Independent Voters: What I don't understand

Dear independent voters,

Please enlighten me: What I simply don't understand is why you are thinking about voting for Barack Obama.

If you were someone on the left, someone who thinks bigger government is better government, someone who thinks "spreading the wealth" is a good idea, someone who thinks Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are the best thing since sliced bread: OK, I get it, you and Senator Obama share the same ideology. You hold common values and policy positions. Knock yourself out with an Obama vote.

But if you are independent?

OK, let's start with McCain. If you are an independent, why wouldn't McCain be your guy? This is a Senator who's keystone pieces of legislation are named in the form McCain-Democrat. McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Lieberman, etc., etc.

As a conservative I still cringe at about 30% of the things that come out of McCain's mouth because so much of his policy positions are distinctly un-conservative. I've railed against McCain right here on this blog, and if he were to win the presidency, I'm sure I'd so again. I only support McCain because's he's the least anti-conservative candidate who has a reasonable chance of winning.

McCain originally earned the title of "Maverick" as a pejorative because he so often took the offensive against Republican people and positions. He is the very definition of a "moderate" politician.

So, maybe you don't like his choice of Palin. But you should. She, like you, has an independent streak. She took on members of her own party. She formed an administration that consisted of Independents, Republicans, and Democrats. If you want a "Washinton outsider", well, there is exactly one person out of both tickets that meets that requirement - and it's Sarah Palin.

What is more, it was you, the independents, that made McCain the frontrunner for the GOP presidential choice. McCain won the New Hampshire primary but didn't come in first among self described Republicans. He also took the South Carolina primary, but again, didn't come in first among self described Republicans. It was you, the independent voters, that picked McCain for the Republican party.

But now you're putting your support behind Obama?! This confuses me in so many ways.

For starters, don't you realize how liberal he is?

I've always imagined "independent voters" as a bunch that are sick of politicians lying to them, doing whatever shady things they can to win, promising change and reform and bipartisanship and then governing from the ideological extremes.

But Barack Obama is that kind of politician. And I think you could claim he is the very worst of that kind of politician because of the degree to which he tries to cover up the fact he is that kind of politician.

OK, so maybe that flies in the face of the conventional wisdom and the media's Obama narrative: So, please, hear me out on this.

First all, for all his talk about a "new politics", Obama has happily engaged in "old" dirty trick politics when it's been to his political advantage.

Obama has also routinely falsely make things up out of whole cloth when it's been to his political advantage. Put most starkly - he has no problem lying to you. And, given his history of breaking pledges, Senator Obama's word certainly doesn't seem very trustworthy.

As if making things up and saying false statements weren't bad enough, Obama also has no problem leveling hypocritical attacks against his opponents.

And how do you get, as an independent voter, get past Obama's thug-like attempts to silence his critics?

Finally, there are all the (overplayed) Obama connections. I don't want to get deep into these, but please take a serious moment to consider the following: Would you be comfortable sitting through Rev. Wright's sermons? Would you be comfortable attending a political event hosted by William Ayers? Would you be comfortable having Tony Rezko spending $625,000 to help you complete a deal on a house?

None of those seem to me like situations independent voters would be comfortable with.


Barack Obama can deliver an amazing speech and has run a tremendously well executed campaign to make people believe he is a "post-partisan" moderate fighting to bring hope and change. But he's not. He is simply a typical liberal politician using the worse kinds of political techniques of hypocrisy, spreading falsehoods, and intimidation to try to bring a distinctly non-moderate agenda to Presidency.

I ask again - if you are an independent voter supporting Barack Obama... why?

Ayers & Discourse

Following my previous post - something I want to point out. The Bill Ayers thing is a subject that, if done right, I think could qualify as valid political discourse.

If McCain had launched his political career at, and then repeatedly teamed up politically with, an unremorseful abortion bomber, I don't think anyone on the left would dispute it's relevance to the campaign.

Who you associate yourself with politically speaks to your values and judgment. Those are valid issues to put on the table. And the Ayers scenario and the made up McCain scenario are not cases of association fallacy (or, commonly, "guilt by association"). Assuming Obama shares the same views as Bill Ayers would be an association fallacy. Pointing out Obama repeatedly teamed up with someone way out of the mainstream is not.

But, with people yelling "Kill Him!" about Bill Ayers at campaign rallies, the McCain campaign clearly hasn't handled this the right way. You can't blame a campaign for everything someone says, but they clearly fanned the flames that led to the possibility of such out bursts.

Also, since the campaign started hitting on the Ayers connection prior the the previous debate, McCain really should have brought it up, in an intelligent and discourse-respecting way, at the debate. Something like "Senator Obama: you present yourself as someone moderate and 'post partisan.' How then do you reconcile your willingness to freely associate yourself with, for political purposes, a whole laundry list of people way out of the mainstream, like Bill Ayers, Reverend Wright, and Tony Rezko?"

Of course, I'd really encourage McCain to take a different route. He could make the same point about Obama's judgment and willing association with unsavory characters - but without invoking the topic of a domestic terrorist (which is what gets the ignorant right into such a frenzy) - by asking something like: "Senator Obama: The American people know my ticket wants to reform Washington. You claim you want to work for reform as well. But why should the American people believe you since, in 2007 you endorsed Dorothy Tillman for re-election? The people of Chicago's 3rd Ward were able to see Tillman's corruption and vote her out office. Why weren't you able to see that she was corrupt?"

