Barack Obama Has Never Been A Moderate

Political Realities ^ | 09/25/12 | LD Jackson

[LD Jackson]

In 2008, as the presidential election was in full swing and Barack Obama was running for the highest office in the land, he bent himself over backwards to do one thing. Above all else, he tried to make himself look like a moderate and a centrist. He went to great lengths to portray himself as someone who would bring Washington together and make it work the way it was supposed to work. When many of us raised questions about his voting record, which seemed to lean decidedly to the left, we were shouted down. We were accused of being racist and not wanting a black man to be President. As it turns out, much of our fears have borne fruit. We can all see how Barack Obama has been anything but a centrist and a moderate. His left-leaning guiding principles have consistently raised their ugly head and led him down a path of liberal policy making that has greatly damaged our country.

This comes as no surprise to many of us who opposed him at the time. It also comes as no surprise to the political opponents he faced in Illinois. Remember Jack Ryan, who was forced out of his race against Barack Obama, all because the Obama campaign managed to get his sealed divorce records unsealed? He had a host of detailed opposition research saved up to use against Obama and some of it is just now becoming public.

(The Daily Caller) The little-seen information within the binders represents a comprehensive documentation of Obama’s voting record in the state Senate; his many political donors, endorsers and affiliations; a list of the known clients represented by the law firm where he worked; known details about Obama’s life derived from his books; and a litany of press clippings that include quotes from the Democrat dating back to 1992.

The information reveals what Ryan’s line of attack might have been, had he taken the chance to fight, and brings to light the most exhaustive study of Obama’s voting record before he came to Washington, D.C.

In the lead-up to the 2008 presidential election, supporters of then-Senator Barack Obama could point to press accounts of his time in the Illinois legislature as proof that he was, by nature, a bipartisan-minded pragmatist. But Ryan’s review of Obama’s time in Springfield reveals a more complicated picture, one of an ambitious and gifted political upstart unlikely to buck his party’s leadership on key legislation except when allying with the far left wing of the Democratic caucus.

From abortion to gun rights and anti-crime legislation, Obama, who from 1998 to 2004 represented one of the most diverse districts in what remains perhaps America’s most segregated major city, worked to serve the powerful constituencies and special interest groups that still dominate Illinois politics. An eloquent speaker and ever mindful of his public’s perceptions, he often voted “present” on bills where taking a position could hurt his political future, while staying loyal to the state’s entrenched Democratic machine.

“Barack Obama was [in 2008] presenting himself as some kind of a centrist reformer, and the truth of the state Senate voting record is anything but,” Eric Kohn, an Illinois based libertarian activist and former communications director for the Cook County GOP, told The Daily Caller.

“I mean, here’s somebody who never failed to vote with the far left, who cast a lot of votes that are questionable at best, from the ones that highlighted the votes about making things tougher on domestic matters, making things tougher for child sex offenders, the infant protection act — even if you’re somebody who’s pro-choice that is a pretty radical vote,” Kohn continued.

There is information in the research that should have raised a host of questions during the 2008 campaign, but every time they were mentioned, they were shouted down by his supporters. According to the information included in the article from The Daily Caller, Barack Obama had a habit of voting "present", in order to cover his political tracks. Many times, he would later change that vote to "no" or "yes", depending on the political situation. What strikes me as most familiar is the fact that his votes of "present" usually came with a lecture on the floor of the Illinois State Senate, as he attempted to show his fellow Senators the error of their ways. It is condescendingly arrogant and it is exactly the tactic he has used since he took the oath of office as President.

Here is a list of some his most controversial votes while in the Illinois State Senate.

Perhaps Obama’s best-known and most controversial votes during his time in the state Senate were the ones he cast against the Infant Born Alive Protection Act, which would have mandated care for children who were delivered after an unsuccessful late-term abortion.

At the time, Obama argued that the bill was unconstitutional and would serve to undercut the Roe v. Wade decision, and questioned whether hospitals were actually allowing infants to die after failed abortions. He voted “present” on the legislation and changed his vote to “no” the following year.

Obama also voted “present” — and then, later, “no” — on bills that would have outlawed so-called “partial-birth” abortions in Illinois unless the life of the mother was threatened, and “no” on two bills that would have prohibited the use of state funds to pay for abortions. He voted “present” on a parental-notification law for minors seeking abortions.

Chicago is currently caught in its worst wave of gang-related violence in decades. Despite having some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, at least 240 people were shot dead in the first half of 2012 alone, a number far outpacing the number of Americans killed in combat in Afghanistan over the same period. Fatal stabbings, meanwhile, are up 78 percent since 2011.

But while the situation has certainly gotten much worse during the past year, street violence is nothing new in Chicago. And Obama was often at the forefront of opposing new laws intended to crack down on violent gangs in the city.

In 1998, Obama’s first year in office, he was of only three legislators to vote against a bill creating a misdemeanor offense for persons on probation, on conditional discharge, on supervision for a criminal offense or on bail to “knowingly or unknowingly” have contact with a gang member if that is a condition of their release.

After a gang murder in 2001, Obama was one of only nine senators to vote against a bill that aimed to toughen penalties against those who commit crimes “in furtherance of gang activity,” and took to the floor to question what the term “in furtherance of gang activity” meant.

Obama also voted “present” for a Columbine shooting-inspired bill written to require the state to try as adults teens age fifteen and older who fired guns in schools. However, he voted against a law allowing persons under a protection order from carrying a gun, against a bill permitting police officers to carry guns while off-duty, and against a bill aiming to authorize lawful gun owners to shoot intruders in their homes.

In 1999, Obama was the only member of the state Senate to vote against a bill that would have prohibited convicted sex abusers who had targeted family members or persons younger than 18 from getting out of jail early for “good behavior.” Two years later, he would vote “present” on the Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act, which was designed to toughen laws on prisoners and criminals.

Obama summarized his feelings on new crime legislation in an interview with the Copley News Service in 1999. “It’s very hard for elected officials to resist a bill that enhances penalties for drug offenses because nobody’s pro-drug,” Obama said at the time. “For the same reason, it’s very hard to vote against a bill that makes life tougher on sex offenders. Nobody likes sex offenders.”

There is one, very important lesson we should all learn and remember about Barack Obama. He has never been, nor shall he ever be, a moderate. He has been successful at hiding his true political leanings, suppressing most information that comes out about how he has voted, but that does not change the political reality. He is not a moderate, but instead is a full-blown left-wing liberal that has done nothing but harm our country during his first term as President. God help us all if he gains a second term, during which he will have more flexibility to do as he wants. If ever there was a reason to make sure we vote against Barack Obama on November 6, this is it.

[ETL]

He’s never even been a moderate communist. He’s been hardcore from day one.

[patriot08]

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If America only knew....

Will America be lost because noone had the guts to expose Obama?

The best Obama exposure site on the net:
(by our own FReeper, Beckwith)

The Obama File
http://www.theobamafile.com/index_next_personal.html

The United States Library of Congress has selected
TheObamaFile.com for inclusion in its historic collection
of Internet materials
http://theobamafile.com/LibraryOfCongress.html

Just a few of the pages:

http://www.theobamafile.com/index_next_politics.html

http://www.theobamafile.com/BarackObama.htm

http://www.theobamafile.com/_family/FamilyPage.htm

http://www.theobamafile.com/ObamaEducation.htm

http://www.theobamafile.com/ObamaPsychology.htm

http://www.theobamafile.com/ObamaReligion.htm

http://www.theobamafile.com/ObamaWife.htm

http://www.theobamafile.com/_associates/ObamaAssociates.htm

http://www.theobamafile.com/ObamaIconography.htm

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