In less than an hour from now President Obama is coming to a school less than a mile from my home, to make the big announcement to address the housing crisis.

So I couldn’t resist driving by Dobson High a little while ago to check out the mood out here.

Contrary to what you might imagine watching some of the morning news reports, it’s not all human chaos and traffic snarls in Mesa. Traffic was moving smoothly, as people made their way with signs, lawn chairs, flags and cameras.

But along the way a little detail struck me as an example of how out of touch, or completely ignorant people are. Little signs on stakes –the kind that usually advertise weight-loss cures or ‘we buy ugly houses’ — try to lecture to Obama that ‘socialism is not the answer’ with allusions to the healthcare rescue plan. Has Joe the Plumber being recruited to do some sort of poster-PR for the other side? Someone did not get the memo that the Palin-led socialism canard flopped.

The people lining the streets outside St. Timothy’s Catholic Church have more to hope for and worry about than socialism. They see the economy through a different lens.