Revisiting Sen. Obama

While an Illinois state senator for eight years, Sen. Obama voted “present” 130 times instead of taking a definitive stand on the issue at hand. Sen. Clinton said this earlier in the campaign about his propensity to duck certain issues: “You cannot achieve the kind of changes we want by voting 'present' on controversial issues.” Worse than his “present” votes, however, was his vote in 2001 against a measure that would have expanded the penalties for some gang activity to include the death penalty.

Although he comes off as a clean lawmaker with little lobbyist influence, we still have yet to see the lingering fallout from his ties to Tony Rezko, including a shady housing purchase by Obama and Rezko on adjacent properties. But let’s get back to the votes, where we can clearly see where the senator stands on the issues.

In 2007 he voted against banning partial birth abortions, for expanding research on stem cell lines, against declaring English as the official language of the U.S. government, for the minimum wage hike, against raising the estate tax exemption to $5 million, and for the redeployment of troops out of Iraq by March of 2008. If these aren’t liberal votes, I don’t know what are.

Sen. Barack Obama is a decent and honorable man and has the potential of being a tremendous leader someday. But before you get caught up in his charisma and optimism, make sure you clearly understand where he plans to take the world’s lone superpower.

Experience especially in the area of foreign policy is increasingly important with the instability around the globe. Many rogue nations and world leaders would test the senator early on in his administration, making a determination about his leadership, wisdom and judgment. A comprehensive examination of his quotes, votes, and experience, tells me that this man needs to be more vetted by the media and seriously challenged by Sen. McCain on the issues that matter most to us as countrymen home and abroad.