Subscribe by RSSObama’s Campaign Caught Misleading Voters About 1996 Questionnaire
So here’s the deal. Originally Obama said he “never saw the questionnaire” filled out for him back in 1996 when running for state senate. The survey contained very liberal positions on major issues of the time facing the campaign. Well, fast-forward to 2008 and it now turns out Obama may have personally filled out some of the survey in his own writing. It’s becoming a question of whether he lied about never seeing the survey in the first place.
Story comes from The Politico:
During his first run for elected office, Barack Obama played a greater role than his aides now acknowledge in crafting liberal stands on gun control, the death penalty and abortion — positions that appear at odds with the more moderate image he has projected during his presidential campaign.
The evidence comes from an amended version of an Illinois voter group’s detailed questionnaire, filed under his name during his 1996 bid for a state Senate seat.
Late last year, in response to a Politico story about Obama’s answers to the original questionnaire, his aides said he “never saw or approved” the questionnaire.
They asserted the responses were filled out by a campaign aide who “unintentionally mischaracterize[d] his position.”
But a Politico examination determined that Obama was actually interviewed about the issues on the questionnaire by the liberal Chicago nonprofit group that issued it. And it found that Obama — the day after sitting for the interview — filed an amended version of the questionnaire, which appears to contain Obama’s own handwritten notes added to one answer.
Also, here’s a video report on it from Fox News:
I’d say most Democratic voters won’t be turned off by anything like this since they agree with most of the positions.
Obama’s camp has responded to this story:
“Sen. Obama didn’t fill out these state Senate questionnaires — a staffer did — and there are several answers that didn’t reflect his views then or now,” Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, said in an e-mailed statement. “He may have jotted some notes on the front page of the questionnaire at the meeting, but that doesn’t change the fact that some answers didn’t reflect his views. His 11 years in public office do.”
Here’s a bit of the content contained in the questionnaire:
Consider the question of whether minors should be required to get parental consent — or at least notify their parents — before having abortion.
The first version of Obama’s questionnaire responds with a simple “No.”
The amended version, though, answers less stridently: “Depends on how young — possibly for extremely young teens, i.e., 12- or 13-year-olds.”
By 2004, when his campaign filled out a similar questionnaire for the IVI-IPO during his campaign for U.S. Senate, the answer to a similar question contained still more nuance, but also more precision. “I would oppose any legislation that does not include a bypass provision for minors who have been victims of, or have reason to fear, physical or sexual abuse,” he wrote.
Hear that sound? It’s the sound of the Republican National Committee digging out the 2004 “flip-flop” charges they levied against John Kerry. Karl Rove was on Hannity & Colmes earlier basically asserting that exact strategy. It hurt Kerry quite a bit and this will all depend on how well Obama’s campaign can explain the inconsistencies.
I’ve heard supporters painting it more as a “evolving” senator who doesn’t hold some of those liberal positions now. Still, the question wasn’t the positions, it’s whether Obama lied about knowing the content of the survey to begin with.
It either matters or it doesn’t to voters, it’s that simple.
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How is this a bad thing? Or are you a Hillary Clinton supporter looking for a cheap way to attack the guy? What Barak Obama has accomplished is remarkable, and Hillary should be embarassed at how she blew her seemingly insurmountable lead and advantages.
It’s a bad thing because it goes to Obama’s credibility. His campaign spokesmen didn’t say he had changed his mind on these issues, they said they were never his views when, obviously, they were. It goes to credibility because if he has a history of denying his stance from campaign to campaign how are you, his supporters, supposed to believe that he will not change the very stands you are electing him on once he gets into office? As time and the campaign goes on, more and more of these situations are coming up with Obama, and the defenses are getting more and more thin. Will he really pull out of Iraq? Who knows, he may change his mind again.
I don’t openly support any of them, just reporting the interesting stories.
It just speaks to credibility if you take it at face value. It doesn’t have anything to do with what he’s “accomplished”, it’s speaking to whether or not he’s trying to hide his more liberal views from this campaign.
You can decide for yourself if it matters or not, I just report the stories that I find interesting in regard to the election.
I think you can find facts like these on every candidate. Hillary’s misspoken truth did not shock me and these facts do not shock me either.
And you’re right Nate, just keep reporting the stories. It gives everybody a clear view of how things stand.
I think all the candidates are trying to hide their views to a certain extent. They want to connect with as many people as possible and it will also depend on which state is being contested.
I’m an Obama supporter but I won’t say that he is flawless. Every candidate has his or her share of flaws. One may have more than the other, but we’ll leave that to the eye of the beholder.
Obama ‘08!
Hmm…
I’m not liking the pattern I’m seeing with Obama.
The fact that this story gets no wings but Clinton’s “misspeak” gets 24 hour loop coverage speaks for itself as regards fair media coverage.
And people wonder why she is behind…
Maybe this would good time to revisit Obama’s missing state senate records - seems he didn’t keep any, or threw them out. Here’s his quote from a press conference in Johnston, Iowa last year when asked where his records are from his state senate term:
“I was in the state Senate for eight years,” Obama said. “I had one staff person, that was what was allocated. I don’t have archivists in the state Senate. I don’t have the Barack Obama State Senate Library available to me, so we had a bunch of file cabinets. I do not have a whole bunch of records from those years. Now, if there are particular documents that you are interested in, then you should let us know…As I said, I didn’t have the resources to ensure that all this stuff was archived in some way…it could have been thrown out.”
According to the Chicago Tribune, they tryed for months to get the papers with no response either from the State of Illinois or the Obama camp. Last November on Meet the Press, Russert asked Obama: “You talked about Senator Clinton having records released from the Clinton Library regarding her experience as first lady, and yet when you were asked about, “What about eight years in the state senate of Illinois,” you said, “I don’t know.” Where, where are the—where are your records? ”
Obama replied that “every single piece of information, every document related to state government was kept by the state of Illinois,” but that other records do not exist.
So, 8 years of appointment books, calendars, meetings, all the things he had demanded from the Clinton camp for “transparency” in government, were just thrown away, do not exist. Oh yeah, that’s transparent, alright.
Looks like someone had an Enron party with the shredding machine…