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Monday, April 16, 2007
Obama!!!!!!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Without question a presidential candidate who can draw an estimated 20,000 people, as U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) did in Atlanta Saturday, is somebody to be taken seriously. In the Democratic primary.
The smart money’s still on Hillary, despite high negatives, despite that dreadful fake talk-Southern speech at Selma last month, and despite her go-with-the-polls positions on Iraq. But there’s no discounting a celebrity who can turn out the crowds, even if it’s just to get a glimpse of the Democrat everybody’s talking about.
In the Obama story I kept looking for the name of some Democrat from outside I-285. Didn’t see it. Not entirely surprising. An analysis last month by the National Journal reveals Obama to be the most liberal member of Congress running for President in 2008. “The most liberal member of Congress running for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination isn’t Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio,” wrote reporter Steven Thomma of McClatchy Newspapers. “It’s Sen. Barack Obama of Ilinois.”
The National Journal rankings were based on “comprehensive voting records” of lifetime records in Congress. The most liberal score possible was 99. In his first two years in the U.S. Senate, Obama scored 84.3. Next closest was Kucinich at 79.4. Hillary had 78.8 and U.S. Sen. Joe Biden of Deleware had 76.8.
For a fresh-face Democrat, Obama sounds an awful lot like one of the anti-war hippies of the bygone era which, alas, may be the only way any Democrat can win the party’s nomination. Any chance that Obama could be the national Democrat with a serious shot at carrying Georgia in the 2008 General Election evaporated with rhetoric such as this: The war in Iraq, Obama said Saturday, is about “an administration that is trying to preserve its own political viability.” That’s the entrenched cynicism that has come to define the national Demcrats, the jaded and the fresh-faced alike. New face, same pitch.
