling and disclosure of costs would dry up the market, either not understanding, or not caring, that it was the fraud he sought to continue that would ultimately have that exact effect. At that meeting, Kirk was particularly interested in continuing creative financing in Waukegan and North Chicago, applauding the industry's effort to disporportionately tarket lower income people of color for fraudulent lending schemes of the type Lisa Madigan is trying to fight.

On the federal side, here is the rest of Kirk's record protecting predatory lenders:

Kirk voted against the American Housing Rescue & Foreclosure Prevention Act as it came out of the Senate (which amounts to voting against ultimate passage because that was the agreed version that went to the President for signature). This bill eventually became law without Mr. Kirk and:

• Provides mortgage refinancing assistance to keep families from losing their homes, protect neighboring home values, and help stabilize the housing market.
• Expands the FHA program so many borrowers in danger of losing their home can refinance into lower-cost government -insured mortgages they can afford to repay, helping troubled borrowers avoid foreclosure while minimizing taxpayer exposure. Only primary residences are eligible: NO speculators, investment properties, second or third homes will be refinanced.
• Protects taxpayers by requiring lenders and homeowners to take responsibility. This is not a bailout; in order to participate, lenders and mortgage investors must take significant losses by reducing the loan principal. In exchange for an FHA guarantee on the mortgage, borrowers must share any profit from the resale of a refinanced home with the government.
• Contains important protections for taxpayers’ dollars, including higher refinancing fees that establish a new FHA reserve to cover possible losses from defaults on these government-backed mortgages.
• Provides $230 million for financial counseling to help families stay in their homes. [House Vote 519, HR 3221, 7/23/08]

Kirk Voted Against the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act. The bill, still pending, creates a national licensing registry for all loan originators, establishes a federal duty of care, prohibits steering (a loan bait and switch practice that puts borrowers in more expensive loans then what was sought and applied for) , sets a minimum standard for all mortgages including a requirement that borrowers must have a reasonable ability to repay, attaches some liability to secondary market securitizers who package and sell interest in home mortgage loans outside of these standards, like the Lehman case I've written much about. The bill also expands and enhances consumer protections for “high-cost loans” under the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act and includes important protections for renters of foreclosed homes.. [House Vote 1118, HR 3915, 11/15/07]

Kirk Voted Against Prohibiting Irresponsibly High-Cost Mortgages. Kirk voted for an amendment to HR 3915 that would have removed a section of the bill that prohibited irresponsible lending practices and protected consumers from balloon payments and excessive late fees on high-cost mortgages. [House Vote 1116, HR 3915, 11/15/07]

Mark Kirk consistently took positions against borrower education, constraints on the freewheeling practices of loan originators, cost disclosure and limitation, loan rehabilitation, borrower assistance and generally bought into the greed and theivery of the residential lending industry. In the true Rovian style, he finds something he's guilty of and tries to tag it onto his opponent.

Seals supporters do not have to start Karl Rove style whispering, push poll sort of smear campaigns against Mark Kirk. Kirk's record is enough to turn voters away all by itself.