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That's what "free trade" deals are about: limiting by treaty the policy space in which lawmakers can operate. As such, both of the presidential candidates are boxed into a cage of their respective parties' creation. It's the dirty secret of the 2008 campaign.

Recently, AlterNet asked Van Jones, founder of Green For All and author of The Green Collar Economy, about this issue, and he responded with defiance. "I want the WTO to tell us we can't do this," he said, "because then we won't have a WTO. I want the free traders to stand up in front of the world and explain to Americans why some people are going to tell you that you can't have clean energy and you can't have your home retrofitted (with American-made products) because it is more efficient for it to be made in Asia or Germany, that you can't bring Detroit back to build wind turbines. I want the free traders to defend having an overseas body to declare this agenda illegal. I want that fight."

It's a fight that might finally help achieve public awareness about what "free trade" really means. When most people hear the word "trade," they picture ships filled with goods crisscrossing the world's oceans. But the reality is that "free trade" is simply a well-tested euphemism for agreements between governments that limit their ability to intervene in the private sector, ostensibly to unleash the awesome "power of the free market."
They don't just cover trade between countries, but also a host of issues that most ordinary people would consider to be purely domestic matters, as long as they have some tenuous connection with international commerce, no matter how far removed.
Activists from across the developing world have been trying for years to call attention to that reality but have largely been ignored by a media and political establishment devoted to promoting the so-called "Washington Consensus."

Now, with Americans hungry for new approaches to the economy, health care, energy policy and a host of other issues, the "free trade" deals advanced by both Democrats and Republicans over the past 30 years may very well come back to haunt them.
According to a report by the watchdog group Public Citizen (PDF), "Many WTO rules have little or nothing to do with international trade," but every WTO country is still "required to 'ensure the conformity of its laws, regulations and administrative procedures'" with the WTO's orthodoxy. Failing to do so is not a meaningless act of diplomatic defiance; the WTO has an enforcement arm. As the report explains:

Domestic policies that extend beyond the WTO constraints are subject to challenge by other WTO signatory countries -- often at the behest of their affected industries -- before WTO tribunals. Of the 137 cases decided to date at the WTO, challenges to domestic laws have been successful nearly 90 percent of the time, with countries moving to alter their laws as ordered except in a single instance, where a country instead chose to pay indefinite trade sanctions to keep its policy in place.

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Consider Obama's plan, "New Energy for America" (PDF). At its heart is a proposal to "invest in a clean energy economy" and "create 5 million new green jobs, good jobs that cannot be outsourced." But most can be. While installing new solar panels would be a job that would stay in the United States, building those solar panels would not be. According to the WTO's Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, any financial contribution by a government to the private sector that would give a preference to "domestic over imported goods," either by law "or in fact," is a no-no. Article 5 of that agreement allows a WTO challenge to "any subsidy (tax credit, funding for R&D, and other[s] ...) deemed to ... carry a benefit that has the effect of causing serious prejudice" against goods or services provided by another country. There was an exception for "environmental upgrades," but it expired in 2000.

When it comes to the government, "Buy American" is itself WTO illegal. Obama promises to "help nurture America's success in clean technology manufacturing by establishing a federal investment program to help manufacturing centers modernize" by using federal funds to provide the "critical up-front capital" to modernize "manufacturing facilities to produce new advanced clean technologies." It wouldn't stand a chance if challenged.

Change.gov provides resources to better understand the transition process and the decisions being made as part of it. It also offers an opportunity to be heard about the challenges our country faces and your ideas for tackling them. The Obama Administration will reflect an essential lesson from the success of the Obama campaign: that people united around a common purpose can achieve great things...

Cameron: I wish I could have told you more at the time but all of it was put off the record until after the election. There was great concern in the McCain campaign that Sarah Palin lack the degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, and a heartbeat away from the presidency. We're told by folks that she didn't know what countries that were in NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, that being the Canada, the US, and Mexico. We're told she didn't understand that Africa was a continent rather than a country just in itself ... a whole host of questions that caused serious problems about her knowledgeability. She got very angry at staff, thought that she was mishandled.....was particularly angry about the way the Katie Couric interview went. She didn't accept preparation for that interview when the aides say that that was part of the problem. And that there were times that she was hard to control emotionally there's talk of temper tantrums at bad news clippings...MORE

11:37 (via email) FL's anti gay marriage ban is leading 62-38, with 85% reporting.

11:18 (via email): In AZ, the anti gay Proposition 102 amending State Constitution to define marriage as being only between one man and one woman is passing by almost 10 points

11:39 with 5% of precincts reporting in California, Prop 8 results so far:

Yes:1,016,186 (55%)

No:839,142 (45%)

Democrats 236, Republicans 144, Undecided 53

Democratic Wins: CT-04, FL-08, FL-24, IL-11, NC-08, NH-01, NY-13, NY-25, PA-12

Looking Good (5% or more up): GA-08, MI-09, NY-29, PA-03, FL-08, OH-01, OH-15

Tight (Within 5%): VA-02, FL-25, KS-02, KY-02, MD-01, MI-07, NE-02, OH-16, PA-11, VA-05 (Perriello ahead by 700 votes--3% to go), VA-11

Looking not so good (5% or more down): VA-10, FL-18, FL-21, IA-04, IL-10, MN-02, MN-03, MN-06, NY-26, OH-02, NJ-03, NJ-07, PA-15, SC-01

Republican Wins: IN-03, FL-13, FL-16, NJ-05, TX-22

Districts yet to report: AK-AL, AL-02, AL-03, AL-05, AZ-01, AZ-03, AZ-05, CA-04, CA-50, CO-04, ID-01, (LA-04 primary), MO-09, NM-01, NM-02, NV-02, NV-03, TX-07, TX-10, WA-08, WY-AL