stolen from Taylor Marsh:
Chris Matthews Humiliates Obama Supporter State Senator Kirk WatsonPlease note this isn't a video featuring a FOX News focus group, here is an Obama spokesperson -- and an elected offical -- in Texas. I agree with Taylor, the campaign had to expect this kind of question.
What has Senator Barack Obama accomplished in the Senate?
**crickets**
Seriously, you'd think the Obama campaign would prep these people, because it's not like this is the first time this has come up.
Can you name any, can you name anything he's accomplished as a congressman?
"Nah, I'm not going to be able to do that. ... " adds Watson, stuttering."That's a problem, isn't it?" - Chris MatthewsYeah, you'd think that would be a problem. But, evidently, Democrats in 2008 don't care about action, they prefer speeches, promises, and fairy tales.
Not me.
However, the Republicans would agree. They'll eat this stuff up.
It points again to my concern that Obama is simply not ready for prime time.
7 comments:
Unbelievable. Thanks for posting this -- I'm going to link to you.
Do you know the most tragic thing that could happen in the 2008 election?
Obama could lose a close one to McCain, say on the order of 52-48, and 80 electoral votes or so. And the inner cities of the United States will get burned to a crisp over a blue-blooded, frat-boy, who's indistinguishable poltically from Joe Lieberman, except for the fact that Lieberman is on occasion willing to take an odious and sadistic STAND on some issue of the day.
Que lechugo!
It was embarrassing, for sure.
But read this. You might feel better.
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/02/obama_surrogates_flub_no_refle.html
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/02/obama_surrogates_flub_no_refle.html
Let's try that again.
In his defense, though, speaking for HILLARY and not BILL as surrogate, can you name me something in five seconds she's gotten through Congress?
What about John McCain?
Okay, it's not going to let me post the full link without truncating it.
So I'll paste it in.
In the last two years, he has sponsored more than 780 bills, of which Gov. Rod Blagojevich has signed more than 280 into law. Often, those bills gained Obama considerable attention or won favor with key Democratic constituencies, such as organized labor, that he would call upon in his campaign for federal office.
In the spring, for example, Obama sponsored legislation blocking overtime restrictions instituted by the Bush administration, a move that buffeted the wages of union workers in Illinois. He also sponsored a law that extended the reach of the Earned Income Tax Credit to the working poor…
Especially during his U.S. Senate campaign, Obama has shown a willingness to soften controversial legislation in the face of fierce criticism. He sponsored an ambitious act that called for the state to study ways to provide universal health care to all residents.
When GOP critics accused Obama of trying to implement a single-payer health care system run by state government, he rewrote the legislation to call only for expanding existing programs. ..
"I think if you look at my eight years in the Senate, my reputation in the Senate consistently has been that I work both sides of the aisle," Obama said. "If you look at my signature legislation, whether it was helping craft welfare reform, helping to shape the state Earned Income Tax Credit, death penalty reform, expanding KidCare, all those pieces of legislation are the bills that I am most proud of."
Consider a bill into which Obama clearly put his heart and soul. The problem he wanted to address was that too many confessions, rather than being voluntary, were coerced -- by beating the daylights out of the accused.
Obama proposed requiring that interrogations and confessions be videotaped.
This seemed likely to stop the beatings, but the bill itself aroused immediate opposition. There were Republicans who were automatically tough on crime and Democrats who feared being thought soft on crime. There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama's bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to "solve" crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it.
Obama had his work cut out for him.
He responded with an all-out campaign of cajolery. It had not been easy for a Harvard man to become a regular guy to his colleagues. Obama had managed to do so by playing basketball and poker with them and, most of all, by listening to their concerns. Even Republicans came to respect him. One Republican state senator, Kirk Dillard, has said that "Barack had a way both intellectually and in demeanor that defused skeptics."
The police proved to be Obama's toughest opponent. Legislators tend to quail when cops say things like, "This means we won't be able to protect your children." The police tried to limit the videotaping to confessions, but Obama, knowing that the beatings were most likely to occur during questioning, fought -- successfully -- to keep interrogations included in the required videotaping.
By showing officers that he shared many of their concerns, even going so far as to help pass other legislation they wanted, he was able to quiet the fears of many.
Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping.
Kevin, I think it has been pointed out on this blog that Obama has sometimes "softened" legislation to the point that it actually ended up favoring the offender, to the detriment of the general public.
If you look below, there is a post with the headline "Senator Clinton made the difference". I don't have a bill number, but Sen. Clinton made sure that people working at ground zero all have health coverage -- even volunteers who came from outside the U.S. The Senator spoke about the 6 million children who have health care because of her work. While things never move as quickly in the Senate as anyone would like, it seems that Sen. Clinton does have a good reputation of being able to work across the aisle to get things accomplished.
BAC
Sue, thanks!
BAC
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