It is pretty clear to me, and this is, of course, my opinion, that Obama is afraid to take any sort of stand that might help him in his ambition to get to the next higher elected office.
In 2003/2004 I supported him in his senate race. As a member of DFA, I did what I could to promote his candidacy.
At the time there was a minor kerfluffle when it was discovered that he was a member of the DLC. That of course was not going to play well with his main primary and earliest support, DFA. So he claimed that he was put on the list without his permission. I did not believe him. And since then he has proven to be a rather DLC type of guy, his support of Lieberman, his lecture to dkos about playing nice with republicans and reaching out to compromise with people you disagree with, have convinced me more than ever that he was indeed a minor member of the DLC.
In fact I couldn't care less about membership in the DLC, lots of good people belonged to the organization at some point. It is the bullshit and political calculation that bothers me.
So here is another instance of Obama not standing for anything but his own ambition. While in the IL senate he skipped way to many votes or voted present whenever the legislation was something that could come back to bite him in the ass while trying to get elected to some higher position.
Come over and read what the NYTimes has to say on the issue.
In 1999, Barack Obama was faced with a difficult vote in the Illinois legislature -- to support a bill that would let some juveniles be tried as adults, a position that risked drawing fire from African-Americans, or to oppose it, possibly undermining his image as a tough-on-crime moderate.In the end, Mr. Obama chose neither to vote for nor against the bill. He voted "present," effectively sidestepping the issue, an option he invoked nearly 130 times as a state senator.
He's on the news this morning saying it is "only" 130 votes out of thousands. But that doesn't convince me it is okay. The issues he seemed to duck are those that would hurt his future ambitions. Read the rest of the article to see if you agree...
"If you are worried about your next election, the present vote gives you political cover," said Kent D. Redfield, a professor of political studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield. "This is an option that does not exist in every state and reflects Illinois political culture."The vote on the juvenile-justice bill appears to be a case when Mr. Obama, who represented a racially mixed district on the South Side of Chicago, faced pressure. It also occurred about six months before he announced an ultimately unsuccessful campaign against a popular black congressman, Bobby L. Rush.
State Senator Christine Radogno, a Republican, was a co-sponsor of the bill to let children as young as 15 be prosecuted as adults if charged with committing a crime with a firearm on or near school grounds.
Voting no on legislation to try 15 year olds as adults seems to be a no brainer to me. I think Obama probably feels the same way but didn't have the courage to vote against that popular legislation.
The measure passed both houses overwhelmingly. In explaining his present vote on the floor of the Senate, Mr. Obama said there was no proof that increasing penalties for young offenders reduced crime, though he acknowledged that the bill had fairly unanimous support."Voting present was a way to satisfy those two competing interests," Ms. Radogno said in a telephone interview.
Thom Mannard, director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said political calculation could have figured in that vote.
"If he voted a flat-out no," Mr. Mannard said, "somebody down the road could say Obama took this vote and was soft on crime."
Among those, Mr. Obama did not vote yes or no on a bill that would allow certain victims of sexual crimes to petition judges to seal court records relating to their cases. He also voted present on a bill to impose stricter standards for evidence a judge is permitted to consider in imposing a criminal sentence.On the sex crime bill, Mr. Obama cast the lone present vote in a 58-to-0 vote.
Mr. Obama's campaign said he believed that the bill violated the First Amendment. The bill passed 112-0-0 in the House and 58-0-1 in the Senate.
To be fair he claimed that the bill "might be" unconstitutional. but in reality this type of protection has been offered to sex crime victims for decades in other places. So I am not sure if I can accept his explanation.
In 2000, Mr. Obama was one of two senators who voted present on a bill on whether facts not presented to a jury could later be the basis for increasing an offender's sentence beyond the ordinary maximum.State Representative Jim Durkin, a Republican who was a co-sponsor of the bill, said it was intended to bring state law in line with a United States Supreme Court decision that nullified a practice of introducing new evidence to a judge in the sentencing phase of the trial, after a jury conviction on other charges.
The bill sailed through both chambers. Out of 174 votes cast in the House and Senate, two were against and two were present, including Mr. Obama's.
"I don't understand why you would oppose it," Mr. Durkin said. "But I am more confused by a present vote."
Mr. Obama's campaign said he voted present to register his dissatisfaction with how the bill was put together.
OH COME ON.. why not just vote against the bill and say why you did?
I have to agree with Clinton, he is a talker not a doer. But more than that I have to agree with my initial thoughts on him when he was first elected to the National Senate (with my help BTW), he is too ambitious and without much conviction except the conviction that he deserves to be President more than the people of his state deserve good representation.
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