So much for Obama's integrity; recruits Illinois students to vote in Iowa

17 thoughts on “So much for Obama’s integrity; recruits Illinois students to vote in Iowa”

1. The Obama campaign contends that it’s doing nothing unusual – that Iowa college students have long caucused near their colleges. And a separate Register news article quoted Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro as saying of the Obama instructions: “I think it’s playing within the rules.”

   Log in to Reply

   1. Think about it.

      Log in to Reply

      1. Unless you’re saying that the Iowans allow unethical rules in their caucus practices?  

         Log in to Reply

         1. The campaign is encouraging youth voters to participate in the process. They live in Iowa, go to school in Iowa, work in Iowa, and can register to vote in Iowa. Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro said “I think it’s playing within the rules.”

            In fact, most campaigns encourage College students to vote.

            Clinton is counting on the support of some out-of-state students attending Iowa universities. Sarah Sunderman of Iowa State University, who was announced in a news release as a leader of the “Hill Yea” Students Leaders for Hillary, told the Des Moines Register in October that “she will drive back early from her home in Minnesota to take part in the Jan. 3 caucuses.”

            Read more here.

            This is yet another non-issue attack.

            Log in to Reply

            1. I thought about this and, without benefit of looking up the regs, figured out that there was nothing wrong because, as ColObama says, “They live in Iowa, go to school in Iowa, work in Iowa, and can register to vote in Iowa.” If there was anything inherently wrong with out of state students voting in local elections, they wouldn’t be allowed to register to vote there.

               Log in to Reply

      2. Obama’s poor judgment record:

         1. Went to Harvard, which seems to breed people with no integrity.
         
         2. Graduated from Havard Law to become a social worker. What a waste of an education.
         
         3. Became a Democrat.
         
         4. Moved to Chicago.
         
         5. Bought real estate in an unethical deal, as he admits.
         
         6. Opposed invasion of Iraq despite the evidence available at the time.
         
         7. Allowed himself to be sucked into running for the presidency for which he’s not prepared nor experienced.
         
         8. Got into debates with Clinton. She demolished him.
         
         9. Raised money from PAC and then claimed he doesn’t take money from lobbyists.
         
         10. Offends Iowans by urging Illinois students to make special trips back to their Iowa campuses to participate in Iowa caucuses.
         
         11. Promises to surrender to al Qaeda.
         
         12. Proposes unworkable tax changes and health insurance programs that even liberals scorn.
         
         13. He’s a Democrat. Oh, I said that already.

         Log in to Reply

         1. The rest is just shock-jock opining and merits no response, but there wasn’t sufficient evidence of WMD or anything else at the time. That’s why I opposed the war from the get-go – not because I’m a peacenik but because I knew – at that time – there was no just cause for war. Obama probably made the same correct assessment.

            Log in to Reply

         2. Just look at your list and ask yourself why so few respect your positions AS. Did you come up with this list yourself, or did Alfred E. Neuman  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Neuman) help? (My apologies to Alfred fans)

            1. Harvard, founded BTW in 1636, and also the first corporation in America, as of 2007, Harvard has been ranked first among world universities every time since the publications of the THES – QS World University Rankings[52] and the Academic Ranking of World Universities. But of course, you’d know better, eh?

            2. What do you have against social workers? Mother Teresa and Annie Besant come to mind.

            3. Had he become a Republican, there might be a GOP’er in the race that had some ability.

            4. Since the 1890s, Chicago has been a world center in higher education and research. One of the world’s top research universities is located in Chicago: the University of Chicago in Hyde Park on the south side of the city. Another University of national prominence; Northwestern University, is in the northern suburb of Evanston. The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business maintains a campus in downtown Chicago, and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and School of Law are located in Streeterville, a neighborhood in the Near North Side community area of Chicago. Catholic universities are located in Chicago, such as DePaul University (the largest Catholic university in the U.S.), and Loyola University, which has one campus in the North Side and one in the downtown area, as well as a Medical Center in the western suburb of Maywood. Loyola University Chicago is the largest Jesuit Catholic university in the country. The Illinois Institute of Technology main campus in Bronzeville has renowned engineering and architecture programs and was host to world-famous modern architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for many years, and the IIT Stuart School of Business and Chicago-Kent College of Law are located downtown in the financial district.

            Of course, why would the largest city in the midwest, with some of the best architecture and universities in the world, interest you? Any why you condemn Obama for it interesting him…..well, go figure.

            6. You’d be more credible if you chose to highlight GOP ethics problems. If you need help, just ask.

            7. Are you talking about GWB here? Just look at the facts. Again, if you need help finding out just how disasterous the GOP has been under the leadership of GW, just ask…

            8-13…..Why should I bother?

            Log in to Reply

         3. It’s posts like these that reveal the character of the GOP–and while I don’t doubt that AS did not go to Harvard (or Columbia undergraduate, as Obama did) I somehow doubt the rejection letter was because he/she had too much integrity.

