As the 2008 campaign got underway and we started learning about Barack Obama’s real record, not many people on the right believed the Democrat’s bromides that he was, as he claimed, some new kind of politician. We saw his record; he was just a regular ol’ Chicago pol who cut a far more impressive figure in public than most. He spoke well. He looked good. But, he always toed the party line.
Despite his claims about changing the way things were done in Washington, he had no record of changing the way things were done in Chicago or Springfield, his state’s capital.
And remember, the transparency he promised on health care? You know, deals negotiated in front of C-SPAN cameras. Some thought maybe he had turned a new leaf when he convened his summit last month in front of such cameras, but well, House Democrats just released a passel of fixes to the Senate bill–and none of them were crafted in front of C-SPAN cameras.
It seems that with each passing day, each hour really, we learn some new nugget about the arm-twisting, job-offering and deal-making still going on to squeeze out those last few votes in the House. Not just that, we keep hearing about the strategies that Obama campaign, er, team has been using to shift public opinion, strategies torn out of the playbook of old school Chicago politics, updated for the Internet era.
In a piece over at Big Journalism, Morgen Richmond and John Sexton detail how the president’s Organizing for America (OFA) is promoting an Astroturf letters-to-the-editor campaign, duping 72 local papers around the country “into publishing OFA talking points (some more than once).” They’ve even plagiarized their talking points.
Wondering at the lengths to which the Obami are going to deceive the American people, Richmond and Sexont ask “Is there any level to which the President and his supporters won’t stoop for a win?”
Indeed.
