2008 As the New 2006

Back in 2006, Democratic congressional candidates in key swing states and districts campaigned on a promise to reform America's lobbyist-written trade policies. As Public Citizen [1] has shown, candidates' populist, fair trade positions were a deciding factor in the 2006 election. Now, from the looks of this press release [2] from top Senate candidate Jeff Merkley, it seems that Democratic candidates are doing the same thing again.

What's odd, of course, is that immediately after the 2006 election, Democrats are pushing an expansion of NAFTA [3]. But hey - if 2008 is the new 2006 on the issue of trade in the election, then that's just more evidence of how politically popular fair trade positions really are. Maybe at some point, the Congress will actually respond to the political pressure and, ya know, represent what the people want.

...we can dream can't we?