Ayers, Todd Palin, AIP

Marc Ambinder notes Democrats are now trying to use a moral-equivalence argument about Todd Palin's membership to the Alaskan Independence Party to dismiss Obama's ties to unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers.

Ayers founded a group that performed bombings and killed people. Obama certainly wasn't part of that (as he likes to say, he was 8 years old at the time), but the fact that Obama launched his campaign at the home of Ayers raises significant concerns about Obama's judgement and what he's willing to do out of political expediency. Obama's continued connection to Ayers throughout his adult political life (see Stanley Kurtz's excellent coverage of this here, here, and here, and Fausta's Blog's roundup retort to yesterday's dismissive article on the Ayers connection in the New York Times here) raises even more concerns.

Contrast Obama's deliberate connections with Ayers for political reasons with Sarah Palin's husband having membership during parts of the 90s with a political party that seems a bit out of the mainstream to most Americans, but which is mainstream enough in Alaska to have had Walter Joseph Hickel, a member of their party, elected Governor in the late 60s and then again during the early 90s.

A lot of what the AIP stands for is stuff I stand for. Personal liberty. Smaller government. There does seem to be a push by some in the party for a secessionist movement to make Alaska no longer part of the United States. But that doesn't seem to be a central and firm part of their platform. The official position on this seems to be just to let Alaskans have a vote on this since they feel they were robbed of such an opportunity to decide themselves at the time of statehood.

Especially considering that Hickel - again a member of their party that ran under their party - was against secession, puts a pretty big block to the claim that the entirety of the party is pro-secession. And furthermore, other than Todd Palin's brief association with the AIP, there doesn't seem to be any actual evidence that Todd Palin was in favor of secession.

The two events are hardly equivalent.

The campaign that cried smear

From a post at NRO by Guy Benson on the William Ayers / Stanley Kurtz / WGN debacle:

It didn't take long to discover that the Obama campaign—which had declined invitations to join the show for its duration to offer rebuttals to Kurtz's points—had sent an "Obama Action Wire" e-mail to its supporters, encouraging them to deluge the station with complaints.

Why? Because, naturally, Kurtz is a "right-wing hatchet man," a "smear merchant" and a "slimy character assassin" who is perpetrating one of the "most cynical and offensive smears ever launched against Barack."

...

Team Obama is fast becoming the campaign that cried "smear." They labeled the National Right to Life committee "liars" for providing evidence of some unpleasant facts about their candidate's record on a series of infanticide votes. This tendency to lash out and engage in baseless name-calling not only smacks of desperation; it also may foreshadow an Obama presidency's strategy in handling unfavorable media reports and sources.

For more information about Obama (incorrectly) labeling (slandering?) National Right to Life as liars, see here. I may come back to post about that whole thing later.

But, for now, here's some thoughts on the William Ayers / Stanley Kurtz / WGN debacle.

For those that are normal people (not political junkies) who don't know the back story, allow me to explain by quote Wikipedia:

During the 2008 election cycle, [Kurtz] has published several journalistic pieces detailing the relationships between Barack Obama and various Chicago church leaders such as ... radical Weather Underground Organization William Ayers. In August 2008 Kurtz attempted to obtain the University of Illinois at Chicago's Annenberg records detailing the professional relationship between Obama and Ayers. ... Kurtz's reporting became the subject of an "Obama Action Wire" issued by Barack Obama's campaign. This release, issued in advance of Kurtz's appearance on the popular Chicago radio show, "Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg," instructed Obama supporters to call WGN radio prior to his appearance and ask them not to allow Kurtz to on the air, and to call into the show "Us[ing] the talking points above" and "report back on your call". Zack Christenson, executive producer of "Extension 720 with Milt Rosenburg," told the Chicago Tribune that the Obama campaign was asked to have someone appear on the show, and declined the request

Let me boil that down. Kurtz did research about Obama's relationship with William Ayers. Kurtz was scheduled to share his research on a radio talk show, and despite being invited to appear on the show, Obama's response was to use his supporters to try to intimidate the radio station into not having Kurtz as a guest.

Right now there are a sizeable number on the left that are getting worked up over (non-verified) claims that Sarah Palin tried to get books banned. Allow me to submit that anyone who's getting worked up over that but isn't equally worked over Obama's actual and verifiable attempt to silence the speech of someone he disagrees with is a major hypocrite. And Obama's actions here should give everyone pause. This is how Obama deals with criticism and opposition - by trying to intimidate them into silence?

And this isn't the first time Obama has used intimidation tactics to try to silence people from speaking about his connections to Ayers. What follows below is, literally, the "ad Obama doesn't want you to see". How badly does he not want you to see it? Well, he's trying to pressure advertisers - and use the Justice Department - to block TV stations from airing it.

Also, please note that it this ad is not "slanderous", nor can you dismiss it by calling it false. Supporting references for each statement of the ad are shown as the ad goes along.

(Side note: I do continue to dislike negative ads and non-issues-based ads - of which this certainly is one, and I had some hesitation posting it here. But I dislike the fact that Obama's trying to bully people from being able to speak freely much much more. If Obama continues to intimidate people out of showing ads he disagrees with, I'll continue to show those ads here on my blog.)

Final thought: Silencing critics through intimidation = "change you can believe in"?