Questions For Obama

Barrack Obama has built his campaign around two words: hope and change. He is not the first political candidate to use those words; and if Obama were to be president for the next 8 years, despite the savior tags that have been imparted on him, my guess is that future presidential candidates would also run on a platform of hope and change. In other words, no matter what the circumstances are at any given time, there will always be people looking for hope and for change. Senator Obama has wrapped his message with the claim that he is a uniter, not a divider. No politician has ever used that line below (I say tongue in cheek). For someone to make that claim however, they should have some kind of record they can point to to back it up. Obama would be much more believable if he could show us a long and/or substantial list of accomplishments with him in the middle uniting two opposing sides. When asked about this Obama usually points to a few largely obscure pieces of legislation. My guess is that it is questionable whether he was all that active in uniting people even in those instances. When asked about the John Roberts nomination for Supreme Court, where Obama was one of 22 Democratic Senators who voted against Roberts (wouldn't you think a uniter person would be found in the larger list of Democrats who voted for Roberts?), Obama boasted about, in the face of criticism from ultra liberal groups like MoveOn.org, his standing up for those Democrats who voted for Roberts. What a uniter.

So my questions for Senator Obama are these:

1. Uniting people over insignificant legislation is relatively easy. Uniting people over the tough issues (the ones that actually seem to divide people) is not so easy. As a uniter and as one who is an expert on compromise, describe a scenario on the issue of abortion where you would unite people on opposing sides. How would you unite them and what would you envision as a compromise acceptable to both sides?

2. We live in a divided nation, and some would argue that opposing sides help temper the country from going over the edge. Liberals don't want to see a country with conservative values, and conservatives certainly don't want to live by liberal values. So what's wrong with a divided nation?

3. You have named some fairly insignificant legislation that demonstrates you as a uniter. What specifically did you do that no one else was willing to do that moved that legislation forward?

4. Within just a couple years, you have been named the most liberal U.S. Senator. That would seem to indicate that on all legislation you consistently voted with Democrats. Most people would envision a uniter as someone who had the courage to cross party lines, showing they were not tied to their party. When it comes to important legislation, what exactly do you mean when you say you are uniter? Are you specifically speaking of being a uniter within the Democratic party, or as a uniter between parties?