What's $40 among friends?

Some blogs are all lit up over the national association's plan, trickled out at the association executive institute (of all places!) , to bump membership $40 and become a flaming, wild ass political party. Forget trade association, we're talking union-style big money, belly to belly lobbying in good old DC and bigger heaps of contributions for candidates who pass the piss test for real estate issues compliance.

Of course the Kool Aide drinkers are totally enthused at the prospect of $40,000,000 of additional political action money to apply generously where a few national association king makers believe it's needed. Yeah, it's for candidates and there's apparently no opt out, as was the case with the state association. I was one of the VERY few who did opt out of allocating the newly applied $49 for candidates. My extra $49 was used for issues (I'm hoping). Issues are issues. Candidates are like people, well sorta! That means you may LIKE some of their positions and you may vehemently HATE some of their other positions. At least for me, the HATE part can quickly overwhelm the LIKE part. For example, I don't care how politicians feel about real estate issues, if they have a radical pro life mindset (or fill in an array of other right wing touchstones). I'm not going to vote for them or give them money--ever. In fact, I'll vote for the OTHER candidate and give THEM money--a lot more money than $40.

The national association is quite willing to look the other way on a candidate's stance on any position not on their current real estate related hit list. Predictably, some of the ultra right wing folks who get national association PAC money are pretty marginal in their support of the civil rights act--private property rights can be taken a bit too far! Check out Open Secrets to see who got money.

If you're a right wing enthusiast (I didn't say nut!!), the $40 may seem like a pretty cool deal, particularly if you don't think too far into the cavern and wonder what beasts the national association has chained up in there waiting for their role in rest of the story. I'm also wondering what you're doing reading this, 'cause my political leanings are pretty apparent after reading a couple of posts.

If you're on the progressive left of left end of the spectrum, you're probably not happy with the $40, or the national association, or the state association--in fact you're probably not happy, period. There are always things happening to irritate the crap out of you and, to make matters worse, you're literate, a little obsessive, receive 29 lefty e-newsletters a day and are fully aware of each irritation! Now, I'm not going to draw contrasts to the right wingers, but you know where that would go--LOL.

Most of the blogs and comments I've read are concerned about the money, the power, the threats to their business (BTW progressives CAN spell paranoia) and where do they get one of those cute stickers with THAT nifty party logo?

That's not what this move by the national association is really about. The real deal is much bigger and darker. The people who should be concerned aren't the members of the national association, but their clients--the public--remember? The people who ultimately pay for the dues and the office rent and the SUVs (how many progressives still drive SUVs?) and the vacations to Hawaii? The public is already paying a very high price for the questionable pleasure of buying and selling real estate in the US, not to mention the increasing price and difficulty of getting the financing to make that pleasure possible.

The costs are about to go higher and not just due to the $40!