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Folks, if my political prognosticating hat is on correctly, our real estate industry is going to be front and center in the 2008 Presidential Race. The New York Times, the paper of record and the barometer for how the media covers things, has 2 big articles on foreclosures today as their top stories.

On one hand the article, McCain Warns Against Hasty Mortgage Bailout, they talk about how McCain, the Republican candidate, is coming out against a government intervention in the foreclosure crisis.

Drawing a sharp distinction between himself and the two Democratic presidential candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona warned Tuesday against vigorous government action to solve the deepening mortgage crisis and the market turmoil it has caused, saying that “it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.” via the NYT

Meanwhile the next story on their morning email news blast is the article, Swift Steps Help Avert Foreclosures in Baltimore, discussing how the evil mortgage companies are attacking and defrauding the poor and lower middle class.

When Wilbert and Patricia Savage missed two mortgage payments on their tidy row house here last fall, Mr. Savage, 75, despaired that they could ever catch up. Wilbert Savage outside his home in East Baltimore. He and his wife, Patricia, recently sought help when their loan payments rose.

But he remembered Roy Miller, a nonprofit housing counselor with a nearby storefront office who had helped other neighbors in trouble. The Savages visited Mr. Miller, and he called their lender and was able to work out a repayment plan for the missed payments, something Mr. Savage said he could never have managed on his own.

“Without Roy, we’d probably be out of the house or close to it,” he said. via the NYT

Now my years of blogging about politics on an old site tells me this, expect on your local news, national news channels, and human interest shows to grab onto the foreclosure story as a battle. One one side you have the beholden to corporate America Republicans. On the other side, the defenders of the embattled Democrats. The foreclosure crisis is going to morph from a story of irresponsible lending and borrowing into an epic struggle between the powerful and the downtrodden.

With Iraq off the table for the media, the economy and housing crisis is going to be center stage. Which also means that any improvement in the housing market will be drowned out in the cacophony of political rhetoric over the coming few months.

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• Guilty Verdict in St. Louis Real Estate Agent Assault
• House Finance Services Committee Passes Mortgage “Reform” Bill
• Countrywide Lending Falls Off 17 Percent in August