Must Be Something in the Water

Ohio Congressmen are calling the bluff of Sens. Clinton and Obama on trade:

Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, one of the leading protectionists in Congress, said Ohioans have many suggestions on economic and trade issues they hoped the candidates would address.

“We have a laundry list of measures we think would be effective, some involving tax policy, some involving investment policy, intellectual property incentives to hold investments in this country,” Kaptur said. “I’m hoping superdelegates [who] are uncommitted that have the economy as their major concern will gravitate to our group and use that power to gain additional attention.”

Among congressional Democrats from Ohio, only Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Clinton backer, has endorsed. The rest — Kaptur, Reps. Dennis J. Kucinich, Tim Ryan, Zack Space, Betty S. Sutton and Charlie Wilson, and Sen. Sherrod Brown — remain uncommitted even after their state’s voters handed Clinton a decisive victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.

“We had a general agreement,” Kucinich said of the pact. “We have economic issues that need to be addressed. Ohio has economic issues more urgent than any other state.”

Kaptur, Kucinich, Sherrod Brown. Is it something in the water in Ohio?

I’ve been unable to find any more details on the “intellectual property incentives to hold investments in this country” but I’m generally concerned that opposition to free trade is a stalking horse for a more general isolationism.

There is a weird sort of logic to the view. The job areas that have prospered the most over the last ten years or so are, by and large, the most protected. If protecting jobs from international competition is the key to economic prosperity, why not protect a lot more of them? Heck, why not protect all of them? The last time I checked (admittedly quite a while ago) European countries protected their domestic workers quite a bit more than we do, often to the economic detriment of their countries. Is that’s what’s in our future?