From The Washington Post
By Alec MacGillis
March 26, 2008
[A]s Obama heads into the final presidential primaries, Sen. John McCain and other Republicans have already started to brand him a standard-order left-winger, "a down-the-line liberal," as McCain strategist Charles R. Black Jr. put it, in a long line of Democratic White House hopefuls.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign has also started slapping the L-word on Obama, warning that his appeal among moderate voters will diminish as they become more aware of liberal positions he took in the past, such as calling for single-payer health care and an end to the U.S. embargo against Cuba. ...
The double-barreled attack has presented Democratic voters with some persistent questions about Obama: Just how liberal is he? ...
In most major areas, Obama has taken positions that would seem to conform to the Republican stereotype of a liberal. Like Clinton, he favors expanding the government's role in delivering health care ... He would go a step further than Clinton by lifting the limit on income taxed for Social Security, now $100,000, to set that program on firm footing.
He strongly supports abortion rights and spoke out against a Supreme Court ruling last year that upheld a ban on the procedure that some call "partial-birth" abortion. He favors allowing illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses (after some hesitation, Clinton came out against that). He is outspoken on civil rights, and he has opposed Bush's judicial picks, staying out of a bipartisan effort to approve some nominees. ... [A]s a Senate candidate in 2004 he expressed support for strict gun control, decriminalizing marijuana and ending federal mandatory minimum prison sentences, issues he now rarely raises on the trail. ...
[H]e has opened the door to Republican caricature with his call to negotiate with hostile governments, and has been endorsed by the activist group MoveOn.org. ...
But whatever Obama's motivation, [American Enterprise Institute's Andrew] Biggs said, his platform is still liberal. "He's taken all these left-wing positions, and how do you get out of it later?" he said. "He doesn't have the appearance of a tax-and-spend liberal . . . but if the essence of being a tax-and-spend liberal is a lot of taxes and spending, that's what he comes down to." ...
To View The Entire Article, Please Visit:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment