Not a Christmas 'Present'

Well, now we know. If the only reason you vote for someone is because they are pro-choice, you are already voting for Hillary anyway. How does this hurt Obama? I suspect this won't have an impact.

To RPR,-- The Ever- "Present" Obama article stated well. Quoting Obama ""What's stopped us is the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics - the ease with which we're distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions," Obama said in his announcement speech. But a closer look at the presidential candidate's record in the Illinois Legislature reveals something seemingly contradictory: a number of occasions when Obama avoided making hard choices.-

Here is a rundown on more of Obama's "present" votes that extend beyond the abortion issue.

rmb, I expect my mayor, city councilman, state assemblyman, state senator, Congressman and U. S. Senator to vote "yes" or "no" on controversial issues. Any politician who frequently votes "present" on controversial issues for the sole purpose of shielding against any future criticism doesn't belong in public office.

Jake great reporting, it shows how calculated was Obama in that issue and how old his aspiration for the presidency have been. He has done the same in every single vote on Iraq quietly sneaking around at the last minute with Hillary, never explaining the why of his vote, voting present on other important and possible controversial issues, or a not show as he did on the Iran vote. Now thats a real character, right? or leadership? All that are calculated moves for easy cover. I don't trust Obama, something is telling me he has a lot of flops and lack the character to be President.

First: it's a lie that Obama has missed 80% of his votes in the Senate. He may have missed more votes since the campaign started, but so have the other candidates. Of course, Hillary is not going to come out and say how many votes SHE's missed, so why don't we find that number?

Second: not only did Senator Obama not vote for the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment (which I think if he wanted to vote "yes" on he would have been more likely to race back to Washington to do, than to race back to vote "no"), but a day later he proposed his own co-sponsored resolution to actually prevent the President from taking military action in Iran. That's real leadership.

Third: it's an absurdity of Clinton's campaign and it reflects poorly on organizations of which, as an Illinoisan I once had a high view, to be turncoats on the choice issue. I appreciate Jake bringing the facts to light. The choice community itself says this is what they asked Obama to do, and now some of them - for the supposed political advantage they think they're going to get in backing Clinton - are pretending like they didn't?

Talk about cheap politics. It's really hard to believe at this point that Clinton is not making maneuvers to pressure others of her gender - and groups that support women's initiatives - to vote for her on that basis "or else". It also will be hard for me to believe from now on that these organizations can't be taken advantage of easily, and the things they represent put on the backburner to gain cheap political advantage.

Excuse me, I was typing too fast. I meant to type 76 for and 22 against on the NON-BINDING IRAN amendment.

obviously he did, I mean look at his kindergarten and elementary school papers, he's been putting this together for decades.

Here's a quote from the link in the article. Read it and tell me his "present" vote doesn't make sense:

On the abortion bills, legislators who supported women's rights to the procedure were encouraged to vote "present" on bills that would have required parental notice before minors could obtain abortions and that would have barred what abortion foes call "partial-birth" abortions, a leading abortion-rights advocate said. The goal was to entice moderate Republicans and Democrats to also vote present, helping to defeat the bills.

"The poor guy is getting all this heat for a strategy we, the pro-choice community, did," said Pam Sutherland, president and CEO of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council.

Sen. Obama's pattern of voting "present" on controversial votes is very problematic. This is a CHARACTER issue. This shows that he is even more calculating than Sen. Clinton. He was thinking of himself -- his future -- when he voted and NOT his constituents. This issue could be Sen. Obama's achilles heal. And his explanation ("...it was a strategy agreed to by abortion-rights advocates to insulate Democrats from political backlash in more conservative areas.") just proves how calculating he really is. I have to hand it to Sen. Clinton for coming up with this issue. This must have been the "goods" that she "had but wasn't going to use" mentioned in Robert Novak's column a few weeks ago.

Jake: That is excellent reporting and very interesting information. I'd like to know more about it and hope you will continue to report on it. I am surprised to learn that he apparently voted in such a calculating way on that issue.

Obama didn't even showed up for the vote in Iran so he would have cover and use the vote against Clinton. Obama has missed 80% of the votes in the US Senate.

Im no Obama fan but Hilary people have not audacity to ask for Obama's papers when Hilary's archives are locked up till today.

U cant live in a glass house and be throwing stones.

Very soon Hilary would try to ask Michel to denounce Obama for having snored during bedtime.

It doesn't surprise Obama calculated political moves back then and now. He did that not only on important votes casted on abortion issues; but recently withe the one in Iran. Voting "present" is the easy way out and it shows the lack of real courage as a leader.
They need to disclose the list of organizations, Illinois corporations that donated to his campaign in Illinois as well las the list of hundreds meeting he had with lobbyist. I don't buy Obama's excuse that his office never kept records of meetings in Illinois because he had no presidential aspiration back then. That's not true and he knows it.