Thursday, September 18, 2008

The Leftist and the Moderate


Obama is working hard to paint McCain as Bush II. This is laughable as everyone knows that McCain is a moderate Republican who has gone against his party more times than I can count. If he is Bush II, then why did John Kerry ask him to be his running mate and why did Joe Biden say he would be honored to be McCain's running mate and that the country would be better off with McCain as president? The fact is, McCain is the most moderate presidential nominee in a long time.

If McCain's moderate voting record makes him Bush II, then what does Obama's voting record make him? The National Journal ranked him the most liberal senator in Washington for 2007, based on 99 key Senate votes. Joe Biden was ranked third. Get this: Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), the first admitted socialist to be elected to the Senate, is ranked fifth. Obama talks a good game, but he is far, far to the left of the average American.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I think I've already explained this Jon. Senator McCain (2000 version) was a moderate. Candidate McCain (2008 version) is a conservative Republican. I'd guess that Senator McCain wouldn't vote for Candidate McCain. What people said about McCain several years ago isn't particularly relevant considering his changes on a wide variety of issues:

http://thinkprogress.org/mccain-flip-flops/

The National Journal? The same one that called Kerry the most liberal Senator in 2004, and then retracted? The "most liberal" claim is suspect. It's a nice sound bite I suppose, but so is the fact that McCain didn't even vote enough in 2007 to get ranked.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200802110008

Jon Vander Plas said...

McCain favors cap and trade to "combat global warming," amnesty for illegal immigrants (only now he wants to secure the border first), sponsored limiting free speech in McCain-Feingold (AKA campaign finance reform), thinks pharmaceutical companies are "the bad guys," and opposes drilling in ANWR. Conservatives disagree vehemently with all of these positions. He is not a true supply sider. He has not been sufficiently supportive of lower taxes and he is not exactly cozy with the religious right.

During the Iraq War he was sharply critical of the Bush administration's tactics and was one of the strongest proponents of the wildly successful "surge" that was opposed by Obama and Biden and claimed to be a failure before it even began by Reid.

If Obama was moderate on anything, perhaps he would've crossed the aisle ONCE in his career in the Senate.