Not Yet In Office But Already Breaking Campaign Promises
Originally Published In 2008
Most presidential candidates wait until they get into The White House before they start breaking their campaign promises. Not Barack Obama. This guy set a land speed record for going back on his word to the American people when he opted out of public financing for the general election.
In 2007 Sen. Obama promised in a written response on a questionnaire that "If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election".
Those 'aggressive' negotiations consisted of a 45-minute meeting between two campaign lawyers, one of whom reports that there wasn't a pursuit by Obama of negotiations with the McCain camp. Talk about a rush to go to war.
In rationalizing the breaking of his word, Obama fell back on a familiar theme: It's someone else's fault. This time it's the Republicans who made him do it.
In his trademark sanctimonious style, aided of course by a teleprompter, he claimed "...the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who've become masters at gaming this broken system". He whined on: "And we've already seen that he's [Sen. John McCain] not going to stop the smears and attacks from his allies running so-called 527 groups, who will spend millions and millions of dollars in unlimited donations".
The problem with that self-serving explanation is that there aren't any serious Republican 527s this year because John McCain has made it clear that he doesn't want them.
The only well-funded, active 527 in 2008 is Obama's ally Moveon.org, and they've been busy on his behalf smearing four-star generals and other people whose lives are on the line defending Barack Obama's right to be the first ever major party presidential candidate to opt out of public financing.
Of course, his enablers in the media and elsewhere jumped right in with the spin that because so much of the $250 million Obama has raised has been in small contributions he really has reformed the system on his own. That attempted beatification of BHO conveniently omits the fact that he has raised more money in contributions of $1,000 or more than has Hillary Rodham Clinton.
We're still waiting for someone to ask him publicly why it is that he's aggressively pursuing Hillary's big money contributors, who are expected to raise $200 million for him, if he's really counting on millions of small contributions to fund his general election campaign. Some reformer, and some kind of "change". At this rate he's going to make Richard Nixon look like a piker.
We don't particularly care whether candidates use public financing or not. We do care that Barack Obama repeatedly has demonstrated a pattern of rationalizing his and his close associates' unacceptable behavior and then spinning it as though someone else were to blame.
He sat in a church listening to racist, anti-American, anti-semitic hatred for twenty years and when he got discovered he claimed he'd never been there during the more controversial sermons. Then he blamed his "typical white woman" grandmother and us for his preacher's warped views. The media, of course, genuflected.
He began his political career with the aid and blessing of a self-admitted terrorist and served for several years on a board of directors with that man. He couldn't be held accountable for the company he keeps, that's how things are done in Chicago, and how dare you mention it!
He accepted a bribe from a now-convicted felon, and rationalized it as a 'mistake'. How kind he is to himself. He hasn't given back the land, though.
The next President of the United States may face a war between Israel and Iran. Character matters in a crisis. It requires someone who knows how to stand in a hard place and not flinch. Sadly, Barack Obama has not demonstrated that character.
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