Monday, March 31, 2008

Survey Says?

Not long ago, Obama asked America to believe that he sat in the pews of Trinity United Church of Christ with his family for twenty years, yet never once heard the vile racism and anti-Americanism spewed by Rev. Wright. And now he asks us to make a similar blind leap of faith as regards a 1996 survey ascribing to Obama very left positions.










______________________________________________________

In 1996, Obama was sent a survey to complete by a political organization, Independent Voters of Illinois — Independent Precinct Organization, as regards his run for the Illinois State Senate. The answers portray a candidate running hard to the left on every issue. For example:

. . .
Finance
. . .
7 . Do you support vouchers or other means of public funding for private or parochial
schools? No.
. . .
Health & Human Services
. . .
24. Do you support:

a. Medicaid funding for abortions? Yes.

b. insurance coverage of abortions for state employees? Yes.

c. parental consent/notification for minors seeking abortions? Depends on how
young - possibly for extremely young teens, i.e. 12 or 13 year olds.


d. any other restrictions on abortions. No.

. . .
Criminal Justice

33. Do You support:

a. admissibility of illegally obtained evidence? No.

b. electronic eavesdropping? No.

c. police radar? Yes, unless it is abused.
. . .
e. state censorship of the arts? No

34. Do you support:

a. capital punishment? No.

b. criminal prosecution ofjuveniles as adults? No.

c. mandatory sentencing? No

d. work release, home monitoring, other alternatives entencing? Yes.

35. Do you support state legislation to:

a. ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns? Yes.

b. ban assault weapons? Yes.

c. mandatory waiting periods and background checks? Yes . . .

Read the entire survey here. When this surfaced several days ago, Obama disclaimed any knowledge of the answers on the survey. He stated that his staff had acted on his behalf. Yet now we find out he was interviewed by the Independent Voters of Illinois — Independent Precinct Organization on the survey the day after it was submitted and that he then submitted an amended version (linked above) with his hand written notes in the margins. His response when approached with that information is incredibly lawyerly - even the hand written notes "do not prove" that he "completed, approved — or even read — the . . . questionnaire." He is sounding more like Slick Willie by the moment. Read the whole story at the Politico.

Unlike Obama's 20 year association with Rev. Wright, this is one Obama could well argue away on the basis of the fact that he has had more than a decade to ponder these issues. But Obama instead is asking us to believe what would seem, on the face of these facts, to be an impossibility.

Two months ago, Obama was a tabula rosa and the question was what is this man's character. We know much more today. The question now is whether America is ready to willingly suspend disbelief and pull the lever for Obama anyway.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You might want to check the church affiliation again. It is the Trinity United Church of Christ, not a Baptist church. Us Baptists have a hard enough time

GW said...

My apologies for the misprint. The correction has been made.