            Log in to Reply
2. Log in to Reply

3. From the NY Times

   An Obama candidacy would force them to engage. Or try to. A matchup between Mr. Obama and Mr. Giuliani, who was forged in the racial crucible of New York’s police brutality nightmares of the 1990s, or between Mr. Obama and Mitt Romney, who was shaped by a religion that didn’t give blacks equal membership until 1978, would be less a clash of races than of centuries.

   But there’s another, even more fascinating hidden story line in the 2008 campaign that speaks to the potential prowess of an Obama candidacy. Despite the thuggish name-calling of a few right-wing die-hards (e.g., Rush Limbaugh mocking “Barack Hussein Odumbo”), the dirty secret of a number of conservatives is that they are disarmed by Mr. Obama even though they know his record is more liberal than Mrs. Clinton’s.

   The drumbeat of approval has been remarkably steady. Last year Mark McKinnon, a top adviser to both the 2000 and 2004 Bush campaigns, admiringly called Mr. Obama “a walking, talking hope machine” who “may reshape American politics.” Andrew Ferguson devoted pages in The Weekly Standard to raving about “Dreams From My Father,” Mr. Obama’s memoir, before dismissing its political sequel, “The Audacity of Hope.” Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, keeps trying to write anti-Obama articles but they’re so mild that they never really contradict his judgment of a year ago that the senator from Illinois “is the only presidential candidate from either party about whom there is a palpable excitement.” Even Tom Tancredo, the most virulent immigration demagogue of the G.O.P. presidential field, has spoken warmly of Mr. Obama.

   Perhaps most striking is the case of Shelby Steele, the archconservative scholar who shares Mr. Obama’s mixed-race heritage. Though he has just written an entire book, “A Bound Man,” to argue (unpersuasively, in my view) that Mr. Obama “can’t win,” he can’t stop himself from admiring the guy throughout. Peggy Noonan wasn’t being tongue-in-cheek when she wondered in The Wall Street Journal last month whether Mr. Obama “understands the kind of quiet cheering he is beginning to garner from some Republicans.” In her view “they see him as a Democrat who could cure the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton sickness.”

   Or at least they do in the abstract. Should Mr. Obama upend the Beltway story line by taking Iowa, the Republicans will have every reason to be as fearful as the Clinton camp is now.

   Log in to Reply

4. So I’m on winter break from going to school in frickin’ IOWA. Do I want to make that drive back to Iowa a couple of days after New Years and then have to go all the way back home for the rest of break? Or do I want to continue snowboarding/channel surfing/drinking?

   Obama’s people are banking too much on transforming the caucuses with college kids and facebook stuff. It will end up bighting them on the ass.  

   Log in to Reply

   1. this is yet another baseless accusation.

      Obama is encouraging everyone in Iowa to participate in the caucus and gaining support from youth voters, women, independents and even republicans.
      

      Log in to Reply

      1. For one thing, it’s front-runners who attract desperate attacks, however baseless and however desperate.

         Second, people who worry that tactics will “end up bighting (them) on the ass” may not pose an overly serious threat…except to average test scores in their remedial literacy courses.

         Log in to Reply

      2. but merely an observation. Obama is garnering a lot of his support from college students and youth voters, just like HRC gets a lot of her support from older, working women. Nothing ethically wrong with this, but youth are a fickle voting demographic that has a tendency not to show up at critical moments (i.e. election day). What with Clinton dominating the women’s vote, Edwards splitting the male vote with Obama, Clinton splitting the African-American vote with Obama, and the 3-way split of the labor/union vote between Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, it seems that the only group Obama dominates is the youth, which does not mean he has no chance or that he will lose as the groupings I’ve just listed are not absolute, but it certainly does not bode well for him.

         Log in to Reply

         1. I like Obama. I’m probably going to support him. This isn’t an attack — which ought to be obvious to anyone — it’s an acknowledgment that a turnout strategy hinging on college kids is insane.

            I’m not attacking Obama. But I will attack shills…mostly for being annoying.  

            Log in to Reply

5. Students living in Colorado during the Feb. 5th caucus are encouraged to register at their residential address so they can participate in the democratic process (the deadline is Wednesday, December 5th!!). If they were “forced” to return to their home state or even their home town (traveling to Durango, for instance, from Greeley) for their primary or caucus, most likely they could not afford to do so either financially or taking time away from their classes, and they would be shut out of the process when their vote counts the most.

   If I were a college student in Iowa, I would WANT to be part of this historic caucus in this historic election. Why wouldn’t the Iowa Democratic Party want to include every student who is paying tuition in the state of Iowa in their Democratic Caucus?

   How is this either illegal or unethical? It’s just different this time around, because of the timing …

   Log in to Reply