One of the biggest problems facing Sen. Obama is that he can’t tell people what he really believes. That’s because he’d lose badly if he told people what he’s voted against. The bad news for Sen. Obama is that John McCain is using his weekly radio addresses to put the spotlight on those things. This week’s address was no different. Here’s one such thing Sen. McCain focused on:

Often, too, Senator Obama’s carefully hedged answers obscure more than they explain, and this was the case in his conversation with Rick Warren. Listening to my opponent at Saddleback, you would never know that this is a politician who long since left behind any middle ground on the abortion issue. He is against parental notification laws, and against restrictions on taxpayer funding for abortions. In the Illinois Senate, a bipartisan majority passed legislation to prevent the horrific practice of partial-birth abortion. Senator Obama opposed that bill, voting against it in committee and voting “present” on the Senate floor.

It’s possible to be considered mainstream while being pro-choice. It isn’t possible to be considered mainstream if you’re vehemently pro-choice, anti-parental notification. It isn’t possible to be considered mainstream if you’ve voted to keep partial birth abortion intact. It certainly isn’t mainstream to vote against the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act. That’s a more militant position than Barbara Boxer’s and Ted Kennedy’s. Forgive me if I don’t consider Sen. Boxer’s and Sen. Kennedy’s positions on abortion rights mainstream.

In 2002, Congress unanimously passed a federal law to require medical care for babies who survive abortions - living, breathing babies whom Senator Obama described as, quote, “previable.” This merciful law was called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Illinois had a version of the same law, and Barack Obama voted against it.

At Saddleback, he assured a reporter that he’d have voted “yes” on that bill if it had contained language similar to the federal version of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Even though the language of both the state and federal bills was identical, Senator Obama said people were, quote, “lying” about his record. When that record was later produced, he dropped the subject but didn’t withdraw the slander. And now even Senator Obama’s campaign has conceded that his claims and accusations were false.

Sen. Obama did his best to hide this information, even telling a CBN reporter that NRLC were liars. David Freddoso then produced the specific language of the bill. Mr. Freddoso then produced the documentation that showed Sen. Obama voted to amend the bill to include the federal neutrality clause. Finally, Mr. Freddoso produced the documentation that showed Sen. Obama voted against the Illinois bill after the bill was amended to include said neutrality clause.

That’s why I’ve said with regret that Sen. Obama is a barbarian, albeit a smooth-talking barbarian.

Michael Barone reminds us that Sen. Obama still hasn’t elaborated on his relationship with unrepentant terrorist William Ayers:

For Obama, the outsider who gained the trust of the insiders, the position is different. He was willing to use Ayers and ally with him despite his terrorist past and lack of repentance. An unrepentant terrorist, who bragged of bombing the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon, was a fit associate. Ayers evidently helped Obama gain insider status in Chicago civic life and politics—how much, we can’t be sure unless the Richard J. Daley Library opens the CAC archive. But most American politicians would not have chosen to associate with a man with Ayers’s past or of Ayers’s beliefs. It’s something voters might reasonably want to take into account.

Sen. Obama’s ties to Ayers probably don’t cause hesitation with the lefties of the East and Left Coasts but I’m betting that people in the Heartland, where this election will be decided, care alot about this connection.

People responded positively to Obama’s message of Hopeandchange. People stopped responding positively to his message when they compared his message with his actions, his relationships and his obfuscations.

Once we got to the general election portion of this campaign, people wanted specifics on how he’d fix the economy and how he’d bring down gas prices. He hasn’t delivered. They wanted to know that they could trust him with national security issues. They were disgusted with how badly he mishandled the Russian invasion of Georgia.

Rather than offering reassurances, he’s brought more questions. That isn’t how a relative unknown gets elected. When Bill Clinton won in 1992, he had a blueprint for fixing the economy. Sen. Obama hasn’t offered anything remotely resembling that.

I suspect that that’s because he can’t afford to tell people what he’d really like to do.

Technorati Tags: Obama, BAIPA, William Ayers, Heartland, John McCain, David Freddoso, Corruption, Gas Crisis, National Security, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog