THE OBAMA PHENOMENON

Hillary is reeling from shock. A year ago Obama wasn’t even on her radar screen. She has been prepping for the Democrat nomination for President for six years. All that fund raising, networking, arm twisting and she is being badly beaten from this upstart from nowhere. Why is Obama doing so well?

Obama is striking a chord with the American people. He is young, eloquent and above all just a plain nice guy. He is honest and sincere and he doesn’t trash his opposition. Contrast that with Hillary who if she was a dog would be a Pitt Bull/Rottweiler mix. The word most often used to characterize Hillary is B**ch, for Obama it is charismatic. They swoon over Obama.

This new Senator from Illinois is also smart. He understands that the American people are tired of the bitter partisan acrimony. We have had six years of trashing George Bush. “Bush lied, people died.” Americans like to look up to their President. They don’t enjoy a leader who cannot be honest and straight with them. They are tired of all the name calling and the infighting. They are also tired of nothing getting done because each party is vying for power at the expense of what is good for the country. The Democrats really never got over the impeachment of Bill and the loss of the 2000 election which they feel was stolen from them. Instead of doing what would help this country they have been consumed by revenge. Some say obsessed!

In walks Obama. Instead of being an attack dog like Hillary or John Edwards he tells the American people that they are good people and that they can rise to even greater heights. Instead of telling them how bad they are and how wrong everything is and whose fault it is he inspires and lifts up the American people – SHADES OF RONALD REAGAN. And since Ronald Reagan we have not had a leader who could touch the hearts of the American people. No one did it better than Reagan and Obama has taken a page from the Reagan handbook, a man who he says he admired, at least for his style. The American people are just plain fed up with being told that they are evil, war mongering, selfish, greedy, hateful, Yankee Imperialists by those who seek to lead them and that there is a vast Right Wing conspiracy. They want someone to lift them up not put them down. Obama has a vision, one of optimism. The glass is half full and he has confidence in the innate goodness of the people he will govern.

So Obama calls for unity everywhere he goes and preaches a message of hope and of change. But all is not rosy in this picture. Change, change, change but change what? Hope! Change! Tell me more. But Obama deliberately avoids being specific. If you asked twenty people to name one political accomplishment of Barack Obama you would get twenty blank stares. If you asked the same people to name something he would change you would get the same result. He is being all things to all people. But where does his heart lie?

So let’s look at his voting record. Viewing the combined ACU/ADA ratings where 100 is the most liberal and 0 is the most conservative, we find the top three liberal Senators, all Democrats,  to have these ratings:

1)      Barbara Boxer, CA           96.5

2)      Chuck Schumer, NY         95.1

3)      Barack Obama, IL             94.8

That makes Obama more liberal than Hillary or Ted Kennedy and the most liberal running for President. In reality he is a far left socialist whose presidential promises already have been calculated at close to one trillion dollars of additional federal spending if enacted.

Then is this call for unity genuine? I might place more stock in it if it was coming from a middle of the road moderate, from the center, who could say – “look, come to the middle with me, compromise and let’s get something done”. But when it comes from the far left or the far right then the change is going to be radical and contentious. But for the moment few really know Obama’s position on most issues. And they don’t care. He is not running an issue driven campaign. He’s running a feel good campaign. He is the redeemer who will save us all from our iniquities.

Obama will raise 137 million dollars this month of February. He has everything going for him to win and he is running a very clean and professional campaign. But in his heart Obama is a radical left wing Socialist. He may be able to run a slick campaign on platitudes but he can’t govern with them. As President he must come out of the closet and declare what he is for and what he is going to submit to Congress for legislation.   When he does that and he finds the going not so easy anymore will he label the lack of unity as unpatriotic and un-American? We shall see.

Still I don’t see any way he can lose. And take it from me a balding, old, war grizzly white man is not going to defeat a young, eloquent, clean cut black man. Not this time around. Here in Texas we have what we call early voting. The first day of early voting in Harris County, Texas – one of the largest Counties in the nation – in the last Presidential election year recorded 1,200 total votes cast. This year on February 19, 2008, the first day of early voting Harris County recorded 12, 000 total votes cast. Just so there is no mistake here that is twelve hundred versus twelve thousand. Of those 12,000 votes, 9,000 were cast in the Democrat primary and 3,000 were cast in the Republican primary. Now that is here in Texas a red state. New voters are stepping up to become involved and the overwhelming majority are in Barack Obama’s camp.

The Republicans have nobody to blame but themselves. Just a few short years ago they had the Presidency and the majority in the House and in the Senate. They were in full control and they did nothing. Now granted Democrats were being deliberately obstructive, but Bush was not The Great Communicator and he vetoed not one thing. While the Cat in the White House was consumed with the War on Terror and Iraq, the Mice in the Congress were piling on the pork with no opposition, even building bridges to nowhere.

I think I’ll cast my lot with Obama this year. After all if we are going to have a big liberal let it be a Democrat. The next ten years economically are going to be an American disaster with deep recession. John McCain hasn’t the foggiest notion of how to run the economy. He is an economic ignoramus. But then so is Obama who if elected would be one of the few Presidents elected to the oval office with such little experience. The last President we elected with this little experience was Jimmy Carter whose record will go down in history as the most disastrous administration of the second half of the twentieth century.